Lesson #10

"The world is a deaf machine"

"Sometimes you wait
and wait
and wait
and wait
and wait
and wait
and wait
but nothing ever happens"

"Wonderful things are passing you by"

"Sometimes you just don't know what you are supposed to do
or who you are meant to be
or where you are"

 

Credit: The Red Tree by Shaun Tan @ ShaunTan.net

QUT : Year 2 Semester 2

To be honest, I had not much heart for this final semester. Probably got off on the wrong foot, and it did not help much when you have somehow lost faith in yourself in writing as well. I guess I should have made the most of this one last semester in University. Paid more attention in class. Tried harder to get better grades. Made the last attempt to blend into the crowd and stand out. Instead, I skipped a lot of classes. So many that by the time the last few weeks came, I was surprised to realise how fast time had passed me by. So many that by the time everything ended, I did not feel this burden lifted off of me, as it had been lifted off practically at the beginning of the semester. There might not even had been a weight at all.

Unlike last semester, three of my four studying days in the week started at 10AM. You know how I am with morning classes, and especially since after I had created a sort of writing pattern of my own first thing in the morning. I was not very pleased I had to sacrifice that for classes. So. Being in bed every morning seemed like a better choice than getting ready for classes.

 

Class #1: Photomedia and Artistic Practice
This is a photography class. I was quite excited about it when I heard of its existence, quickly signed myself up when I could. But the novelty sort of wore off as quickly as I stepped into my first classes. Mind you, the lecturer was quite an enthusiastic old lady - whom one of my friends dubbed a lady Tim Burton with her wrinkled skin and long crooked fingers - and she had been quite helpful in the few times I had asked for help.

I was just not really comfortable when things got so technical. That we have to watch out for so many technicalities that have nothing to do with the nature of taking photographs. I do not mean to sound snobbish; in fact, when this class was over I do feel a little left behind when everyone who took notes on those things got better grades than I. Throughout my years in QUT, I realised that studying writing did no good for my writing. Yes, I have learned that few things, but along the way, I went a little uptight and destroyed everything I touched. So yes, my fault. Did not say it was not. Thus, I just stay away from the tiniest knick knacks of photo taking, fearing that would somehow hinder the interest I have for photographing. And of course, being in a computer lab at 10AM is not cool. For me. I skipped the most classes for this subject. Did not do as well as my friends in the first three assignments as well. But well. I am not aiming for anything higher anyway.

We have four problem-solving assignments and a folio plus an artist's statement. Four problem-solving: pictorialism, still life, abstraction and redeeming the homely. Most of my pictures were the ones I have taken before in trips and back in Malaysia. So I guess I am quite grateful that I rapidly took pictures all these while. The folio is self-directed and we can do whatever we want, as long as it is in the premise of what we had studied. Mine was what I have shown in the previous post. Heh. I have gotten quite good feedbacks from friends and the lecturer, but the verdict still remains, so we shall see how I fair out.

All in all, I would say this is quite an easy class to score a High Distinction. After all, it is only just going around taking pictures. No writing involved except for that artist's statement, which is really nothing compared to a 6000 word novel draft. It is only me who decided not to try my hardest and very best, is all. It is just a principle thing.

 

Class #2: Creative Writing Project 1
Gawd. This class was gruesome. A 6000 word novel submission. The most dreadful assignment throughout my years in QUT. Only one class per week, but a good three hours at that. The lecturer skipped a lot of classes at one point, but then after that, I just stopped going.

In my opinion, this class would only work for and be useful for you if you already had a novel in the making and are really serious in having it go places. Because all we ever do is re-write, edit and critique, re-write, edit and critique. Rinse and repeat. So we have the lecturer give us the latest news in the writing and publishing world - Do you know: In Australia, Dymocks kind of bought over Borders; In the UK, Borders was sold to not a company, but a single man - and we have to like read out loud one "beautiful" sentence "from the wild" and another from our works, other than that, it is just boring writers' stuff.

What I do not like about this class, is that we got arranged into different crit groups so damn often I just do not know what to do anymore. We even have like different types of editing to do. There is this structural editing, which I do not know what the heck I am supposed to do, I even felt stupid asking for help. In the end, I did not get as much help for my story as I expected. In The Novel and The Short Story from my previous semesters, I got back a stack of feedbacks from practically the entire class. This one. I only got like, a handful. Mind you, not that I wanted much feedback on the story I worked on, seeing that it sucked in the first place anyway, but it is just a little frustrating when I got lost. Does not help either when your classmates wrote the most confusing pieces ever you do not know where to start critiquing them. Sheesh. Just makes me feel stupider than ever.

 

Class #3: Youth and Children's Writing
Quite an interesting class. We mostly just dealt with children and young adult fiction writing, and a lot of my course mates did show a great liking for it as well. But being the jaded person that I am this semester, it was just another class.

Like The Novel, we had to read a list of books, which were all shorter, but I did not read half of the list anyway.

... The Virgin Suicides : Jeffrey Eugenides *
... Deadly, Unna? : Philip Gwynne
... The Curious Incident of the Dog at the Night-time : Mark Haddon *
... Sleeping Dogs : Sonya Hartnett *
... Twelve : Nick McDonell
... Northern Lights : Philip Pullman
... How I Live Now : Meg Rosoff
... The Arrival : Shaun Tan *
... Seven Little Australians : Ethel Turner
... Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo : Tim Winton

I only enjoyed a few books in this subject (noted *), especially Shaun Tan's, which happens to be a marvellous graphic novel instead. We have to pick a book to present during tutorial and I picked his book. The lecturer had quite detailed lectures on every book and they seemed quite interesting most of the time. Plus, an exam.

But. See. The real gist of this subject, was not the books but the creative piece we hand in during mid-semester instead. We have to write a 2,500 word piece - be it academic writing or a creative piece - and by the end of the semester, a handful of us was picked to have a reading in front of the class, and from these selected few, three winners would be picked to win gift vouchers. That got everyone hyped up. Everyone was included, including those writing academic essays as well, but we all know that is not going to happen. What would you rather hear, a story of a boy's adventure to destroy a bully's handbook, or a bunch of ramble on the Harry Potter phenomenon?

 

Class #4: Writing and Publishing Industry
This class seemed to make me the most depressed when I thought of my situation in being a writer. Cannot even find a good idea to write well and already I am figuring out how to get it published. Seems a little far fetched, no? Anyway, we had interesting guest speakers over to talk and sometimes, it got quite motivating. Other times, rather downhearted.

Quite a boring class compared to the others, but mostly we were just to write essays. Got one to write a report on a Brisbane Writers' Festival's panel we attended, and another on an Australian writer. We were supposed to argue something in the latter essay, but was not sure what was there to argue about for a writer's career. I picked Venero Armanno, author of The Dirty Beat, an interesting book I bought off the Festival. Turns out he is a lecturer in University of Queensland and he had wrote about ten novels that went unpublished before his first publication. Now, that is something motivating and humble. I think.

Another assignment is to come up with a publishing plan for a book we are "working on". I chose to plan out the story I wrote for the creative piece for Youth and Children's Writing. It was quite a fun thing to do, since I am one to kind of like planning stuff. I get to come up with interesting marketing ideas that I do not need to consider its practicality. Heh. Fun, really, to some extent.

 

So, there you go. At the end of my University days, I did the exact opposite instead. Forgive me that I sounded so ranting and cynical. One cannot help it when one has bigger problems to worry about. Just like that, done with Uni.

What now, Miss Writer?

A collection of portraits