September, September.

Wellll, it's 31st August 2009. I'm officially 16 days away from my awesome new life! Between now and moving back to Chester, however, I've got the dissertation to contend with. It's progressing quite nicely. I've got second drafts of all 3 chapters, which are *pretty much* down to the word count I wanted, I've nearly finished my introduction, and I have the majority of my bibliography and referencing done. Wooo. I've got to write my conclusion tomorrow, which is being attached to the end of my third chapter. This is good news: I hate conclusions, I think they're a waste of time and words. I think that if you've done your job properly in the essay/dissertation, then you shouldn't really have to summarise what you've done and what it's shown. Ho hum.

Had a look at the events list for Chester Literature Festival in October: it looks ace!! I'm excited about several of the events: there's a 'life writing' workshop that I'm going to go to, an open mic session, a book swap, and one of the Chester lecturer's reading his poetry. Should be really cool! The life writing one looks particularly interesting. I think I mentioned in a previous post that I like the whole cathartic writing thing. This opinion's been greatly reinforced by my reading some real life memoirs of depressed people: ie. Susanna Kaysen and Elizabeth Wurtzel. The link between mental disorders and writing is incredible. Not that I'm saying I have mental disorders. Not at all. Purely that everyone's got issues and, for me, writing poetry helps me figure them out in my head. It all comes down to organising disordered thoughts. I decided a few months ago that I'd try to write a haiku sequence. This is as far as I've got:

Fading in pastels:
guest-room shades remove life. I
apply foundation:

pale out tear marks.
The uneven carpet shakes:
Too much brushed beneath.

And yes, I know I went overboard with the colons. This is really, really personal to me. It's based on my parents' decorating 'my room' in their new house: I wanted to recreate my old bedroom with bright yellow walls and tiger print bedding, but they refused. The room was being used as a spare room, and therefore 'had' to be decorated in guest-room pastels. It now has kinda magnolia walls, a tulip border, daffodil print curtains, and white bedding. Anyone who knows me reasonably well will know that this is really not a style I'd have chosen. Anyhow, this sequence is basically about what I think may be a typical family situation: not addressing problems, just trying to cope with other things and get along. I quite like it so far, I think it's got something.

I think that having a really personal element in poetry or writing in general helps to distinguish it a bit. A lot of my poems are based on something I know, or I've thought about, rather than just random objects or whatever. It's cheaper than therapy! Joke. I think this life writing workshop will be really interesting, and will hopefully give me ideas on how to incorporate 'my stuff' into my poems without fears for crypticness or reader distancing. I'm looking forward to it :)