Those inescapable feelings of excitement, worry and impatience...

Here I am, sat at 3:20 in the morning, writing a blog post because I feel crap about not writing for ages.

Loads of great things have happened recently, and most excitingly I went down to Bangor, in Wales, on the 2nd of July for an Open Day at Bangor University. I've been looking at one of their courses (Creative and Professional Writing) for a while now, and I was finally able to actually talk to someone from the Uni and see what they had to say on the subject... not to mention speaking to the English school (as opposed to the Creative Studies school) and asking them their views on the English with Creative Writing course. He (the lecturer from the English school) wasn't very good at that, and the lecturer for Creative and Professional Writing was much more open to my questions, giving me as much detail as she could - comparing the courses in an objective and very helpful way.

I actually started the application process for UCAS and University the other week, and I have already put Bangor down as one of my options, and UCAS reminded me of the need for a portfolio of work (not that I needed much reminding, it says so on the university site). This portfolio will be the source of some stress, I'm sure. When I asked, she seemed to only need a small amount of my writing, to demonstrate my ability to write coherently apparently, and nothing larger than 500 words.

Yet... that is awfully small.

I've written 14,000 plus words in my eventually-will-be-a-novel, Exile, already and the one short story I've completed to an... acceptable standard is around 4,500 words. I've got a review that's around 1,600; a flash fiction piece with an interesting style and voice, around 300 words...

Argh, what do I choose? Which is the best of my work? Do they want examples of poetry, too? If so, I hope they enjoy free-form poems, as the only structured ones I have are "emo" haiku, which were amusing to write but totally tongue-in-cheek and definitely not what I want my first impression to be.

Is my first impression supposed to show that I have a natural talent for this kind of thing? Or, is it designed to highlight areas that I need to develop in, and therefore warrant a three-year course studying the art of writing, both creatively and professionally?

Which then brings me to: Do they want an example of fiction and non-fiction?

Fortunately, I did ask about the department attitudes towards genre fiction (science-fiction and fantasy to us, normal, folks; as opposed to those high-and-mighty literary types) and she, thankfully, replied in the affirmative towards receiving it gladly and joyfully. She mentioned that an awful lot of sci-fi was written in the department, and that they, and I quote, "love it".

Then again, she did say I could e-mail questions to her... but I feel that asking her a question as simple as "how far above that word limit can I go?" at this very early, yet amazingly important, stage could be dangerous. In a non-lethal, non-threatening to my person, way.

Oh dear.

It's now 3:43, 3:44... I want another cup of Glengettie tea and I'll watch some Friends before sleeping.

In case you're wondering, and can't see the link... I'm excited about going to University at Bangor (I really, really want to go to Bangor...), I'm worried that I won't get accepted or get the grades I need once I have been accepted, and thirdly I am impatient at the time it is taking for me to receive my AS results. Dammit, peoples, I need to know how I did!

Also... do I drop a subject that is the source of so very many debates and discussions on extremely interesting topics, just to make the others easier? I can see advantages, and disadvantages....

I need three Bs at A Level to get the maximum needed UCAS points for most of the courses I've looked at, including Bangor. I am currently studying four subjects... but I can imagine very easily that I did horribly in my Philosophy and Ethics papers (one qualification) and I do not want to continue it for the second year. They might not let me.

I'm rambling!

So, to recap:

Excited: University!
Worried: Accepted for a place and grades?
Impatient: Need to know my grades.

Adíos amigos, hasta luego.