There is a cold wind blowing tonight, so I'm snuggled into my four-poster bed, burning Yankee Candle's All Is Bright which smells like fresh fallen snow and I'm sipping on an Irish Cream latte. While I usually study in silence, tonight I am playing The Box of Delights soundtrack CD in the background. It's a beautiful tinkling album of pure magic and it takes me back to my childhood, when I would rush home from school to watch the latest episode of the BBC's adaptation of this classic novel. The soundtrack from the series is just as enchanting, and it makes the perfect music to write to.
I have quite a lot of writing to do this week, so I've been in my study all day, getting a good start on all that needs to be done. There is lots of seminar prep to do for each week's university lectures. Every week our professors set a series of prep questions for us to answer online before the next seminar, and I find this to be one of the most enjoyable aspects of the course. It is a place where one's creativity can take flight, where strong opinions are openly encouraged, to be discussed later in the seminars.
This is very different from the five years I spent studying psychotherapy as an undergraduate, where we didn't really have prep to do in advance of a lecture, just a lot of essays to write. I do enjoy the prep and this post-graduate level of weekly commitment. I have always done my best work when I can work from home, because working from home is my happy place.
I can't tell you how much I am enjoying this course. It has been very inspiring and productive so far. It's great to spend time each week surrounded by people who are all interested in the same topics and everyone is so passionate and opinionated. This is great raw material for my writing as you can probably imagine!
Literature is a big discussion point as there is so much core reading to do. Studying set texts can be a bit boring at times. You're not reading to be entertained - you're reading to learn, so there is a lot of close reading involved, which is when you basically deconstruct a text, paragraph by paragraph and sentence by sentence, then formulate an argument and a critical opinion on it, section by section. It's intricate, complex and time consuming work.
This type of close reading is invaluable for me as a writer and it is something I have been doing naturally over the years as a result of working in publishing for so long. Close reading academically takes this skill to a whole new level and it informs one's writing, so in my opinion, it makes for a better author in the long term, because the more you learn the more you can bring to the page.
In addition to seminar prep, I also have two more assignments to get started on. I had three to write over Christmas and I was thrilled with my results as I got two Merits and a Distinction, which was a lovely surprise. I'm hoping to keep up this high level of marks across all my assignments, but there's a long way to go yet before the course is finished.
In the spring I will be moving to work in a different practice too, and only working one and a half days per week, as opposed to the two and a half days a week that I have been doing. This is a very positive move for me with fewer days in practice, so it leaves me more writing and studying time to get on with my assignments and writing commissions.
As for tonight, I still have my latest psychotherapy column to write and file in with my editor, so I'd best get cracking with that.
xxx
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