It is impossible to have two blogs

But I will carry on regardless.

I am ploughing through my writing coursework. I directed some of my class to Inky Fingers after I tried to explain that I wrote almost every day blog wise, etc. One of them emailed me and said ‘has anyone ever told you you write really well?’ I feel like standing up at the next class and shouting ‘Am I the only one with any confidence in my ability?!’ Poetry has knocked them all for six because instead of just letting us run off and write whatever the hell we like, the tutor’s actually been getting some knowledge about form and structure into our heads. Maybe it doesn’t freak me out cos I’ve done it once already, but everyone else is in a complete flap. They’ve all tried to do very strict rhyme and meter poems for their coursework, only to have the tutor reveal last session that she feels there’s no place for that sort of work within modern poetry.

I don’t know what I expected from the class, but I know I didn’t expect people to be constantly CONSTANTLY asking ‘is that right?’ ‘have I done that properly?’ ‘Am I allowed to write that like that?’ Maybe it’s cos I’m younger than them and ‘benefited’ from a less rigid education, I don’t know. Or maybe it’s just youthful exuberance and over-confidence. I mean, I don’t think I’m the world’s greatest, but I know I have the foundations to go on and learn more and be pretty damn good. I don’t know, the idea that someone would just sit down and write because they wanted/had to seems to be a complete anathema to them.

Why they are taking the class in the first place is beyond me.

And why I decided to write a damn sestina for my coursework is equally beyond me. It’s getting there, but it isn’t great. I know already she will mark it down for being a little out of control, not making 100% sense and having ideas forced in roughly – but it’s due tomorrow and without it I only have around 30 lines out of the 70 I need. And the other 30 lines are much better. And I think I’ve done well in class, contributing to discussions, etc so fingers crossed it should be okay. I guess I just want a high pass because I’ve enjoyed poetry more than short stories.

Right. Back to it.