Writing, and writing, and writing…

Suzie Eisfelder

It’s another of those articles because I haven’t the brain space to find something about books and what other people are writing. It’s all about me and my degree today.

I’m now one third of the way through my Bachelor of Arts in Professional and Creative Writing. As they say, practice makes perfect, although in my case it just makes it easier to get to the word count. I have eight out of the 24 units I need and this year, being second year, they expect a higher level of competency than last, next year will be even higher, but I’m leaving next year to next year for some strange reason.

I have it easy compared to some of my fellow students. I was talking to one lady this week who is doing all three units (subjects) I’m doing plus Screenwriting. Everyone is complaining about the amount of reading and that we’re all behind. I’m not so fussed by this as it’s the story of my life, I started uni on the back foot and nothing’s going to change there.

What am I doing that has so much reading? Creative Nonfiction, Fiction Writing and Poetry. Each one has a couple of hours reading every week plus some writing. For Creative Nonfiction I have 4,000 words to hand in by the end of the trimester, that’s over three different assignments; they make this a little by making us write a short piece each week for three weeks and submit that for workshopping. Fiction Writing is easier as it’s only 3,500 words but it’s over two assignments; there’s also a little workshopping here. Poetry has 3,200 words over two assignments plus an online quiz. Not to mention I try to write on this blog three days a week and I’m trying to write some short stories for publication. That’s almost 11,000 words just for uni alone, although it is spread out from March to June.

You know about my first short story which they published, I submitted a second story for the next magazine this week. I fully expect a rejection for this second story, I did the unthinkable and didn’t ask a friend to edit it, I am regretting that. My Fiction Writing teacher is also encouraging us to submit for competitions and as there are no age limits for this one I’m seriously considering working up one of the ideas I have scribbled down.

And that’s one of my problems. Because I’m starting this writing journey so late I’m not eligible for many of the competitions or grants. They’re mostly aimed at the young emerging writer and only one of those words fits me (unless you believe me when I tell you I’m 18). Some don’t have age limits and I’m going to do my best to submit to those but I don’t know when I’m going to find the time. There’s a few external pulls on my time over the next few weeks and you’ll never guess when the submission date of this competition is…go on, you’ll never guess. It’s the 12th April and I’m wondering how I’m going to add in taking an idea and making it into a short story with everything else going on. I’ve demonstrated that I can write a 700 word short story in about an hour but then it needs a lot of editing to be sure it works.

Writing? I’m not doing much at the moment, you can tell by the assignments…


{"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}