Well that went quick. March I mean. Here we are on April 1st and I blogged not in the entire month. Here’s why – mahoosively busy with MA – sent in Tutor Marked Assessment 03 this Thursday, which was not the one I planned. Ended up writing a sci-fi about a post-truth telepathic judge who enters the minds of those undergoing reassessment to decide whether they should live or die. All this Donald Trumpism has a lot to answer for!

This month has been the steepest learning curve for me writing-wise. I’ve now got names for techniques I was using instinctively. Knowledge IS power. Now I have names for what I’m doing, I can both control myself and my writing, and edit miles better.

Case in point – I entered a short story for The Fish Prize in November, a story I’d started doing A215, then had mashed together with another story.  I quite like said story, and was very pleased that it was long-listed – but here’s the thing. Fish are really good because they keep the draft for you to revisit and I went and had a look at what I’d submitted. Don’t get me wrong its quite a good story, half-decently written with much potential, but boy did it need an edit! I decided to re-edit it post TMA deadline (last night) planning to send it off to Fabula Press’s comp, deadline midnight. The story is now 500 words shorter, stripped back (as I have a tendency to ‘over write’) and the first thing I’ve finished that I think really has a chance to do well. Setting myself up for disappointment? Maybe but I’m going to take a min to feel pleased with it. I missed the deadline for Fabula by falling asleep! So will scout around for somewhere else to send it off to. Editing getting better, time-keeping needs more work!

EMA writing starts on Monday and Block 4 – the final part of year one of my Masters. Much, much work to do and Harry starts his GCSE’s in May and we’re off to Barcelona too,  so don’t know if I’ll get back here again in April. One thing I must prioritise is getting new specs though. Have had a series of awful migraines due, I’m sure, to spec breakage and wearing Tesco’s magnifiers instead of prescription. First thing on my to do list over Easter.

Right off to pick up Harry now, from a last day of term party, somewhere in Norfolk. At least the sun is shining.

Lots has happened course-wise since my last blog: my tutor resigned, our tutor group got decommissioned, and we all got split up the day before the deadline!.

It was very stressful because we all got tipped out of our tutor group just like that, without any warning at all. One minute we were all beavering away in the group, exchanging critiques on each others’ work, (worth 10% of total TMA mark) the next we were suddenly in other groups, unable to get back. It was very upsetting as we couldn’t access each other’s comments for referencing, right at the point we needed them and each other most.

One of the group went into another forum called the Cafe, which is staffed all the time – and complained. After a night of shenanigans, our connectivity to our original group was reinstated, but now we all have different tutors and new tutor groups too. I guess we get the best of both worlds – new tutor groups, new tutors and the old one so its worked out okay in the end I suppose.

I am soooo pleased with my new tutor, who was up until eleven the night of the de-tutoring, trying to sort things out for me. She’s helpful, insightful and thorough, and I got a distinction for my TMA02 – so all is good.

Currently I’m working on TMA03 which is Fiction again – a 2500 word short story with which I’m going to be very avant garde. I don’t need this to score well to pass, so I’m going to do something very different and experimental, to see if it works. I’m going to disregard some of the conventions of short story telling, by writing in four completely different voices, telling four (maybe five if I can get it done) complete flash fictions that are linked by subject matter and theme that, read together, will reveal a deeper truth about the human condition.

It will be very labour intensive and time-consuming as the story(ies) will span seven hundred years, three continents, and will each need researching as if they were stand alone pieces, but I reckon its worth attempting, because even if it goes tits, it wont matter MA grade-wise and hopefully I’ll learn loads.

Other writing wise I’ve done very little except enter Bath Flash and submit to Scribble, so everything is a bit quiet on the being published front at the moment. Right off to the forum to see who’s about.

Look what just dropped onto my welcome mat (Its on the chairside table now). Halo lit mag with my wee story in it. It is so beautifully produced, I just want to stare at it and stroke the cover. Am going to read it from cover to cover in Nicko’s comfy chair in front of a blazing fire – well I am when I get back from dropping Georgy off at work – cannot wait.

Been hard at work drafting, redrafting, re-re-drafting (repeat as appropriate) my second Tutor Marked Assessment (TMA)  for my MA. This is a piece of Creative Nonfiction about when I was ill as an undergrad. Have just put final touches to it and will now leave it in a drawer until next week, so I’ll be able to see it with fresh eyes before submission.

