in which i remember i have a blog

Oh dear. I have really very much failed at updating this thing. I am a very bad blogger. I must to better.

So, a potted catch up:

Did ok on the OU poetry TMA. Ok, so it was my worst mark of the course so far, but I am rationalising it by telling myself that as I'd never really written poetry before I did ok. And I've been scribblinbg bits of things since. I shall some out and post it in the next few days.

Also had the life-writing TMA. I wrote about my friend Kez, and her little girl Jenna who has Apert's Syndrome. Results came back for that over the weekend. Again, I did ok. I still haven't bettered the mark I got for that first assignment, but this was the first mark since. I am frustrated though, as I wonder a little whether I am missing the point, or whether maybe my tutor just doesn't get me. Don't get me wrong, she gives me some great (and extremely useful) feedback, and it's not that I can't handle critcism; I value the negative feedback more than the positive almost, but, when she makes suggestions such as 'why don't you add a little bit more about yourself in there, make it personal, make it about you a little more....' and then when marking tells me the one section of the piece I should cut is the one section in which I do just that (which I only bloody put in there under her suggestion!) I can't help but feel a little bit frustrated. Hey ho. I did ok, and most of what she said made sense, so *shrugs*

TMA05 is due in two weeks. I have a piece part written that I think I will submit, and I have been researching magazines that I could potentially submit too, so watch this space. The TMA is all about publication, so, we have to write a piece of poetry or prose, choose a magazine we'd like to submit it too, submit our work according to said magazine guildines, and write a bit about our choice of publication. Sounds fun. I have been looking at/hope to look at Pen Pusher, Ambit, Agenda, Mslexia, Litro, Notes on the Underground, Tears in the Fence, Markings, The North, Flash, The Warwick Review, The Edinburgh Review, The Fringe, Poetry London, The PN Review, Caketrain, Harvard Review, Granta, Anon, The Rialto, Spilt Milk Mag, Short Fiction, Iota, Popshot, Shearsman on the recommendation of the lovely Jen Campbell.

Once the course is done and dusted, I shall come back and post a couple of assignment pieces for those of you who might still be reading.