Monday 3 March 2014

A215 TMA3 Poetry

Just got my poetry mark back from A215. I submitted two free verse poems one about migraines - topical and one about winter (also topical but a bit more typical!) I really was not expecting much as I never wrote poetry before this module (and now I never will again,) and didn't enjoy the process at all.  So I was really surprised and pleased to get a mark in the same range as my prose work and now I can move onto life writing without having to hope for extra marks to make up for my deficient poetry! 


Aura

Light echoes and blurs
Thump, thump, thump
Your eyes begin to pulse
warning of a unwanted visit
from an old and spiteful companion
pepper and lemon fill your mouth and nose
retching acrid acidic air

Close the blinds, flick at the switches
off, off, off
dim the screens, rustle the curtains closed,
turn the electric clock to the wall
Light is not your friend.
sitting still, swallowing the chalky solutions
The roil of your stomach roars

Not at home for this.
Dash, dodge, deflect
ignoring the knock on the door of your conscious
the room revolves around
it's slow orbit convincingly real
clinging to the carpet cautiously
grasping at ephemeral hope of escape
(21 lines)

Fourth Quarter

First it is darkness – the world dims
The sun has gone down too soon
everyone grumbles, they miss the light.

Then it is the emerald painted white
A frosted tip hairstyle for the lawn
Glimpsed outside a window.

Now it is the breath that steams ahead
a warm puff then a sharp intake.
Barriers are erected, faces lost beneath scarves

Next it is glass on the ground,
Footsteps cautious, grip unsure
Carefully, carefully down the street.

Following it is the clouds – a warning sign.
White sky, white wind, white world
The flurries begins to fall.

So it is here, the world is blanketed
Traffic stills, life disrupted
For a quarter of it all.

(18 lines)



Thursday 6 February 2014

Popular TMA2

This was my second assignment for A215. I got another 2:1 mark which I was pleased with.


Popular
I had been perfectly settled on a hillock, surrounded by clipped clumps of grass whose green scent tickled my nose when the noise of the morning bell startled me out of my reverie.
'Oh no,' I blurted. The distant noise was the sign that everyone else was to vacate their bed and thus end the best portion of my day. It was not their fault, of course, there were close to two hundred of us crammed into the farm compound that comprised my entire world and so many people generated an awful lot of noise. I did not let this stop me holding it against my fellows. I did not like them and they did not like me. I liked quiet. But I let myself grow distracted and missed the chance to get back before the day truly started.
Ostensibly my job was to check on the new lambs and dump buckets of cereal into troughs to supplement the ewes diet. And I had certainly done those things as evidenced by the clumps of snagged wool on the hem of my rough spun dress and the pungent smell of barley mash that lingered on my hands. This was not what took up my time. Instead I had gotten caught up by the murky orange glow of the distant city which faded as the sun rose. It was only visible before sunrise as while no-one lived there now, or so we were told yet still the glow of electric light was there by night.
I could only vaguely remember how electricity appeared up close. When I was very small I'd owned a bedside lamp that lit up with a mere touch - no spark of flint or match needed; no gas, or oil nor wax candle required. But all I could really recall was the way I could flail out my small hand until I painfully smacked it against something solid only to be rewarded with light that drove away killer clowns or giant spiders or whatever my overactive imagination conjured up. The form of the lamp itself had not stayed with me only the instantly available light.
My other vivid memory of electricity was from the night we fled the city, The streets had not been dark when my mother pushed me onto the van that brought me to the compound. It was the last time I saw her, she looked oddly sallow in the orange light and I'd been sleepy and confused. But it was the clearest memory that remained of her. When I pointed out the glow of the city to the Elders they only said the lights were set on some great timer - that no-one need remain to turn them on and off. I found this rather farfetched but some deep buried glimmer of common sense prevented me from saying so out loud. Perhaps some part of me knew that questions would have produced answers I would not like and thus I had not asked and allowed myself a sliver of hope. It was the same thing that drew me to the murky orange light reflected on the clouds each morning, my mother could still live. The city was still there - why should there be no-one left?

