Monday, February 22, 2010

Happy Birthday to me :)

Followers will know today is my birthday - note this date down loyal readers, you'll be tested on it this time next year :P

I had a great day today, got a sleep in, got gifts (See list below) went to Uni, came home and went out to dinner with family. Gave some serious consideration to my Genre project which I'm planning on running by you in a moment. I'm currently being a total Nanna and drinking a cup of tea, before I head off and watch Doctor Who on ABC2.

So birthday gifts....

What I refer to as 'The Norm' consists of clothing that can be bundled into the following: shirts, shorts, jeans, socks, shoes and undies etc. So I got 'The Norm' Plus some dvd's, some vouchers to buy more stuff and some online vouchers for books. Overall I had a decent haul.

Thanks to anyone and everyone who sent me happy birthday wishes on facebrothel, twitter, here or via text. You know who you are ;)

Alright Uni... *Puts on serious face*

I've got a class this semester called writing genre, which doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out it's all about the various genres. The overall picture is we have to choose a genre to write within, we have to look at the conventions of that genre and decided if we will write to them, or against them. Then we have to give a blurb at the beginning of the creative piece as to what we're doing and why.

This consists on two processes. A draft of 2,000 words. Which is work shopped, marked and counted as 20% Then we submit that piece with changes etc as the final creative piece (Still confined to 2,000 words!!!) which is another 40% There is then an essay about the chosen genre, why we chose it, the history behind it (Fill in the blanks here I'm sure you get what I mean) that's another 30% Then 10% is for participation. i.e turning up to a minimum of 13 of the 15 lectures, engaging in the class, offering feedback. As they like to reiterate that 10% could be the difference between a pass and a fail! This statement is correct as in my first year there was a girl who didn't bother to turn up regularly to the lectures and consequently failed the subject!

Anyway I'll get to the point. I'm planning on writing about the process involved for my genre piece in this blog. I'll mark it with something like 'Uni Genre' in the subject line, so if you don't want to read about it you can skip that entry. (I won't be offended I promise!) But I'd like to document the process of selecting the genre I'm going for, writing about it, generally just allowing an insight into how my mind works around this creative writing process. (Now there's a scary thought!)

So to get the ball rolling, I've decided to look at Horror. I want it to be a fast action paced, heart pounding, life threatening moment or 'snippet' (I mean 2,000 words is a sneeze, and not a lot of room to move in) I'm thinking of a zombie theme. I plan to use David Moody's Hater (I've you've not read this book, seriously get into it - it's bloody amazing!!!) as a reference piece. I may even write from the POV of one of his characters? I.e the one on the other side of the 'hater' attack. Again 2,000 words is so bloody restricting. Everything is up in the air right now. However that's the plan at the moment though. If you'd be interested in reading about the process of how I go about doing this piece, please let me know.

Also if you're a new reader who I've managed to leech from Scoman. Please don't be shy and say hello. I promise not to bite... Honestly!

Anyway Doctor Who is about 20min away, time for a shower and press the 'on' button on the air-conditioning.

That's all I've got.

7 comments:

Nessa said...

Happy Birthday Sal!

Kimberly said...

Wait - you bite? :)

Even though I said happy birthday yesterday, it's always more awesomer when you get it on your birthday, so here goes....


Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Sal....happy birthday to you!!!

Alissa Grosso said...

Happy birthday! Visiting from ScoMan's blog.

Unknown said...

Happy Birthday, Sal!!

Jen said...

Happy birthday! Found you from ScoMan's guest post...which I loved, and now you have another follower!

Rosslyn Elliott said...

Hi! Happy Birthday!

Thanks for stopping by--I'm glad my post on fiction was helpful. I think your genre class sounds fascinating. I look forward to seeing what you do.

ScoMan said...

Happy birthday Sal.

I love the idea of you sharing the project here. Especially seeing as it's horror.

I know a thing or two about horror, and I would be interested in your process.