Thanks to 'Anonymous'

Well now, here's a pleasant surprise. I've got an audience; at least, an audience of one! 'Anonymous' kindly commented that I've got a great blog here and he's (I say he - could be she) going to bookmark me. Well stripe me pink! There I was in a hotel room in Palermo thinking - you know you should be keeping up this blog a bit more. And also admitting that I'm not producing the goods, creatively speaking, which is true and mostly due to the work and business life being a bit hectic at the moment. Anyways I looked at the blog to remind myself what I should be doing about it and, blow me down, there's a twinkling little '1' at the comments button. And what a pleasant surprise it was too. So, if a person is good enough to bookmark me then I should be good enough to give them something to look at - isn't it?

The thing is, and here come the excuses. I'm back in Dalmatia from Palermo and waiting for me when I got to the office was a large courier package containing all the good stuff from the Open University for my next project, viz: Level 1 'An Introduction to The Humanities'. The faint hope is that this might be the first step towards a degree, but that's too far down the road to get hung up about. Suffice it to say that with studying for the course and working full time it might be a bit of a stretch to promise to write creatively enough to satisfy the hopes of anyone who liked the foregoing posts. Which is just a cop-out really, isn't it. I know I should be at least keeping a journal. And there is no better place to keep it than here. But the question is begged, whenever I consider doing a journal on the blog; how personal can it be? Let's see what we can do. The least I can do is post the progress of my OU studies and this may interest those engaged in similar stuff to make encouraging remarks.

I did complete the 'Start Writing Fiction' short course and gained a pass mark and 10 academic points. I submitted 'The Right Thing' for my final Tutor-marked Assessment and, while it was successful enough, the tutor's comments made it clear that she did not feel it was a very strong story. There was a lack of tension, for example. It was clear from the beginning that the adoption would go ahead. Everybody liked each other, etc. etc. It was fair comment really and I took it on board.

So, at the moment I'm just back from the Palermo trip; There's a pile of stuff to catch up on at work, and another pile of stuff to catch up on from the OU. So I'd better get my finger out. And if you're wondering what Palermo was like, well I'll tell you. Boring, and littered with dog-shit, but don't let me put you off if you're intending to visit. There is a very good restaurant called the Lord Green and the wine was superb, so it wasn't all bad. I'm glad to be back in Dalmatia though.