A week ago I was pretty definitely doing the creative writing MA at the University of East Anglia. Now I’m not so sure. It seemed logical: finish my BA in writing, don’t get a job; go part-time for two years on an MA course, use that time to write a novel and then hopefully get it published when I leave. But how old am I? Twenty. And how good a writer am I? I don’t know. Unpublished, still, but I’ve never sent anything off anywhere, never known where to send something to, and never have anything I want to send off. My course leader said a while ago that I was the best prose writer the course had had in ‘at least a couple of years’, but he seemed less confident in my ability to get onto UEA’s MA than I was. Big fish in a small pond? Maybe.

Besides, he suggested it’s usually better to take a break between BA and MA. But what to do in a break? I don’t want to work in a shop, I’m especially sure of that after the over-time I did in a co-op shop I’d never been in before. I want a job that either makes use of whatever writing ability I have, or one at least that I have to do some training for. Something semi- rather than un-skilled. I have no idea what, however. That’s why I’m going to see our uni’s careers adviser next Tuesday, a man I’d never considered seeing until he came to give us a brief seminar last week. He suggested that one shouldn’t do an MA just because one can’t think of anything else to do.
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I suppose this is a sequel to my October post.

I got back from Nottingham today, after chilling out and eating my family’s food for a few days. Been cooking with pumpkins a lot lately: Me and my friend Chloe made two pumpkin pies on Saturday, though weren’t sure if we’d done it right or not, since neither of us had ever tasted pumpkin pie before. They were pretty good though, in my opinion.

Today, I used another quarter of the big pumpkin we used for the pie to make soup. Again, I’ve never made soup before, and didn’t have any recipe, so I thought it worked surprisingly well with my combination of onion, pumpkin, and mooli. I’d post pictures if I’d taken any.

I guess that’s not really a lot, nor is it that interesting, but I am becoming a fan of pumpkins.
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As usual I’m getting sloppy with updates again, but then, since my second-to-last post (my last one being something of a cop-out anyway), I’ve started uni again, and apparently this year they actually expect us to do work. A little at least. It’s not too bad: I’m doing a 50% dissertation, which means that 50% of my final degree comes for a 10,000 word essay I have until April to complete, and the other half comes from an 8,000 word prose project, of which I’ve already written the first 4,000 words of the first draft (more on that in a minute).

I’d be lying if I said I’d been devoting myself entirely to uni work and that’s the reason I haven’t updated, at least partially. Other primary influences are, to a small extent my job, which remains amazing, because a) there’s very few customers, and, unless they ask for wine recommendations, are generally low maintenance and b) I work with some pretty cool people who I have both opportunity and inclination to converse with at length.

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A few months ago, while walking home from Sainsbury’s, I passed a wall upon which was a tray of basil seedlings in little pots, with a note saying to help oneself. Never one to pass up anything free, I took one and put it on the kitchen windowsill. When it got bigger I re-potted it into a cleaned-out yogurt pot, using soil I dug up from my garden. It continued to grow, and eventually had to be replanted in its current receptacle: the bottom half of a Tango bottle.

There’s not really a point to this story, except that I think it’s pretty cool that the whole venture cost my nothing and in exchange for the daily sprinkling of water I get fresh basil leaves to add to pasta sauces or whatever. And plants in general are pretty cool because all they need is soil, water and air and sunlight, and from just that they create new organic matter. Just my thought for the day.

Oh wow, it has been a few days since I updated the site. Well I’ve been busy: moving house, starting a new job, that sort of thing, not to mention my inexplicable inability to access the wireless internet we just got set up in our new house. Anyway, I’ll get that sorted and get some new stuff up some time soon, though not before another week has elapsed, since tomorrow I’m off to spend a week in sunny Yorkshire.

Unfortunately, I most likely shan’t have easy access to the internet on August 21st, which is the first anniversary of The Aspiring Writer, not that I’m really sure how I would celebrate it anyway. But I shall make an effort to get another two, three or four stories finished over the next week, so at least I’ll have something to post when I get back.

And with that, I shall bid you all adieu.

I just watched Grizzly Man, a 2005 documentary about a man who lived in the Alaskan wilderness with brown bears for thirteen summers, filming them and campaigning for their protection, until he was eventually killed by one of them. It was an engaging look at a man’s obsessiveness, in this case an obsession with bears, with leaving the human world to live in their world. Why are stories of obsession so interesting? King of Kong: A fistful of Quarters is similar in that it brings the viewer to identify and empathise with a man who devoted a vast amount of time to being recognised as the greatest Donkey Kong player in the world.

I suppose obsession and enthusiasm make people interesting, and perhaps tell us something of the doggedness of human nature. Perhaps people just like to see people with focus to their lives, regardless of what, or how absurd, that focus is. Do we all feel lacking in focus at times? All the time? I certainly do, quite often. I try to focus my life on writing, but that’s not always possible. I only put Grizzly Man on because I didn’t feel in the right frame of mind to write, and I didn’t want to spend hours forcing words or staring at blank pages.

A good friend of mine told me she felt jealous sometimes of people who had focus or hobbies or know what they want to do. She cited my writing as an example, that she felt she doesn’t really have anything like that. I worry though, as I suppose, or hope, all creative people do, about whether I really am good, or as good as I want to be, which is very good, or if I just want to be so much that I convince myself I am. Especially now, it feels more of concern, because as I go forwards I stake more of myself on writing, as I spend years at university paying to learn how to become a better writing, working towards leaving with a degree in writing and nothing but.

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