The dissonant clanging cut off abruptly an indication that everyone had risen and I picked up my pace. Before I was chosen for the task of early morning animal feeds, my reluctance to drag myself from my bed made the morning bell seem interminable and not won me any friends. The duty I'd been assigned when leaving the schoolroom and commencing adulthood, dismayed me utterly for some time. And still did on occasion - most often when I was shook awake to start the day an hour before sunrise. It was only when I realised that being one of the first awake gave me the chance for an hour or two alone every day I settled to it. In the overpopulated compound, any possibility of solitude was rare and I valued it.
The duty also awarded me the privilege of no longer having to sleep in the dormitory block which was not to be sneered at. The smallest of the dormitory’s held twenty four people and the largest nearly forty. A night in there was one long chorus of snoring, creaking beds, farting and mumbled complaints about the same, punctuated by those who talked in their sleep or the occasional swear word that was inevitable when anyone had to find their way to the washroom in the pitch dark. I did not miss it.
My new room for as long as I had early morning feed duty was a small cubby on the side of the kitchen, with six single beds. It was always warm as it shared a wall with the back of the oven. It was assigned to female visitors, Enna the cook and myself. Visitors were rare though and as there were times Enna found herself otherwise occupied, there were nights when I had the whole room to myself. Even when there, Enna slept like the dead and so no-one poked me in my sleep and admonished me to stop snoring! It was almost like privacy - a concept I only ever read of in books. There was none to be found here.

My position on the path gave me a good view of the farm compound as it came to life - steam rose from the bathhouse and mingled with the constant dark smoke from the kitchen chimneys. I was not excused the rest of the day's chores because I'd been out feeding the flocks but in truth I normally had little to do after that though I made myself look busy lest more work be found for me. But if I arrived after everyone had eaten I would go without breakfast, the same as everyone else so I did not slow my pace. Though being late but not last had it's own advantages as a flash of yellow caught my eye and I ducked behind the barn, knowing what that signalled.
The kitchen door banged open to discharge a stream of teenage boys. The slaughter house boys led by Rhys, who won the acclaim of the other boys his age with various acts of petty bullying and feats of disgustingness involving ingesting raw meat. I had read that could give someone worms and I fervently wished them on Rhys but he remained annoyingly healthy. I had never had much fondness for the slaughter house workers, for my duties encouraged to me to be rather more attached to the animals that we raised. And even when I dismissed this as petty, I knew as well as anyone that we raised the animals for food, there was the rather more unpleasant personal fact that they smelled of their work. A miasma comprised of dark iron scent of blood and the fresh dung of voided bowels followed them around so thickly you could almost see it. Even work animals and barn cats who were not fated for the slaughter shied away. But my disregard for them had never been as returned as vehemently as it was currently.
Their newly acquired low esteem for me was the result of an attempt I made to be helpful to the weavers. I had located a recipe for dye using onion skins in the scant library of books and booklets that weren't used for schooling. I had found other's before but all had been rejected - we could eat beetroot and feed carrot tops to the pigs and wasting good growing ground on something that could not be eaten would never be countenanced . But onions skins were abundant and were of no use to anyone and the weavers had been pleased - everyone's clothing was faded and old. It comprised entirely of what we could make with the wool we produced and oft repaired hand me downs that people arrived in. Even new clothing made from plain spun wool was a dull grey that showed every speck of mud from the fields and more disturbingly gore from the slaughter house.
While my enquiring mind often drew disdain from those who were not similarly inclined this had been exacerbated because the slaughter gang had been the first to have their clothing treated on account of their having the worst stained clothing. I was not entirely unreasonable, as pleased as I had been with my discovery, I could perhaps allow that the rather lurid yellow colour that onion skin dye produced was not that much of an improvement. But it could hardly be undone now no matter how much Rhys glared and made threatening gestures. And the colour did give me an significant advantage - it was so bright that, even I with my eyes made weak with my bookish habits, could see one of them coming from near anywhere on the compound farm land. When they had almost reached the slaughter house door I put two fingers to my mouth and attracted their attention with a piercing whistle. When they glanced at me I waved jauntily at them before I slowly picked my way to the kitchen door through the accumulated mud and manure of the yard. But I did not need to hurry even with this provocation I knew they would never give chase so publicly. Besides I didn't think Rhys would really hit me. Someone in his life before here taught him it was wrong to hit girls and that seemed to have stuck with him, everyone had something from their previous life they clung to. At most I would end up having some bit of gore from the slaughter house flung at me, and well that would wash off. In response Rhys shook his fist at me but this only caught the attention of a gaggle of youngsters who were being led in a group to the schoolhouse.
"Rhys, Rhys, you long streak of piss," the boldest of them called only to be given a clip round his ear by Kara, the teacher. I laughed loudly at the chant which I had not heard before only to be given a disapproving look by Kara. This would be seen as encouraging bad behaviour but I did not care - when I reached commencement and been assigned a duty I had asked if I could apprentice to Kara. The Elders had not objected but Kara had. She said I did not want to teach - not really. That no-one liked me and I just wanted an indoor job and access to the books in the school house. Perhaps that had been part of the appeal but I liked to learn - surely I could have wrangled that into liking to teach. Anyway I blamed her bitterly until I acclimatised to farm life and then found the benefit of my morning duties. I was not entirely without resentment even now for most of the books I loved to read were held in the schoolroom - now forever out of my reach. If I lived in the city – the way it was before, there would have been lots of jobs where I could stay indoors and read all day. But I did not live there and Kara blocked my only avenue to indoor reading work here. So I encouraged bad behaviour from her pupils - it would be her job to correct it. No-one else wanted to be her apprentice so she had to do it on her own. Well serve her right, I thought, resolute in my spite. She had not wanted my help.

