I’ve been quite in the last few weeks, mainly because I’ve been very, very busy. I’m back at university for my final year, I’m writing a new novel (and sending queries for another), writing short stories, writing reviews, and going over editorial suggestions sent it by my fantastic editors. And then there’s StarShipSofa, which is a mountain of work, but one that I’m happy to do.

And this isn’t even taking into consideration all my university work, and boy, there’s a ton of it.

It’s almost ironic, really. I’m sitting in a “Creative Writing” lecture, listening to my teacher warble on about document writing, metafiction and the blurring of nonfiction and fiction through experimental prose and what have you, and I’m sitting with my friend/beta reader, exchanging feedback for novels and sending stories to magazines. By the time my teacher starts reading out from a “book”, I’m busy signing a contract and going over suggested edits made by one of my many editors.

I hate to say it, but writing and reading short stories (as well as novels, of course!), listening to podcasts and reading author blogs, has taught me more than any lecture ever has. And to top it off, this is all practical. Most of university content is not. I’m telling you now, no lecture has showed me how to write a query letter, or how to format a manuscript, or how to submit a short story. I learned that all on my own.

But long story short (heh) I’m ridiculously busy, and it’s killing me. The only reason I can even type this out is before I’m printing out pages of a reading that I have to do an assessment on. I’ve glanced at it, and I honestly want to cry. It baffles me that people can actually cook up this garbage, let alone think it’s so profound that we as students should study it. And this isn’t fiction. Oh no, that would be too easy. This is about film philosophy and film psychology, the incredibly dense stuff. It’s a bleeding nightmare.

And I just want it to be over.

So I’m going to go back to it now. This is my last year and I’m going to charge my way through it if I have to. But if I do happen to get an agent, I’d be willing to drop everything immediately and give it my all. It’s just getting to that point.

But until then, I’ll be suffering through this…