Yes, that's right, I've been shamed by my creative writing students. It isn't as if they've done anything embarrasssing like putting a car on the roof of the Adult Education building or telling the powers-that-be that my whiteboard handwriting's a mess. No, they've been paragons of virtue - having things published, winning competitions, and even writing 100 words a day for an internet challenge.
That's what really got to me. Here are my students undertaking to write 100 words a day on the internet and how many words have I written for my blogs over the past few months? Have I been setting them a good example? Should I have 'Could Try Harder' on my termly report card?
It isn't as if I dislike writing my blog entries. In fact, I find them very relaxing and I get a real sense of achievement when I see them on the internet, especially if someone actually reads them and sends me a nice comment. I had got into rather a good routine of doing them late in the evening when I was chilled out after a day's work, and I found this rather a good way of winding down and putting the day to bed.
The trouble was, of course, that the day's work had started to end later and later. Was I going to sit down and write a blog when I finished my lesson preparation or my PGCE assignment at midnight?
Then there were all the other things that I ought to be doing every day as well, things which regularly jostled with the blog-writing in my mental time-table. Like getting some exercise. (Sadly, the MacAlpine Stadium, once my second home, is now but a distant memory as I haven't been to swimming or aquafit for months.) Or practising my clarinet and saxophone, especially now that I'm in a clarinet trio/quartet that actually plays in public from time to time. Or giving Reiki treatments to myself and my family, now that I've had my first attunement.
There are so many things I could feel guilty about not doing. But that would be a waste of the precious time that I do have. So I forgive myself for being human, being tired, not always being the most organised person in the world. I hope you will forgive me too.
And if you're still beating yourself up about something you haven't got round to doing, maybe you could try forgiving yourself too. Maybe if you do, instead of squandering your life on regrets, you'll release some vital energy to do something positive.
Namaste!
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Sunday, 29 March 2009
Monday, 22 September 2008
After the Milestone - The Post-100 Posts Post-mortem
Yesterday's post was actually a milestone, and even I didn't notice! It was actually my hundredth blog on Blogspot.
I feel as if I should have done something to mark the occasion, like giving away a Renault or blowing out the candles on a cake. No doubt if I scoured the internet I would be able to find an animation of a cake with a hundred candles on it, but I'll make do with giving myself a pat on the back.
To have sat and blogged for a hundred days (even with holidays and a few gaps in between) is quite an achievement. It shows commitment, stickability, ingenuity, which are all qualities that a writer needs.
Anyone can claim to be a writer. Anyone can claim to have a book in them. But it's applying the bottom to the seat and knuckling down to write, day after day, that gets the work done.
I hope you're managing to apply that sort of stickability to your own career as a writer. Keep going, even when you don't feel like it. Turn your writing into a habit and soon you won't have to force yourself to sit down and write - it will become your pleasure, your daily fix of creativity.
I feel as if I should have done something to mark the occasion, like giving away a Renault or blowing out the candles on a cake. No doubt if I scoured the internet I would be able to find an animation of a cake with a hundred candles on it, but I'll make do with giving myself a pat on the back.
To have sat and blogged for a hundred days (even with holidays and a few gaps in between) is quite an achievement. It shows commitment, stickability, ingenuity, which are all qualities that a writer needs.
Anyone can claim to be a writer. Anyone can claim to have a book in them. But it's applying the bottom to the seat and knuckling down to write, day after day, that gets the work done.
I hope you're managing to apply that sort of stickability to your own career as a writer. Keep going, even when you don't feel like it. Turn your writing into a habit and soon you won't have to force yourself to sit down and write - it will become your pleasure, your daily fix of creativity.
Thursday, 5 June 2008
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.
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.
Monday, 21 April 2008
You've got to start somewhere...
I wasn't intending to start writing a blog today - in fact, I was intending to begin reading one! But due to the vagaries of the blogspot website, here I am! I had to create a google account first, and got a bit carried away.... But, hey! I'm a writer, so it won't do me any harm to write...
What I was really trying to do was to access my friend's new blogspot. Her name is Lindsay Townsend and she writes romantic novels: romantic thrillers and historical romances. I created a website for her and am in the process of updating it by adding two new pages and extra links to publicise a new novel that she has had accepted for publication. I got an e-mail from her today telling me that she now has a blog and asking me to put a link to it from the website. I thought I'd better check out her blog reference first, but couldn't access it, so I ended up going onto a blogging website and creating a google account so I could find the blog.