I slipped into the kitchen and snagged one of the few remaining plates of scrambled eggs and took a seat under Enna's watchful eye. I had not cut it too finely though so she didn't shout or glare at me. Though I noted she poured me a helping of coffee rather begrudgingly. If I had been too late she would have gotten my share and while Enna, as cook, got to eat as much as she wanted, coffee was always in scarce supply. I leant down to the mug and sniffed deeply. I always liked the smell better than the taste. So I pushed it back at her in a gesture of peace. It was better to be on her good side and she whisked the mug away without a word of thanks. I dug into my breakfast – the eggs had cooled and become congealed and rubbery. I wrinkled my nose, and regretted my choice to give away the coffee, the bitter taste would have washed away the unpalatable egg.
As little as I liked my breakfast, it set my next task firmly in my mind and I headed out to the hen house. The chickens milled about underfoot as I scattered food for them and collected the eggs that I would have to deliver to Enna. It was when I reached into one of the wooden nesting boxes that I found the treasure nestled under two fat brown speckled eggs. A book, a thick one, with a torn cover marked with bird droppings. Scrawled in front was an anonymous inscription in a childish scrawl that clearly indicated it was meant for me. 'I luvs Yello' I read with a barely suppressed laugh, it was unexpectedly nearly as much of a thrill as the book. It didn't even matter that I could not prove Kara wrong without being caught with a stolen book. Someone liked me after all!

(2262 words)

Commentary
The first choice I made when starting my story was in the character I wanted to build it around. One of the prompts was unapologetic and one of the characters I had created in week 5 was an unapologetic teen who was resentful of having to live a simple life. I decided to write in first person to show better show her unapologetic attitude and rather selfish disregard for the other characters who were really dealing with the same issue, yet show some of her own thoughts and feelings in order to keep her if not likeable at least relatable. (Anderson, 2006, pp102-103) This also allowed her to remain unnamed in the story, which I wanted in order to show her distance from the other characters. I don't specify she's a teenager, but instead give hints that's she's recently come of age and attempted to write in a young voice.(Neale, 2006, pp126-128) Her main antagonists are a group of boys she dismisses as teenagers despite being the same age and also assigned to work. She also doesn't speak except one exclamation when alone so I had to show her personality via her train of thoughts and via the interpretation of other characters. As most of the the glimpses are via the characters opinion of what the others think of her, I added the scene where she thinks of her rejection from teacher apprenticeship so we could have paraphrased quotes from the character Kara, who is antagonist towards the main character to provide some support for the character's opinion of what her fellow compound dwellers think of her. (Anderson, 2006, pp78-79)

