h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello Sally Q!

Long time no c since the GSC challenge.

How are you? Howzz life?

Hope you stick around a bit longer this time?

cheerzz,

Mel J

Hi Mel!

Thank you for the nice welcome back.

Life is good thanks. I've had a few more things published, and I'm a reviewer at DVD Lard now. I'm also taking my OU writing course, which is great fun. It turns out I am a writer after all

I'll stick around for as long as I can keep out of trouble

How's you? Is Mighty Joe still around?

Sally

Hi Sally,

MJ and I are both fine, thanx.
We're very much in love and I'll be going down to Cornwall in November to meet him...
(you may come across talk of our wedding plans on other threads ).

We're both very busy but we try to pop in at GW now and again.

I'm trying to combine the preps of two script funding dossiers with a full time job and needless to say, the combination is rather stressful and sends me regularly in overdrive.

It's nice to see a familiar 'face' again.

cheerzz,

Mel

Congratulations! That is wonderful news. I'll buy a virtual hat ready

I hope you'll both be very happy.

Sally

Hello, new (and no doubt improved) Sally Q! Glad to see you back.

What OU writing course are you doing? I'm doing A.174.

J

Hi Jeannie!

Me too! Are you posting in the First Class tangential cafe? If so I'll come and say 'hi' there too (I'm using my real name).

What did you think of 'Warning' and 'Emigrated'? The best I can say about them is that they're a quick read!

Sally

Great!

My tutor is John Kirk. I don't suppose you're in his group?

I haven't posted to tangential cafe yet - too busy reading all the postings and contributing to my tutor group.

It did occur to me that the OU made everybody use their real names. I don't suppose it matters as long as your pseudonym doesn't get attached to it.

Assuming you're not in John's group, I'll post to TC sometime.

Yes, I didn't like Warning and Emigrated, though I thought I'd better try and give constructive comments.

Some pieces of writing seem to need the reader to put in a lot of work, but as a lazy reader I prefer pieces that pick me up and sweep me off my feet (and I don't mean Mills and Boon).

J

Nowt wrong with M&B Jeannie (I can say that in my own portfolio )

I don't know if you know my real name, but it's Tracy Hartshorn (it's not a huge secret). Give me a holler in the Tangential cafe and I'll keep checking for your message. My tutor is Derek Neale. He's pretty cool, and very supportive. He has a way of letting us know our mistakes without making us feel prats.

I've found the Novakovich article on writing interesting. He's made me think of things I hadn't bothered with before.

The Fitzgerald story had the women in our group's temperatures rising and not in a good way. Double standards or what?

I've decided to stick around for a while so if you want to discuss any of it here in my portfolio, feel free. I'll be interested to see how you're enjoying the course.

Sally

I've just posted to TC but only to touch base, not to say anything profound.

I'm off to do some more course work now. Look forward to comparing notes as we go on.

I'd like to do the End of Story piece but I don't know if I can fit it in. I thought I'd try them all and then pick the best, but time is catching up with me. I did an ending to 'The Tunnel' but I don't think it will be original enough - I don't read horror so I've nothing to compare it with.


J

Your tutor/group sounds good. I'm feeling a bit frustrated at present as our group doesn't seem to be taking off very quickly. John seems to be waiting for everybody to post before he makes any comments. As one of the group came in late and another had a heart attack at the beginning of the course, we're running a bit late.

Tutorial 1 was about beginnings - (1) what we think makes a good beginning; (2) examples from beginnings of stories that we should comment on; and (3) our own attempt at writing a beginning. I've posted my opening and critted about five of the group's beginnings that have been posted (more there today so I'll do them now), but I've only had one 'crit' of mine and it just said 'I liked it'. John seems to be relying on us to crit each other's work. Sorry, I shouldn't say all this behind his back. Think I'll send him an email.

I'm tempted to say that a touch of Alex's astringency might be welcomed! Perhaps things will look up.

J

I can understand your disappointment Jeannie, but our tutor told us that he couldn't comment on work posted in the forum becuase of the rules about marking tmas, so that might be why your tutor doesn't say much. It's supposed to be the students who do the commenting, but most are afraid to give even the mildest constructive criticism.

However, our tutor does leave general messages, guiding us in the right direction, so we've started being more honest with each other. It sounds as though your tutor isn't doing much guiding.

I sometimes wish our tutor would say something directly about our work so we know we're on the right track. I don't suppose we'll know until we send in our etmas.

You can always chat to me about it here, and if you want to swap stories in private, feel free to email me as you did the other day. I'll gladly give some constructive crits.

Sally

I tried to send you a reply yesterday but somehow it didn't get posted. I also tried to send an email to John but again that didn't seem to get sent. Perhaps I'm pressing all the wrong buttons.

Anyway, thanks for the comments. John did say he couldn't comment before the tmas but I got the impression that your tutor was giving some feedback. I see now it's a general rule he's following.

Yes, I think a bit more guidance might encourage better feedback. I'm about the only one who's trying to give constructive criticism, and I don't want to seem to be setting myself up as an expert. I'll perhaps raise that with John. I know critiquing is not easy particularly when you're a beginner. The group are all extremely nice and supportive, but they're bringing out the Alex in me!

Incidentally, I didn't know you would get an e-mail on your home computer - I thought you would just get it on your First Class mailbox. And Broadband, eh? There's posh! Let me know how you get on with it.

Thanks for the offers of help/crits. I'll see how we go.

J

Hi Jeannie
Just holler if you want to chat to someone else about it. I don't think the first class conferences are all that user friendly. The 'threads' aren't clarified properly for a start. This could be the reason why people are finding it difficult to crit.

I've set up my First Class mailbox to forward mail to my usual email account. Otherwise I'd just forget to check First Class.

So far I'm loving broadband. It's much quicker and I've even set up m own radio station that plays the music I want all day

It also means the family can use the phone if they need to.

Sally