STARTED back at uni on what the newspapers have decided is the most miserable day of the year.
Happily for me, I was presented with a brand new timetable for the second term that included the promise of much more free time. This term we will be focusing on features, so we’ve been given more scheduled hours off because these pieces will take longer to cultivate.
Still, I think if I’m organised enough I should have a bit more time to myself, especially now the patch report is done and dusted, so no more evening council meetings for me.
The assignments have already started flooding in, but it’s nice to be getting some lengthier articles to write. I found quite a lot last term that, for all the effort of coercing some poor soul into giving me an interview, only writing an end result of around 300 words was a bit soul destroying.
So, for next week, we are to write an 800-word feature in the style of the best of times/worst of times.
Haven’t done my interview yet, but it seems quite promising. I know the woman I’m talking to has a good turn of phrase which will hopefully turn into good quotes and I know that she is very talkative, but whether anything particularly dramatic has happened in her life is a risk I’m having to take.
As with so many of these assignments, the difficulty is finding someone willing to give up their time for you. By the time you’ve managed to do that, the writing of it becomes a pleasure in comparison.
We’ve been set another task for the weeks ahead described as ‘an issue-based feature’.
Not a lot more has been said – this is quite a vague and mysterious institution at times.
Laura xx
