Under the Influence

Last week we covered imagination and the influence of alcohol, drugs and mental illness (my lecturer referred to the latter as madness which annoyed me). I have always been interested in the relationship between mental health and writers. A useful handout showed us the number of writers, artists and musicians who had suffered from depression and bi-polar but to be honest, as mental health affects one in four if us, it would probably be the case that one could identify a number of 'famous' people in any category of employment that had had mental illness at some point in their life.
I have started researching my coursework (a critical essay, creative piece and critical commentary - 6,000 words) and am getting happily lost in it. It isn't due until January but I do not want to be doing it at the last minute.

Voice

I have neglected my blog for a couple of weeks due to the fact that work is busy and lectures have started again. Last week I did a piece based on Shklovsky which involved taking a familiar object or process and de-familiarising it. I made cooking bacon and eggs a very mystical and lyrical experience! This week we looked at 'voice', including parody and pastiche. Homework this week is to look more closely at our own voice. I have to say that this would have been nigh on impossible a couple of years ago. It is only now with exploration and practice that I can step back from what I want to write and think about how I want to write it.