Yatta!

I've had my results for my Second ETMA in Start Writing Fiction and grab on to something, I got 90% again.

I am naturally thrilled, thrilled because the second ETMA was much longer and had more potential to go wrong, and  also because I am consistent.  What I'm less thrilled about are the comments about comma splicing which I had worked quite hard at removing and had enlisted the help of Phil and Rob in order to try and reign in some of my wild fancies where punctuation is concerned. I need a punctuation guru to guide me because I'm clearly comma blind.  I keep wanting to lengthen sentences and clearly this must stop.

It is far too easy to focus on the bad, because I've done exceptionally well, 90% in such a subjective area has to be hard to come by.  Part of me is dying to know what the others got because inner competitor wants to see where I fit in the bell curve, the final overall grade will be issued mid-march after they have been moderated - I may loose marks then.

So where does this leave me? I know I can write effective stories and those friends who have read these stories have enthused at me about my writing. But again this makes me wibble as I wonder if people are just being nice...  (again rational brain has to step in here and say I've had impartial feedback from a few quarters which has been good though pointing out the commas).

1. I need to stop wibbling, gain confidence by writing more and writing regularly - by doing both of these things I can improve my style and learn where to commas should be and you know, add some full stops in too.

2. Join a writers group, need to find one locally and join, more pressure to write and present and get some interesting feedback and perspective.  Continue to make use of friends who can nit pick and question my decisions and make me make my work better. Rob made a fantastic point about my latest work where I had disengaged from the characters in the short story to drop in background info and he suggested featuring the characters in that background to make it more vivid.

3. Write more, write everyday if I can. Set weekly goals.

Things my tutor said were : This is another excellent read, Jane.  I absolutely raced through it, it was so gripping. Right from the start, I was pulled in. This is boring old Northampton but something strange and alien has happened. Then there is a steady build up of threat and good, detailed description of neglect and poverty.

You give just enough of the back story, bit by bit as we go along for us to understand what is happening but the reasons why you reveal slowly...

Your time shifts are neat and clear and your presentation good except that slight tendency still to link sentences with commas.  I've marked a few.  It can be 'pacey' in action scenes, but not as a regular feature.

I am ridiculously proud of myself, it is something that I can do ;)

If you'd like to read the story, it's found here.