When you edit something so many times (which you have to do as part of this coursework) the writing becomes a bit invisible and you miss mistakes. I’d edited out a ‘he said’ ‘she said’ and make the beginning senseless at final draft stage. Good job one of the excellent tutor group members picked up on it. I’ve edited this story so many times I almost know it by heart and have come to anticipate what’s written rather than what actually is.

The next stage of this TMA is to do a 1000 word commentary on how I came up with/edited the piece. That’s why I’m doing this blog. Procrastination is a powerful thing. So far I’ve washed all my hand-wash jumpers, Hoovered  the house and cleaned the loo.

Other writing-wise I’ve done hardly ‘owt this week, bar polishing my TMA01 story. I’ve just written a tiny flash for Ad Hoc Fiction as I came up with a funny-sad idea for a 300 word Flash for Bath Flash Fiction and you get a free entry to that if you win Ad Hoc. Haven’t written the flash for Bath though and don’t know if I’ll be able to fit in getting it done this time round.(Deadline’s in Feb)

Anyhoo, before I go, here’s a pic of me and the lovely Lily Green at The Arnolfini Bookshop in November at the launch of No Bindings. Lily is the creator of the No Bindings concept and is an all round gorgeously good egg. It was a very cold day, that day, and Lily was standing near the door telling people all about the No Bindings, thus the hat scarf and coat. What a brilliant day I had.

My first blog post of the New Year has been a long time coming. This has been because the whole family has been proper poorly on and off for four weeks or so, with a nasty virus that keeps ebbing and flowing. It was bad enough to lay Harry out for two full weeks and make him miss 10 out of 15 mocks (very bad timing).

We’re all on the mend now though so that’s good. Christmas and New was full-on as usual. The pic above is of the Bolton clan on Boxing Day. Paulina came this year, George’s gorgeous girlfriend. She’s really becoming one of the family and is a wonderful addition. She also came to my birthday meal on the 12th January at the pub though she was proper poorly with the yucky virus. Hopefully she’s feeling better today. Writing-wise am doing a piece of Creative Nonfiction, 2000 words long for Uni course and polishing my first TMA now its been commented on my the course leader.

Why was the course leader been commenting on your TMA I hear you ask – well – I was discombobulated by my tutor’s feedback and genuinely felt that her comments would make the story worse, not better, which was a bit of a blow because I’d deliberately submitted a story a couple of drafts away from completion, to get the benefit of her expert comments before final drafting. (This TMA didn’t need to get a fab mark as it doesn’t count towards the MA’s final grade.) When I asked her to re-comment she refused, so I had to ask the course leader to offer his opinion. He gave brill feedback – really close criticism – highlighting what I did well and what I could do better including plot opportunities missed, fining down of language and seeding outcomes in just the right places. Really feel like I’ve got my money’s worth now and am polishing said story in the light of these comments, but my tutor thinks I’m the spawn of Satan, which I suppose I’ll just have to live with. She thinks that wanting to discuss her feedback is being disrespectful and the sign of being a bad writer. I really think it’s more about becoming critically aware. Either way it will be interesting having a tutor who is a critical enemy rather that a critical friend. Should learn a lot!

On the ‘getting things published’ front, I’ve had my flash, ‘Staying Warm in the Winter’ accepted in Halo Magazine, my poem ‘Putting Your Face On,’ published on Strange Poetry and I’ve entered my short story Self-possession into the Henshaw short story comp.

Have had to decamp to tiny house due to Wi-Fi failure at home and approaching deadline for MA course. The Wi-Fi was off all last night and I have to post a piece of writing between 500 and 2000 words into the course Workshop by 19/12/2016. The idea of the Workshop is to get detailed feedback for work in progress from your peers before submission. Ten percent of the TMA’s marks are awarded for this so it must be done. I’ve written nowt as the deadline for the finished TMA02 isn’t until February. Unfortunately the workshop draft has to be in weirdly early so must write like a dervish today and tomorrow to get something up. It needn’t be finished or anything, just posted and I needn’t use what I post for the final TMA so its not a disaster. Also I do have an idea that’s been percolating for days but nothing written yet. Its creative non-fiction so I need to do internet research as I go along so the Wi-Fi is crucial unfortunately also I obviously need to access the OU site to submit it, so decampment was a necessity. I upped sticks  at 7am when the Wi-Fi was still well and truly buggered. Will not return until all done or the deadline has passed and I’ve posted any old crap, so may be here for a night or two.

