Well, I got feedback on my first submission. The question required that I write a descriptive piece about somewhere I had been. So I wrote about Calderglen, using it as the setting for a fictional piece. It was descriptive in the extreme - you could feel the sunshine, smell the daffodils, hear the children playing.
My tutor wrote back explaining, in small words of not more than two syllables each, that I was supposed to be sticking to non-fiction at these point in the course. Except that was not made clear in the question, and, after some 6 years of tertiary education, I do read the question!
This should also reveal something else about me. I'm not good with criticism, which according to most articles on getting published, does not bode well going forward.
Well, I'm not too bad with constructive criticism from someone whose opinion I value. In theory, I am paying my tutor for her opinion, which gives it a rather quantifiable value. But in having stumbled at this very early hurdle, I am feeling the need for a little test.
My next assignment is to analyse a magazine of my choice and write an article that may be appropriate for publication. Here's what I plan to do. I'm going to pull out all the research stops to write a coherent, but completely boring, article about tea. If she criticises this one, I'll know that she has my best interests at heart - there'll be extra points for using the words 'dull' or 'boring'.
Petty? Absolutely.
Let's see what happens.
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2 comments:
Hi Good Woman! Your writing made me laugh out loud - and, since I'm a writer myself, and therefore highly critical of OTHER writing, this is high praise indeed. And I KNOW how you feel. I hate criticism, especially when they're wrong... and they always are... :)
Oh, about my blog, I promise we'll be sticking to Cape Town from now on. There'll be lots and lots of lovely pics of wintry Cape of Storms stuff to make you really really homesick...
So visit often! I'm going to subscribe to your blog right now - I can always do with a good smile, especially as I relate to your topic so very well...
If you really want to test your tutor, type out a published article by a well-respected writer, submit under your name, and see what happens. Yeah, so it's mean. But, oh, what fun.
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