I developed the setting - a dystopic future where a return to simple life was mandatory to keep the character in this mind set - she has no options and cannot set out to do something new and I used flashbacks to give hints of how this had came about instead of spelling it out. In the end the natural disaster that forced people to abandon their cities is less important to the story than the circumstances they now live in so I didn't want to dwell on it too much. (Neale, 2006, pp126-128)

I also wanted to use an enclosed world as discussed in Chapter six (Anderson, 2006, p.95) - the compound is a kind of institution and created some of the jargon that went along with this as well as rules for my character to chafe against - which allowed me to show the rules instead of just having them spelt out. (Neale, 2006, pp126-128) I decided to give the ending a positive note, and reveal despite her earlier thoughts, the character is quite pleased to find she's won someone's attention. But then she is rather single minded - as teenagers can be. When I had written the story I had it read by a friend who likes this genre who pointed out I used 'had' a lot along with an adjective and I didn't need it and this allowed me to save words for more sensory detail. (Neale, 2006 p.49)
(514 words)

Monday 4 November 2013

Festive

This was my first assignment for A215 Creative Writing for the Open University. I got the OU equivalent of a 2:1 for it.

Freewrite prompt – walking at night
She didn't bring a torch to the campfire and it didn't matter when she was there laughing and singing and chanting and drinking home brewed mead out of a bottle passed to her by a stranger. It matters a bit more now she's stumbling back to her tent in the pitch black with a million lurking guyropes just waiting to trip her up and possibly bring a tent crashing down on someone. That would make her popular in the middle of the night though if it happened she could always run away flee into the night - there were lots of late night stragglers without torches and lots of them were much drunker than her. It wasn't actually that dark she realises glancing up at the sky - this far from a city the stars were a chain of christmas lights across the dark sky - they even seemed to twinkle in sequence. Though that might very well be the home brew - was there a reason stars twinkled? I used to know that she thought darting round a neon guyrope that stood out - those were much better than the ones she couldn't see. But the starlight didn't help and staring at the leaping flames for hours seems to no night vision is forthcoming even when she realise she's sitting down somehow – just for a short rest. It's peaceful though and she's content until there is a giggle and a thump and pain blossoms from her knee - she's been stood on. 'Fuck off,' she exclaims outraged kicking out to a prompt of further swearing - perhaps she isn't sitting in the most sensible spot and and she isn't actually sure now where her tent is. They all look the same in the dark. A sort of vague navy shading towards black with the odd gleam of reflective material from the tent window's.
(311 words)

Festive! (fiction)
Sleeping in was impossible when camping , no matter how much Jenny would like to. The rising sun made the tent canvas act like a photographic light box and every wall glowed. This produces a sensation which to Jenny seems very much like the tent was deliberately pressing hot beams of sunlight directly onto her eyelids. If that weren't enough even a slight hint of wakefulness was enough to have her body protesting over the fact she was essentially sleeping on a thin layer of air on uneven ground. Her air mattress is a repurposed lilo. Only exhaustion or drunkenness could make it comfortable. Jenny attempts one last attempt at resisting wakefulness by pushing her face into the sleeping bag only to find that when against bare skin the thick material feels clammy with condensation and smells fusty.

     'Ugh', she said as she shoves it away from her face and then wrestles the zipper down enough to squirm her way out of the sleeping bag. One flailing foot clangs against a support pole in her quest for freedom and she swears under her breath as pain blossoms in the toe she stubs. Fortunately the tent remains upright but the motion shakes free a shower of water from the condensation that had formed on the tent roof. Jenny's mood is unlikely to improve with indoor precipitation after being awoken by the sun. Surely only one form of weather should be plaguing her at a time. She crams her bare feet into her walking boots and tries her best to ignore the way the hard wearing material scrapes roughly against her skin. If the sleeping bag is damp, her socks will be too.

