decisions, decisions...

(apologies to Shakespeare)

Poetry or screenwriting? That is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind
to embrace an art I love
but that bittersweet delves
and draws from the human heart
its most pruned and precious blossoms
tiny cut by tiny cut

or to take arms against
the poignant turn of phrase
walled gardens of
clean, concise words
and end the need to contain
in fourteen rows
the immensity of the soul

no more, the pressing desire to train the perfect slam piece
that weaves its tendrils around the listeners' ears and throat
only to slap them witty on the cheek
their sudden laughter the proof
of wisely tended wordlings grown strong

to rest from tending
to sleep, perchance to dream
aye, there's the rub
what does a poet's heart become;
to what end its 3am wakefulness
when the poet sleeps on?

for in the strokes of urgent, unfettered pen
what wide, unmapped country lies ahead
of hilly dialogue and marshy directions

the traveller pauses, wondering

perhaps that five hours spent
grafting, lovingly watching
that one leaf unfurl perfectly

the counting of ways
the buds of May
the road not taken
the carrying of hearts
a dream within a dream within a dream

perhaps preferable, that searching
homeward
inward
for restraint and rhyme
than to ride into new and unknown lands
that puzzle the will
and make us rather bear those tasks we have
than fly to screenwriting assignments that we know not of?
thus two thousand words of uncertainty
make a coward of me
and turn my mind instead to
sixty lines of familiar torture

though there may be an enterprise
of great pith and moment
in me
still I may lose the name of action
to tap the undiscovered Jim Uhls in me
until 2010

***

Yes I do take poetry too seriously.And no, I'm sure screenwriting isn't actually like the unknown of death. :) And yes, I'll eventually decide which subject to enrol in this semester.

editing project crunch time

This semester my major editing project is (we choose/create our own) to create small training manual specifically targeted at coaches teaching wheelchair table tennis players. My dad is the author and is therefore providing the bulk of the content. He's been coaching wheelies for over thirty years and has coached some players all the way to the Paralympics, so he knows what he's talking about. My role is managing editor, which is basically an editor and project manager rolled into one.

Well, the thing is due in a few weeks and I am SO BEHIND. Maybe everyone is experiencing similar panic to do all the last minute stuff, but that's not going to help my grade any.

Getting the content was initially like pulling hen's teeth. My dad is great verbally, but with the written not so much. Luckily my superhero mother stepped in and offered to type as he dictates her. She is also helping with a lot of the re-writing (when the edits go back from me) and has been generally so excellent that she's going to be the subject of a glowing acknowledgement.

Anyway, it's definitely getting to the pointy end of the project. Apart from the editing itself, I have a number of copyright permissions not yet received for photos and illustrations we want to use. Etc, etc, etc. Lots of fiddly stuff. Suffice it to say that I will be spending my long weekend (Monday is a holiday here) up to my eyeballs in editing work.

I like editing, but it's not so much fun when you're under the gun. I am looking forward to making better progress with it though.

pen to paper

The first semester of my Grad Diploma in Professional Writing is drawing to a close (big test this Wednesday for Intro to Editing will be the last of my assessment tasks). It's been an important semester for me:

- writing regularly for the first time in a long time
- gaining some sense of what I really want to write, and
- having a better understanding of how to go about the process of getting writing published.

The tute group for Freelance Writing had such a nice group dynamic that we have formed a writing group. The basic plan is to continue two positive things we did each week in class:

- one person read their own writing and the group offered a critique, and
- the whole class wrote from a prompt. Sometimes we read out the results, but not always.

Tonight we met at Tilley's for our first meeting. We talked about our own writing goals and what we wanted to get from the group. The rules may change as we go along. No-one read anything out, but we set that up for next time. The writing prompt was simply anything to do with being at Tilley's. I wrote in response to the music. It was just free writing, so here's a snippet that I lifted from all the waffle:

Notes individually plucked on a guitar sound warm and sensual and real. It's not a singalong, it's a serenade...delicate, like fingertips on skin.

People are talking at tables all around me. How many of them want something right now? Most? All? What do I most want right at this moment? Not to be here writing, but to be in the corner having a lazy conversation, while buttery notes move in circles and spirals in the air around us.

things i've been doing lately

Sooooo, how is everyone? I'm busy and happy-ish. Why? Let's see...

1. Compu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-computer games.

My computer died. I think I mentioned it, yeah? Turned out to be the old ticker, but one heart transplant later it's like a new toy again. In fact the new heart is stronger and the comp's working better than before. Loving it! I also bought me a 2GB flash drive which is proving handy for my new studies...but I'll get to that later.

2. Yep, buh-bye now! :)

Helping people out is a nice thing to do, but sometimes it backfires and you end up with a freeloading sponge in your house. I'm down about $800 in unpaid board and really, really tired of living with someone whose contribution to the household consists mostly of doing his own dishes. The sad thing is that I took him in to help him out (he was my friend's daughter's boyfriend at the time and seemed like a nice enough kid) and though I don't want to become that cynical kind of person who thinks the whole world sucks, this has seriously put me off helping anyone ever again. Bit of an exaggeration of course, but I certainly won't be offering anyone a place to stay anytime soon. He will be gone in a couple of days and I have a homestay student moving in. Can't wait. Be nice to think I'll get the money one day, but I'm not holding my breath.

3. Oi! That's mine!

Remember last year when I won a 42-inch plasma screen TV? A few weeks ago we were burgled and it's gone, gone, gone. Nothing from the police so far. I'm pissed off for sure, but handling it a lot better than if I'd paid for it myself. We actually know who stole it ~ a junkie stranger that the soon-to-be-ex-boarder met through work and let into the house one night when he turned up uninvited, and yes, I'm aware he technically is to blame and should replace the TV, but that isn't going to happen so why stress over it? ~ but because he wandered unaccompanied around our house a few days earlier, we can't prove that any fingerprints they found were from the burglary. We know it was him because the S-T-B-E-B saw him at the local shops wearing his (stolen) shoes and hat.

4. Colour me studious.

This year I signed up for a Graduate Diploma in Professional Writing. I'm really enjoying it. My subjects are Freelance Writing and Introduction to Editing, next semester FW2 and Advanced Editing. Next year I'll study Screenwriting and Writing for Young People and probably take on a screenwriting project. The best thing so far is the constant demand to write. We have major assignments of course, but we also do in-class exercises each week. One big assignment is to write an 800 word piece and read it in class, then answer questions. Two people do that each week, so we have a chance each week to hear and analyse two pieces of writing, which is so interesting. This expectation that we will write each and every week has been great, because I was starting to feel like a fraud to my own goals ~ a writer who never wrote anything. I never seemed to get any ideas. Now I feel like I have a lot to write about.

In fact, I submitted three pieces ~ two poems and a creative non-fiction piece ~ to be considered for an anthology that's published each year of creative writing from students at my university. They get a lot more submissions than they publish, so there has to be some merit to the piece if it's accepted. There's one poem that I think is better than the other two pieces and that's the one I'm hoping will make it in. Anything else is just gravy. I'd post it, but I think that technically counts as publishing and it can't be considered if it's been published. I'll let you know what happens.

5. Making friends and not particularly influencing people.

One nice aspect of doing grad studies is that the class doesn't average out at nineteen years old. Most of the class are around my age or a little younger and I've made some friends. Given that these same people will be in my classes for two years, that's a real bonus. Plus they're even friends who write and are into the Arts. I mean good Lord, next time I want to go to a poetry slam or an improv night, I may actually not need to coax someone into 'trying something new'.