It must be about three weeks since I last posted. Profuse apologies (again). The difficulty has been having the energy to blog as I seem to be on a circular treadmill at the moment. I'm loving the MA, but it's sapping me of energy, and for the past several weeks the weekdays have been a blur of attending university and doing homework for university, followed by weekends of exhaustion. Things should be starting to get easier as the classes ease up, and this week sees the last of my Tuesday evening classes. Two more Thursday evening classes till that one finishes. Of course then there's the assignments that will need to be done and handing in at the beginning of June, but I'm hoping I'll have more energy as I won't be having to travel to and from university several times a week.
My Thursday evening class is Writing for Children and I'm loving it. I've written a little story about my cat, Zach, although he's insisting on use of his full name when I write about him - Zachariah Zebedee. The plan is that I'm going to write a serious of short stories for children about Zachariah Zebedee, and then perhaps put them all together into a book. That, of course, requires writing enough to fill a book, which itself requires discipline and time. I will have a portfolio of work to prepare for my MA, and at the moment I'm undecided if I'll do the ZZ stories, or if I'll do more of my book of hospital experiences. I want to do both, but I can't for the MA ... well I could, but it's not advised; they prefer you stick to one thing, and really that's better because you get a substantial chunk of that one thing written.
I may be doing some more 'research' for my book about asthma/hospital experiences before too long :o( My lungs haven't been very happy over the past couple of week (probably contributing to my tiredness), and I wouldn't be surprised if they decide to have a big strop fairly soon. I've got that horrible wait again. I went to the GP eleven days ago because I had horrible oral thrush. I get it a lot because of the nebs and the steroids. I often don't bother getting treatment for it because if I did I'd be at the doctors even more than I am already, but it had got to the point where it was making my gums hurt as well as my tongue. It was all so sore that I wasn't eating much. The doctor gave me two one-tablet courses of fluconazole, saying he was giving me 'one for now and one for luck,' but only to take the second one if the first didn't do the trick. Five days after taking the first one things had improved a little, but my tongue was still very sore. I took the second one that evening. That was almost a week ago and I'm back to where I was at the point at which I saw the doctor :o( I'm going to have to go back :o( Anyway, part of the point of telling you this was that while I was at the GP surgery for the oral thrush, the doctor asked me about my lungs. I told him I thought things were on the slip. He can't do anything, and we both know it, but he made a sad face not dissimilar to this one :o(
I'm sure I've done more in the last three weeks than going to university, writing a story about Zachariah Zebedee, and seeing the GP, but I can't think what on earth it is. My brain is all fuzzy. That'll teach me to leave it so long between blog posts! I'll set myself the task of writing a thousand lines of 'I promise to update my blog more frequently,' without using cut and paste. By the time I've done that it might be time to update my blog ;o)
4 comments:
well if do you write up your ZZ stories at any point, I will ping through an email to the agent who handles children's writing who works alongside my agent, and maybe she would take a look at them for you.
I am sure u are doing brilliantly with your MA.Hilary Mantel has also had very bad health which I'm sure you have read about. Just keep writing.
Wife in the north, that would be fantastic! Thank you so much! I was thinking today that I might try writing both the ZZ stories and the asthma/hospital stuff in the lead up to my MA portfolio submission, and decide later what to submit. They're so completely different that it might help keep each of them fresh.
I have read about Hilary Mantel's ill-health, yes. There was also a documentary about her last year. I saw some of it and thought it was very interesting, although I was sorry that she seemed so bitter with her lot. Understandable in some ways, but I can't help but think that harbouring bitterness about the hand that life deals you stunts your emotional growth. Mind you, she's done well enough.
Thank you for your encouragement.
i think she was a long time in huge amounts of pain without any diagnosis and with people saying she was crazy. i haven't picked up any bitterness from the stuff i have read and seen but i wouldn't blame her if she was.
i read the story in the above post and i liked ZZ. how many of them do you have or are they in your head waiting to come out?
Yes, you're right that she was misdiagnosed for a long time, and it was all passed off as mental health problems. During all that time, she wasn't receiving the treatment she needed, of course, and I think her condition deteriorated as a result. I haven't picked up bitterness about this in her writing, but I did in the documentary about her that was on telly 1-2 years ago. I'm not saying that she's wrong to be upset about the misdiagnosis and lack of treatment; just that it's not helpful to get stuck in it and be bitter about it. Bitterness is about being stuck in the past, rather than moving on and living for what you have now.
Anyway, the ZZ stories. At the moment I only have the one that's completed, but I'm working on a second, and I have about ten or eleven more burbling away in my head. They're great fun to write.
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