For those of you in the dark, I am currently working in an emergency department about 60km inland of where I live. It’s a small town of maybe 10,000 souls, which is actually quite large for rural towns in this area.

Never where I thought I’d find career satisfaction

I have seen some pretty cool things, some really gross things and some really sad things. But the common thread they all have is the people who come in and tell me their stories. Because they really do. Obviously, I can’t share them with you because that would be a breach of confidentiality which is a big no-no, but for the most part, so many of the patients I have seen are quite happy to tell me their whole life stories. Actually, one woman decided she was going to whether I had time to listen or not and she literally said “Well, it all started on the day I was born…”. Some of the stories are lovely, others… not so much. But they entrust them to me anyway and I thank them for it.

In the meantime, I submitted my first creative writing assignment for my second degree. I got some fairly decent constructive criticism on that, which I will build upon to resubmit one of the pieces in a few weeks. I got marked terribly for my poem, which is totally unsurprising. I just can’t get into poetry. Since I wrote it in 10 minutes under the baleful glare of a university tutor instead of taking notes, I’m really not too bummed about it. My monologue was good, but read more like an internal monologue apparently. On reflection, I guess it did, but I also cheated on that one and made it a monologue from Roxy which I intend on using. To me, the intent was clear, but since I wrote it, duh. My short story on the other hand was very interesting and touched on a number of themes which needed clearing up, but was a very strong piece and clearly I write best in prose (duh again). Let me get something out in the open here – when I write, I do not write themes, I do not write to convey a moralistic message and I certainly do not write to make social commentary. I dislike writers who do that intentionally and I often laugh at people who like to search for hidden meanings in things they read – why not just enjoy the damn story? After reading his comments however it seems this particular piece, however unintentionally, did exactly that. I found this very surprising.

I’ll post it up when I clear it up and after I receive my final mark, however here’s a little hint of what it’s about: I wrote a short story for Billie-Jo here. Cross that with this:

1984 – Quoted by pseudointellectual hipsters trying to be cool since, forever.

….. and you may get some sort of an idea.

So sci-fi is a pretty new area for me. Traditionally I’m a fantasy reader, although I write predominantly chick-lit mystery books, probably because I am totally bored with the fantasy genre and TVTropes ruined me.