FINISHED!

It's finished!  The stressy essay that caused me the 'shame' of admitting defeat last week is done!  It took a good deal of planning and a return to a technique that I used in school but it's finally done and I'm happy with it.  Just going to go over it one final time tomorrow with fresh eyes and then it'll be off on its way down the wires to my tutor. 

The technique I referred to as having used in school was mind mapping - I did it for all my GCSE and 'A' Level revision, carefully drawing connecting lines in different colours, little diagrams of things and so on...anything at all to make the information more visual.  I find things so much easier to recall in an exam if I can do this.  I've never really used it to plan, it was always as a memory aide, so I wasn't sure how well it would work here, but being at a loss for an alternative I thought I'd give it a try.  Here is the (tidied up) final product:

Copyright: me!  :o)

The question is about why 5th century BCE Athenians placed such emphasis on performance and display (yeah, I know...even I wonder why I'm studying this sometimes).  I went through all the source material and made a ton of notes, just bullet points and page references, then started drawing my map, starting with the cloud in the middle, then the Parthenon bubble at the top and working my way round.  The original was a lot messier as I had to join together things that were not next to each other, but the effect it had on me was amazing.  I started writing the essay and found that all I had to do was pick a place to start (I picked the Parthenon again, for ease) and work my way round, incorporating as many bubbles and sub-bubbles as I could.  And it worked!  The essay almost seemed to write itself!  The hardest part was making sure all my references and bibliography were in An Acceptable Format (it seems to change from course to course, which doesn't help). 

So today's lesson learnt is that it's all about the prep.  Do the legwork and the rest becomes a lot easier!  It took me less time to write the essay than it did to do all the background work, and this makes me wonder whether this might apply to fiction writing too.  If I were to plan out every single detail of a story, perhaps even draw a mind map and/or timeline, would the story be more inclined to write itself?  It's got to be worth a try...  ;o)
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Admitting defeat...

I wonder what you thought this post would be about when you saw the title?  What am I giving up on?  Writing?  Of course not.  Reading?  Definitely not!  Studying?  No...though it is related to that. 

My next Classical World assignment is due this Friday, however because I wasn't able to keep up with the study schedule over Christmas, I've only just finished studying the relevant chapters.  This essay is longer and more complex than any previous ones, so it's going to take some serious planning and research - it's not one I can just pick out some relevant quotes from the material and blag my way through it (which I'll admit, I have done before).  So I had to ask for a week's extension in order to be able to give it the time I need to do the question justice. 

You might not agree that asking for an extension equates to anything remotely as dramatic-sounding as 'admitting defeat', but I can honestly say that I have never failed to meet a deadline when it comes to studying.  Right through school and university (the physical one I went to after finishing school, not a distance learning one like this), I always prided myself on my time management and how I never had to give excuses for failing to hand something in on time, like other students often did.  I would have been so ashamed to admit that I wasn't up to speed with where I should be.  I still take pride on delivering things on time, so to have to admit that I can't do that on this occasion is really difficult for me, even though my tutor was very understanding about it. 

Of course, the essential difference is that I'm now studying alongside a full-time job.  I think that I often forget that it won't be as easy as when I was a teenager/20-something and all I had to do was turn up to a few lectures a week, with the rest of my time free to do all the background reading, research and essay writing at my leisure.  So perhaps it's not so much a case of admitting defeat, as accepting reality.  And learning not to beat myself up about it so much.  I've started on the research for this essay today, and by this time next week I hope that it will be almost finished, with just the final touches to complete.  Wish me luck! 
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Frustration...

Our snow (such as it was - it never got beyond about an inch deep) has gone and today's predicted fall never came, so my hope that I would be able to sit at the table and gaze out at a beautiful winter wonderland somewhat fell through.  It's probably a good thing though as the more my eyes are looking out the window, the less they are looking at the laptop! 

Kicked off today with some studying - I was able to finish the first section of the 'Fifth Century Athens' block, which seemed to go on forever, so am now only one week behind schedule instead of two (argh!).  Refueled with a sausage butty and it was on to some writing.  I was hoping to re-channel my 'NaNo' frame of mind and put myself Into The Zone where the words just flowed, but it didn't quite work out.  I suspect that my husband going through the TV listings magazine for the Christmas period and asking me whether I'd want to watch this, that or the other did not help.  Seriously, I love him and all, but he does not assist with getting the creative vibes going in the room.  I need to be alone to write!  :oS

Anyway, that aside I did manage to get about 400 words down towards Project NaNo, bringing the new total to 10,471.  The next 10k day has been scheduled for next Wednesday (15th) so I will definitely take that up again (it was great fun last time, as well as productive!).  I just need to remember to send hubby off on some sort of mission for the day.  Perhaps he could do his Christmas shopping? 

Wishing you a warm and productive week! 
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The results are in...

As the UK is in the grip of what seems to be The Worst Winter Ever And It's Only The First Of December, I write to you from within a huge jumper, thick trousers and fingerless gloves.  No, I'm not outside, I'm in my living room (with the fire on!) but once my fingers get cold it takes an awful lot to bring them back to life.  For every ten minutes I sit here writing, I feel like I need to spend five minutes huffing on them.  But enough about my rubbish circulation...

Yesterday was the final day of NaNoWriMo and as you can see from my little blue box on the left, I did not make it to the 50,000 finish line.  I'm very happy with just over 10k though as it's much more than I've ever been able to produce in such a relatively short space of time before now.  The feeling that all you need to do is just sit and write whatever comes out of your head is really liberating and on the sessions I was able to sit and do it, I did get quite swept up in it.  Now I have eleven months to think of an idea that I can use for next year's NaNo...  ;o)

Today I've been catching up with some studying.  I got the mark back from that last essay that I was stressing about - 72%!  Hopefully for the next one I'll have a bit more confidence, given that my tutor obviously thinks I'm better at this than I do.  We've moved on from Homer now to fifth century BCE Athens - the foundations of democracy and all that kind of thing.  I've been reading about Athenian theatre and listened to a play called Persians by Aeschylus.  It's not a cheery way to spend an hour, I can tell you - there's a lot of wailing and lamenting and 'aiaiai'-ing!  I'm sure that once I get a bit further into the study block it will become more apparent how this links to Greek society and so forth. 

