Endings and Beginnings

This week I've had a new beginning and I'm about to have an ending.

My new beginning is my second blog on writing, The Writing Wizard, which you can find on http://www.bloglines.com/blog/GaleBarker. It provides practical help and tips for beginner writers.

What's about to end is the creative writing course that I've been teaching this year. Tonight my students hand in their final assignments and their portfolios of the year's work. The course will officially be over, and we won't be back at college till September.

Our Last Class of the Year

It's a real achievement for my class to have got to this stage, as most of the students have jobs and only have a limited amount of time to devote to their writing. They've had to contend with all sorts of problems along the way - illnesses, family crises, computer breakdowns, hectic periods at work. They've been studying since September, so it's been a marathon rather than a sprint.

They've kept their noses to the grindstone, churning out homework, writing extra pieces, trying out new forms of writing. Throughout the year, they've discovered (and won) writing competitions and adult learning awards, been to writing festivals, read their work in public, and seen it in print for the first time. It's been quite a year!

We're going to celebrate their success this evening by sharing food and drink and listening to each other's work. Everyone is going to read out a piece that they have written.

I'm sure it will be a lovely evening, as we're always really amazed at the quality of the work that every student can produce and appreciate each other's talent and unique strengths.

The Beginning of a New Blog

This week I have also been transformed into a wizard. I have become The Writing Wizard on my new Bloglines blog. I'm getting used to my new identity and I'm delighted with it, but now that I'm having to get used to a new blog site, I'm a bit like a student starting off a new course, except I don't have a teacher to help me.

I feel as if I don't really know what I'm doing. I know how to be The Writing Wizard. I know how to fix people's writing and turn them into writers. What I'm struggling with is the technical limitations of the Bloglines site.

I found the Blogger site, on which this posting is written, very easy to use. You write your blog. You can save it if you're not quite finished, post it immediately, or schedule it to be posted at a later date. Even once you've posted it, you can still go back and change it if you spot a mistake. It only takes a moment.

Frustration! Frustration! Frustration!

The Bloglines site is totally different. I was lulled into a false sense of security by my first posting yesterday, which went relatively smoothly.

Today was another matter. I was happily writing my piece when, two-thirds of the way through, the keyboard started to do strange things. Suddenly wouldn't let me type any more. I typed and typed but no letters appeared on the screen.

At first, I thought it must be autosaving, so I waited for a while. Eventually I was able to get going again, but only about three letters on the keyboard would work. It was fine if you wanted to type iiiiiiiiiiiii,,,,,,,,,,aaaaaaaa but not much good for anything else!

I had no option but to quit and come back in. I tried to save my work before I did, but when I did return I discovered that it had only saved about three lines of the file, so I had to write virtually all of it again.

Then I thought I'd got it perfect, so I posted it (there was no point in saving it as a clip because that's how I'd lost the other version). Unfortunately, once it was on the site, I discovered something small I needed to alter - I needed to remove about three rogue words from the middle of a sentence. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any way of altering a post once it's up.

So when I'm writing my other blog, I've discovered through bitter experience that you can't save a draft and you can't alter what you've written once you've published it.

My Learning Experience

I will persevere as The Writing Wizard, in spite of the shortcomings of Bloglines. It isn't ideal, but hopefully I will get to know the system better, and maybe Bloglines will improve their software.

I hope that in a year's time I'll be able to celebrate the fact that I've been able to stick with it, despite my problems, and be proud of my achievement, just as my students are proud of theirs.