     The morning light is even more piercing when Jenny steps out into it after a brief battle with the tent flap. The azure horizon is entirely free of even a scrap of cloud and so it seems it's going to be hot. This prediction allows her to abandon the scratchy boots and the almost certain future of at least one blister by the tent flap. She'll go barefoot instead. The grass is damp with dew and tickles but as long as it stays dry enough that she isn't having to splodge though any mud she doesn't particularly care.

     Someone is snoring loudly in a nearby tent and she regards their tent flap enviously for a moment, wishing she was still asleep. Other campers are stirring, she can see tousled heads poking out of tents and hear sounds of activity across the field. The whistle of a kettle, a shouting child and a discordant chirping of a mobile phone alarm. She huffs out a breath at the irritating sound and is at least glad that didn't get a chance to wake her. She grabs her wash bag and sets off for the shower block, hitching her pyjama bottoms up and fussing with the drawstring and being glad it's early enough she doesn't care about being seen.

     The camp gets busier as she makes her way through the fields. Someone is cooking bacon, she can hear the sizzle and she can smell the smoke and salt. Her mouth waters even though she no longer eats meat. 'Well mostly', she amends mentally with a touch of guilt. Everyone slips up occasionally. She hurries past before she is tempted to find the nearest burger van and cheat on being vegan again. This takes her in earshot of some particularly tuneless guitar strumming and she hopes it isn't the guy she's been hearing in the distance for three days who only appears to know half the chords of Wonderwall but there is a chorus of complaints from nearby tents indicate otherwise.

     'Piss off – you're not Liam Gallagher,' comes one of the catcalls and Jenny can't help but grin to herself. At least she didn't camp near him.

     She regrets leaving behind her boots the instant she steps inside the shower block. The entire floor, tiled in hospital ward beige, is awash with water – she really hopes it's water. The astringent smell of bleach does not quite cover the acrid tang of urine and the only thing she can do is resolve to be quick. Afterwards she squirts antibacterial gel on a bit of dry grass and attempts to stamp about it in it with shuddering. As much as she tries to tell herself it's better than Glastonbury and the long drops, because these loos flushed - she can't help but feel her feet will never be clean again.
(757 words)

Commentary

For my focussed freewrite I used the prompt 'walking at night' and wrote about being without a torch on a camping trip. This led to me writing a piece of fiction about a young woman camping at a festival which I though would be a good piece to use sensory observations in, due to the exposure to the elements and lack of privacy from other campers when camping. Although the piece is fiction I used several personal memories regarding the fact that camping is not always the most comfortable experience. The guitar player who knows only one tune is a recurring character I have encountered at several campsites. The song he plays (Wonderwall by Oasis) is intended as a cultural reference setting the piece in the late 90's. (Neale, 2006 p.62) I started writing the piece in past tense but decided to change to present tense so the reader was experiencing camping along with Jenny. I wanted to include all the senses and add things Jenny smelt, heard, felt and tasted as well as what she saw on the campsite to give a fuller picture of the campsite and the experience Jenny was having. (Neale, 2006 p.49) I did some research into the facilities at Glastonbury as I have never attended. The poor toilet facilities seem to feature highly in many people's memories of the festival so I added Jenny thinking on this. I wanted to show some of Jenny's personality as flighty and fickle by having her change her mind several times over little things and by the reference to her struggling to stick to her chosen diet and to partially indicate her economic background by having her camping gear deliberately be a little rubbish (poor sleeping bag, rough boots, lilo for an air mattress) though some of this detail was sacrificed to word count.
(306 words)

Bibliography

Glastonbury Festival Website (2013) http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/ (accessed 28th October 2013)


Neale, D. (2006) 'Writing What You Know' in Anderson L.(ed) Creative Writing: A Notebook with readings, Abingdon Routledge, Milton Keynes, The Open University