Okay, so I got a little sidetracked there...

It's almost been a month since I last posted on here, and there's a few reasons as to why...

Firstly, NaNoWriMo began on the 1st of November. I managed to adhere to the schedule for a total of 5 days before I succumbed to the pain of writer's block. Sigh.

Next year, I'll do better.

If I'm honest, I wasn't too enthralled with my plot, such as it was.

That's a topic for another day - but I did get some good writing done on something that wasn't my previous NaNovel, which was healthy of me.

I am currently in the middle of the waiting stage of my UCAS application. I have two offers already, Conditionals for Edge Hill and Sheffield Hallam, and I have an interview at Manchester Metropolitan University's Crewe campus at the beginning of December - Bangor have received my portfolio and are currently (I assume) in the middle of reading through all of their applicants this year.

I am currently working on the portfolio I shall be taking to the MMU interview; they asked for specific things in their portfolio so I have to write a second one (the other two Uni's decided against portfolios). 

MMU asked for three paragraphs in first person which capture the voice of three different types of character: a child, a homeless person and an executive.

 Each of these people are looking into a fire: what do they see?

That was my prompt, and I shan't be divulging my paragraphs for copyright reasons - if they did an internet search and they found the work online they may reject my application, regardless that I've posted them myself. It's much simpler if they simply find nothing when/if they search.

To go along with this small task they asked for a small personal statement in which I talk about why I want to study Creative Writing at degree level - which will arguably be the hardest part, for me. I hate writing to sell myself... urgh.

However, the upside to MMUs approach to the portfolio is that they offer us candidates a chance to include a sample of original creative writing work of our own choice; a maximum of 1000 words, or 3 poems. But let's face it, my poetry is horrid (something I wouldn't mind remedying at University, mind).

I have something in mind which I think shall do the job quite nicely. It's also 200 words under their limit, which is nice. If I can prove my writing worth with 800, why not do it in 800? Those extra 200 words would probably ruin it, anyway.

It begins...

The waiting is the worst part of this process, isn't it my fellow university applicants? And for those of you who haven't and/or don't want to and/or won't get the chance, it is the worst part of applying to university.

This morning at 9:36am, my UCAS form was sent away. Now I wait. Possibly for a long time.

I shall pass the time by writing various coursework pieces, and fantasy stories, and reading books. Yes, that sounds nice.

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.

Coming soon...

So, I'm currently studying English Language at college in the hopes to do something similar at Uni (creative writing, more likely), and one of the pieces of coursework we had to complete was a review style piece of writing.

Now, I read a lot. I watch an awful lot of films, even more so recently than before. And I play a lot of games. (In that order). The review I did for coursework was of the most recent novel from the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, called Changes. It was selected out of my four pieces to be one of the two sent off for my final pieces; the other being my short story; big phew, as now I know that even teachers like my fiction!

This successful authorship of a review has prompted my ever-active brain to come up with a new plan: Write more reviews!

So here's the deal:

1.  I read a book, watch a film, or play a new game.
2.  I like, dislike, love or loath the new addition to the ranks of my leisure activities army.
3.  I write a review based on my experiences and post them on here.

It's quite a cunning plan, if I do say so myself.