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Finished!

On Wednesday, I got my final mark for the MA in Writing, earning a 60 for my Final Project. I have mixed feelings for about the mark, though I am sure it was the right one. I fell down on my grammar and that's annoying because I thought I had fixed everything.  Overall it means I have a Commendation, which suits me fine, I am perfectly happy with that and do wonder if the Black Bug Room is just stirring up trouble at the back of my head and making me irritated for the sake of it.  

What concerns me more is where I go now. I took the job I am doing now because I felt juggling study, work, looking for work and writing was too heavy a burden to bear. I had a really bleak episode last year, on the way back from an interview at Southampton University where I actually felt so numb, emotionally, that I wondered if it was worth continuing with anything. This prompted me to take the job I am doing now as a permanent place; but I do not have much affection for it, though I am fond of many of my co-workers. Especially the awkward squad of academics.  I do not want to stay, however, and there probably people reading this, rolling their eyes and saying 'yes, yes hurry up and go already' as I am not exactly shy about my mercenary nature anymore. 

It feels as if a lot of things are coming to a close, I am in a watershed between the past and the future and as I move forward I hope my path will become clear. The mountain is still there waiting to be conquered and I mean to do it. 

I would like to get into a job where I can write without feeling guilty about it and where I can do some thinking as I think that is a strength of mine. I also want something creative, too much bureaucracy is stifling and vexing and I don't have the kind of mind that copes well with lots of regulations. PhD is a possibility, but I am not sure. It feels fraught with possibility and with danger. I think I would be good at it (as I have been described as a 'natural academic' in the past) but I am conscious that it is a gamble, one with no guarantees of employment after it. And I would need funding. 

Creatively, the thing now is finishing Forest Brides and getting more stuff to market. I have Crows and Green and Grey to find homes for and would like to revisit The Games Master, the literary fiction story which may have been the real start of my falling out of love with RPGs. So it's goggles down and full speed ahead, into the bright new future. 

In the meantime, need any wordsmithing doing, guv?

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