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algy
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Re: Final Major Project
Done that with the FMP bit of it. The ducking thing can burn for all I care.
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5/2/2008, 9:21 pm
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algy
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Re: Final Major Project
Have you given yourself a week off from it recently? Do you have time to do so? If you're considering switching I'd assume you do. Take a week off, read a novel for nothing other than pleasure, and come back refreshed and newly inspired.
In this way you're using a novel for your own benefit. Try to find one that's very different to your own style. For instance I'm reading Love in the Time of Cholera. This is written very differently to mine as I like short snappy sentences and fast paced prose. As the Dude would say I'm 'into that brevity thing.' Losa's novel is unashamedly Written at times, but his discipline holds strong when he needs it to. Basically it's a book that provides me with both distraction and inspiration.
Stick with it!
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5/3/2008, 8:18 am
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Edge44
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Re: Final Major Project
quote:
algy wrote:
Have you given yourself a week off from it recently? Do you have time to do so? If you're considering switching I'd assume you do. Take a week off, read a novel for nothing other than pleasure, and come back refreshed and newly inspired.
I've rather embarrasingly had a lot more than a week off, and read numerous novels in that time. My problem is compounded by my novel writing lecturer speaking highly of "...the intelligence of my work..." and then having my script lecturer trying to talk me into changing my main from novel to script because I have a good visual style of writing for that medium, not to mention a decent idea for a film.
The main issue with my novel is that my lecturer thinks the horror conventions that I'm employing (I'm writing a science fiction / horror piece) are: 1) undermining the previously mentioned intelligenge of the plot and theme; 2) might not get the final grade that it deserves because of certain lecturers' (they're all published and highly regarded in their fields) prejudices towards the horror genre!
This causes me problems because I want my cake and to eat it; I want a high final MA grade and also a novel that has a better than average chance of marketability.
quote:
algy wrote:
In this way you're using a novel for your own benefit. Try to find one that's very different to your own style. For instance I'm reading Love in the Time of Cholera. This is written very differently to mine as I like short snappy sentences and fast paced prose. As the Dude would say I'm 'into that brevity thing.' Losa's novel is unashamedly Written at times, but his discipline holds strong when he needs it to. Basically it's a book that provides me with both distraction and inspiration.
Stick with it!
Are you saying that Losa wrote LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA? I thought it was Gabriel García Márquez?
Speaking of Llosa, though, read AUNT JULIA AND THE SCRIPTWRITER - it's a beautiful, beautiful piece of writing.
Last edited by Edge44, 5/3/2008, 11:52 am
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5/3/2008, 11:49 am
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algy
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Re: Final Major Project
Whoops, mixing my South American authors. Yes, it was Marquez and I've read Aunt Julia. Very good it was too.
As for the novel thing, do you have time to write it twice? Once with and once without the horror twist. The you would have the best of both worlds. Go on, you know you want to 
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5/3/2008, 12:07 pm
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Edge44
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Re: Final Major Project
Yeah, it's that time thing again, As you may be aware, there's already not enough hours in the day or days in the week, or at least, that's how I feel. That cake and eat it thing I mentioned in my earlier post, well it's like that with everything I do; even if I continue with novel as my main subject on the MA, I also want to spend time simultaneously developing my film script. Then there's the two jobs that I presently have (but I'm hoping that by September I'll only have one job, although the hours may still be the same), and, of course, the family. Do I sound like a depressed moaner? Well, sorry if I do, but I'm not; these are simply the facts.
When I take a distant perspective on everything, it becomes clear that my main issue is whether to take my Novel Tutor's advice and rewrite how he thinks it should be done, or ignore him and go with my own instincts and write it the way I originally envisioned it. That's the choice I'm struggling with. Changing my main from novel to script is just a bail out option in case I simply can't make the decision. And I'm sure that if I do change to script, I'm probably going to come up against the same problem somewhere along the development.
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5/4/2008, 12:24 pm
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algy
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Re: Final Major Project
Time. Mmm...
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5/4/2008, 7:53 pm
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Edge44
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Re: Final Major Project
quote:
algy wrote:
Time. Mmm...
Mmm.. yes, time. Kids have lots of it, but the older we get, the quicker time passes. We could look at that, but the theory, as interesting as it is, is simply mind boggling
Actually, you could ask Paul Roberts about the subject of time. Like me, he has a keen interest in the theories behind the workings of time. Einstein is one of my heroes, hence my signiture below...
Last edited by Edge44, 5/4/2008, 9:15 pm
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5/4/2008, 9:11 pm
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algy
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Re: Final Major Project
Is the final grade of your MA more important than the future success of your novel? I assume you're gonna pass the thing so does it matter if you do it with distinction?
If you're confident that your book would be a viable commercial product (now there's a term to shatter illusions) wouldn't your own creativity be a more sound investment in the long run?
I suppose it's similar to the question of critical acclaim over financial reward: am I bovvered? We'll never know till we know, but money could make misery pretty comfy while pride doesn't pay the mortgage.
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5/5/2008, 9:14 am
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Fitzgerald Fortune
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Re: Final Major Project
quote:
algy wrote:
Is the final grade of your MA more important than the future success of your novel? I assume you're gonna pass the thing so does it matter if you do it with distinction?
If you're confident that your book would be a viable commercial product (now there's a term to shatter illusions) wouldn't your own creativity be a more sound investment in the long run?
With my PhD, I've got my eye on two drafts simultaneously: one is intended to be submitted for my PhD, and the other is being drafted as a more colloquial study that my supervisor claims should easily find a publisher--someone like Faber & Faber. I could rewrite the text in a slightly more lurid fashion and hawk it over to someone like FAB Press, if the Faber & Faber thing doesn't turn out right. Or I could add a little more biographical criticism and try selling it to Manchester University Press. I've still got my MA thesis to try to sell, because I crafted that for a few different publishers. It's in circulation with a few people in America, as I sent it to someone in the film business who absolutely loved it. However, I want to get my PhD finished yet.
Which raises another issue: the notion of a 'commercial product' is loaded, because often these things have to be tailored to the specific publishers' prejudices. The same thing goes with competitions: whenever I managed to win short story competitions (back when I had the time to enter such things), it was because I had accounted for the prejudices of the judges. If you wrote a short story for a parochial regional competition, you would select different subject matter and a different lexis to if you were entering a national competition organised by, say, a company like Penguin. You wouldn't enter the same story into both competitions, or if you did you would have to rewrite it from the bottom up. All of which is to say that the generic, catch-all label 'viable commercial product' is a misnomer: such a thing doesn't exist--texts have to be tailored according to the prejudices of the judges or publishers (what publishing people call 'house style', because the word 'prejudice' has such negative connotations). So there isn't a tension between what Mark's being asked to do for his MA and what publishers may want.
Also, don't assume that it's easy to pass an MA: there's a huge difference between an undergraduate degree's threshold and the threshold required at MA level. When I studied for my MA, there was something like a 30 or 40% failure rate for English-related MAs: admittedly, there was less of this current, 'Oh, they've paid their fees so we're automatically going to pass them' mentality, and there was less (or, at that level, no) pressure from the government to pass every student. My advice to Mark would be to complete your MA to the best of your ability, and then redraft the thing from the bottom up.
That said, when I drafted my novel ten years or so ago, I gave it to some people and got some very positive feedback, but because I wasn't happy with it I pulled it to pieces and started writing it again. Let's just say that ten years later, the revised draft still isn't finished. (Then again, it's a very big project.) I'm hoping to have a complete second draft finished by the time I reach fifty 
--- 'Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy'.
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5/5/2008, 10:34 am
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