Persians and the associated coursebook reading has taken up most of the day, but I've also been doing some tweaking to the blog, trying to make it more what I would want to see if I were a reader.  I hope it doesn't feel too cluttered, I don't know how (or if it's even possible) to make the main section wider so that things would be more spread out.  Hmm, maybe I need to add Blogger for Dummies to my collection...

Lastly I just want to share two links with you.  I saw them while browsing some other blogs today and they just made me laugh, hopefully you will too! 

Nine Circles (credit to Nathan Bransford as it's his blog)

Awesome Bookshelf System (credit to John Baker as it's his blog)

Best wishes - stay warm!

Picture from here

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Kidnapped by Homer

Sigh.  I had plans to forge ahead with Project NaNoWriMo today, however Homer (he of ancient times, not he of The Simpsons) had other ideas.  Somehow, yet another assignment deadline has rolled round and I have 1000 words to write by November 19th about either A) the theme of 'virtue' in the Iliad, or B) the relevance of material evidence (i.e. pots, statues etc) to the society which Homer wrote about.  ARGH! 

I love studying, I really do - acquiring new knowledge is a most amazing feeling, even if it's not very useful in a practical sense.  But when it comes to assignments and being tested on that knowledge I go into panic mode.  I've never missed a deadline or failed to submit something, but I always feel that what I've managed to scrape together is terrible (is there a theme here? this sounds like my other posts!) but will have to do, then when I get the mark back I'm generally pleasantly surprised.  I felt this way about the final assignment for my last full-length course and I ended up getting 98% for that!!  I suppose that as with most things in life, it comes down to confidence and self-belief.  I need to believe that I know enough about this subject and am a competent enough academic writer to put it into words. 

Not that I got as far as putting it into words today.  I'm going with option A but have spent all day researching for it so that I have something to write.  There's a tutorial this Saturday where my geographical study group will meet up for a couple of hours, so I'm hoping to get some additional inspiration from there.  Fingers crossed anyway! 

Trojan Horse, http://www.canakkale.gov.tr/eng_twoeast_westwar.htm

Incidentally, the mark came back for the last assignment that I was complaining about (ha ha!) - 75%, which equates to a B grade in Open University grading.  Not too shabby! 
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I like days like these...

Greetings readers!  You'll have to imagine me beaming at you down the cables (? airwaves? fibre optics?) as today has been a really productive day! 

Not only have I done some writing (Project Blake - police/forensic) but I've also finally finished my archaeology course AND caught up to where I should be on my Exploring the Classical World course.  HURRAH!!  I can't say I'm sad to finish the archaeology - though I love the general idea of it, I've learnt that I'm not really made for the science side of things, I think I'd be more the anthropologist who comes along to look at the stuff after they've dug it up and cleaned it, and work out whose it was, what it was for etc.  But hey ho - I gave it a try and that's what life's all about isn't it? 

Classical World though is another thing altogether, I love it!  You may remember that last week I was doing my first assignment (still no result back by the way :o( ) about Homer's Odyssey, well this week looked at the 'prequel' poem the Iliad, which is just as fascinating, all about the Trojan War.  It's about 25,000 lines long so we don't study all of it (thank goodness!), just a variety of extracts, but all the same it's so thought-provoking to consider and learn about an era from so long ago.  Having been there last year and seen it first-hand, I can't wait to get to the blocks about ancient Rome! 

Totally unrelated to either writing OR studying, but taking up a semi-large chunk of the day - hubby and I also sorted out our greenhouse ready for winter (the frosts have started already here), so my tomato and pepper plants are now safely housed in the conservatory away from rain, wind and cold.  Here's to the stir fry their produce will eventually end up in!  :oD

Until my first proper 'Booklog' post on Sunday, goodbye and have a great week! 
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Homer...but not THAT one

Hello!  Well you'll be pleased to know that I have done some writing today instead of playing Wii...however it's been in the form of the first essay for my new Open University course, rather than any of my projects.  It was unavoidable though, as the deadline is midday this Friday and because I'm out at work at that time, I have to upload it on Thursday night.  So I have even less time available!

Fortunately it is only a 500 word essay - a critical review of an extract of Homer's Odyssey (an epic read, to say the least!).  However because it's only 500 words I have to be pretty picky with which ones I use.  That's one of the benefits of these courses, they do teach you how to be economical and efficient with words, getting your meaning across in the most concise way possible.  Of course fiction does require a little more than that to stop it from becoming dry and lifeless, but the idea is the same.  Pretty much all the writing advice books I've ever read have mentioned at some point the fact that however many words you put into your first draft, you'll need to take a good percentage of them out to make it into something that an editor/agent/publisher would consider. 

This makes me think of the problem I have whereby I self-edit as I go along.  I seem to be trying to take out words before I've even got them all down!  Maybe what I need to do is try to be as wordy and waffly as possible (in the safe knowledge that any or all of it can be removed later) so that I can steam through and make proper progress with the story, instead of hanging around at the beginning worrying about the small stuff.  I wonder whether there is any way of flicking my brain into this mode..? 

Thanks for reading!  Knowing I have to write to you every week is very motivating - even if (as today) I didn't do any project work, it can be quite thought-provoking to consider how what I have done can relate back to writing. 

Have a great week! :o)
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