Loads of unsatisfactoriness has happened course-wise since I last blogged but I won’t write about it until its resolved. Instead here is a link to a weird poem I have published today on the Strange Poetry site https://strangepoetry.wordpress.com/2016/12/17/jan-kaneen-putting-my-face-on/

Oh yes and here’s the draft cover for the Molotov Cocktail Anthology. Feels so good to have my name here with all these fabulously strange small story  writers.

Right, enough of this procrastination. Let the speed writing commence!

Have wanted to blog for a couple of days but have been too busy. The ‘busy-ness’ came from:

Doing the pub quiz Thursday night  with  Hel, Al and Lozza and her new ‘not boyfriend’ Michael who’s a really good egg. (We came third)

Taking Kat to the airport on Friday. (She’s gone to see her mum in Hungary pre-Christmas). I had thought I was taking her to Stansted (no probs – straight down the M11) but it turned out to be Luton Airport (very congested A428, then A1, then A6, then through millions of tiny villages as my satnav avoided massive hold-ups.)  Coming back was worse. It was tipping down and the M1 was shut due to an accident so I had to take the A505 which was  chocker.

Rugby on Saturday, which was the most exciting match I’ve ever been to. Harry played really well. They won 32-30, so it was very close, then I had to take him to a party.

When I got back Bob was here to tell us about his new Polish girlfriend who lives somewhere near Gdansk and is coming for Christmas, then the Fishburnes came for dinner (takeaway curry cos there was no time to cook) then we all got sloshed.

The reason I’ve been wanting to blog, is that I’ve had a very good writing week. It’s funny good writing weeks sort of come from nowhere because there’s such a delay between writing stories and them being published/winning competitions. The good news is that I’m having a flash published in the Bath Flash Anthology, a story called Humbuggery that I wrote doing A215. Jude emailed me Wednesday so that was good, then Thursday morning, in between going to school and doing the chickens, I checked my e-mails to find out I’d been nominated for a Pushcart award (in 2018 so I won’t know for yonkers) but I’m soooo excited. Here’s the link to The Pushcarts http://www.pushcartprize.com/ which is very well-respected and really, really worth being nominated for. It was Molotov Cocktail who nominated me for ‘The London Umbrella Company’, which is linked here in the ‘Flash’ section. I’m particularly pleased to have been nominated amongst writers whose work I genuinely love, including that of FE Clarke for her simply brilliant flash,  ‘The Solstice Shade’ which you can read by following this link https://themolotovcocktail.com/vol-7/flash-icon/solstice-shade/

Right going to make myself  brew, but first here is my picture painted by the same FE Clarke, who is also an uber talented artist as mentioned previously here. The picture’s called ‘Where the Ideas Are’ and I love it. Every time you stare at it you see something new.

So here is a pic of No Bindings the gorgeously formatted brainchild of Lily Green in which I have a teeny story. Here is the link to the website http://www.nobindings.co.uk/ so you can see the full wonderfulness of the No Bindings concept and hear the last edition. Looking forward to having a mooch round the Arnolfini Centre is Bristol tomorrow at the launch and meeting the poets whose work is also featured. Its a lovely thing is No Bindings – you can read it like a book, put it on your wall like a poster and listen to it like a podcast via the website. This edition is all about celebrations and rituals. Will take some photos whilst I’m there and put them on here next week. Also looking forward to starting block 2 of the MA next week which is Creative Non Fiction or CNF for short.

So my first Tutor Marked Assessment went in yesterday and I have spent the last two days in a creative dearth. Must be knackered from all the creativity. Luckily I’ve had loads of driving to do so my mental torpor has been a boon rather than a drawback. It must stop tonight, though, because I’m going to start freewriting again and that always releases loads of ideas. I’m going to Bristol on Saturday for the launch of No Bindings in which I have a wee story. Harry has rugby in the morning so I’ve got to drop him off at 7.30am then set off. It will be a long drive but at least the weather is going to be good. I reckon I should get there 12ish with a fair wind.

The results of the TMA are out in ten working days from submission deadline. Deadline is actually tomorrow at 12pm so that means results should be back by 10th December. The next piece is creative non fiction, 2000 words so need to get my thinking cap on. Below is pic of fire all lit and toasty for tonight’s free-write. Maybe I’ll catch a story in the flames.