A Month At Uni — My Thoughts
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Excuse the lack of posts the past month — I started my Associate Degree in Professional Writing and Editing. On top of having to move back to the city and reestablish myself, I haven’t really have had the time to write. However; today I have found myself some spare time and want to give my readers an update.
First, I want to say that I am enjoying the course so much. After COVID and being away from socialising, I really threw myself into it with this course — and have relished in it.
There is just something about being amongst writers again.
At the beginning of the course, I enrolled in every subject, including an Introduction to Editing class. Pretty quickly, I realised I may get an RPL (Regonised Prior Learning) for this class. This would come from my units. I did as part of my Diploma of Professional Writing and Editing. I received the RPL, and this has freed some time up during the week, and taken a lighter course load — at least until next semester.
In my diploma course, I had nonfiction units and loved them. During the course we touched on the genre of creative nonfiction, which also goes my the name of narrative nonfiction. This genre uses the elements of fiction to tell true stories. As there were a lot of ways to write nonfiction — we spent little time on creative nonfiction. This was a shame, as it was the genre that I wanted to specialise in.
The first nonfiction unit I am doing now, as part of my degree, focuses only on creative nonfiction. Though I know I have a long way to go, I am absolutely loving this unit. It is by far my favourite.
The one I am enjoying, but scared about the assignments, is my fiction writing unit. This is because as someone who writes nonfiction — thinking of an idea that is my own seems alien. I have ideas and get them, but that is as far as it goes most of the time. I must push myself a bit in order to get the 2 pieces ready for submitting — but I will get there.
What going back to uni has shown me is that I am a more advanced writer than I was 8 years ago, when I finished my diploma. When I did my diploma, I did not know what type of writer I wanted to be. When I did the diploma nonfiction course, I had an inkling that I would like creative nonfiction, but I didn’t get the chance to explore it fully.
Now, 8 years later, I know that being a creative nonfiction writer is exactly what I want to do. I am using this associate degree to essentially workshop my career and mould the course to fit the writing I want to write. Even though I won’t be writing fiction, how I am approaching the fiction units is to learn the elements so I can apply them to the creative nonfiction pieces that I write.