And I ended up creating this too!
Well, I was intending to start writing a blog some time, so why not?
So who am I apart from the person who created Lindsay's website?
Well, I'm a professional writer and creative writing lecturer, Scottish by birth and upbringing, but for the past thirty-odd years I have lived in England.
I started off my career as a BBC television researcher working on a television series for The Open University. That led me into more projects, writing and producing educational materials for The Open College and writing dramatisations for more Open University programmes. I began writing fiction and non-fiction too, and had two biographies published by Harper Collins. One of them was about Cliff Richard and I sold a lot of copies to members of his fan club.
Now, after a while out of writing to do the whole "mum" thing and bring up my thirteen-year old son, I'm back writing again, but I've found that what I really love to do is teaching adults. Since September, I have been teaching an adult education class in creative writing.
I love my class. I love the mixture of personalities and ages and abilities. I love all the different sorts of writing they like to do. I love seeing their enthusiasm when they try something new and it works, or when they read aloud something they have written and their fellow students tell them that it's really good.
I love the coffee break as we have such interesting discussions about writers and books and often people end up going home with the name of a new author they want to go and read.
I love seeing my students grow and develop both as writers and as readers. Let's not forget that if you want to become a really good writer, you have to read voraciously - or if you want to write for TV, watch lots of TV drama, but critically.
That's another thing I really enjoy about teaching my class - it's not just about telling them technical stuff, it's about getting them to think like writers, to look at life like writers.
So do writers look at life differently? If you want to find out, come back again and you'll be able to make up your own mind.
Meanwhile, why not check out the website that I built for Lindsay? You'll be able to read about her novel, A Knight's Vow, which is set in medieval England. When I finish the new pages, you'll also be able to read about her latest book, Flavia's Secret, which is set in Roman times.
Her website is http://www.lindsaytownsend.co.uk/. If you like her books, send her an e-mail, and if you like the website, let me know.
But do look in on my blogs again, and we can chat a bit more about writing and reading and teaching.
What I was really trying to do was to access my friend's new blogspot. Her name is Lindsay Townsend and she writes romantic novels: romantic thrillers and historical romances. I created a website for her and am in the process of updating it by adding two new pages and extra links to publicise a new novel that she has had accepted for publication. I got an e-mail from her today telling me that she now has a blog and asking me to put a link to it from the website. I thought I'd better check out her blog reference first, but couldn't access it, so I ended up going onto a blogging website and creating a google account so I could find the blog.
And I ended up creating this too!
Well, I was intending to start writing a blog some time, so why not?
So who am I apart from the person who created Lindsay's website?
Well, I'm a professional writer and creative writing lecturer, Scottish by birth and upbringing, but for the past thirty-odd years I have lived in England.
I started off my career as a BBC television researcher working on a television series for The Open University. That led me into more projects, writing and producing educational materials for The Open College and writing dramatisations for more Open University programmes. I began writing fiction and non-fiction too, and had two biographies published by Harper Collins. One of them was about Cliff Richard and I sold a lot of copies to members of his fan club.
Now, after a while out of writing to do the whole "mum" thing and bring up my thirteen-year old son, I'm back writing again, but I've found that what I really love to do is teaching adults. Since September, I have been teaching an adult education class in creative writing.
I love my class. I love the mixture of personalities and ages and abilities. I love all the different sorts of writing they like to do. I love seeing their enthusiasm when they try something new and it works, or when they read aloud something they have written and their fellow students tell them that it's really good.
I love the coffee break as we have such interesting discussions about writers and books and often people end up going home with the name of a new author they want to go and read.
I love seeing my students grow and develop both as writers and as readers. Let's not forget that if you want to become a really good writer, you have to read voraciously - or if you want to write for TV, watch lots of TV drama, but critically.
That's another thing I really enjoy about teaching my class - it's not just about telling them technical stuff, it's about getting them to think like writers, to look at life like writers.
So do writers look at life differently? If you want to find out, come back again and you'll be able to make up your own mind.
Meanwhile, why not check out the website that I built for Lindsay? You'll be able to read about her novel, A Knight's Vow, which is set in medieval England. When I finish the new pages, you'll also be able to read about her latest book, Flavia's Secret, which is set in Roman times.
Her website is http://www.lindsaytownsend.co.uk/. If you like her books, send her an e-mail, and if you like the website, let me know.
But do look in on my blogs again, and we can chat a bit more about writing and reading and teaching.
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