When writing is SO hard

I spent hours last night trying to do my homework for my basic journalism course tomorrow.

We've been given the chronological events of a story and we have to write it up for a 'tabloid' paper and a 'quality' paper.

I'm supposed to be doing it now goddammit, not fecking blogging, but I can't. It's sooooooooo hard.

I've no experience of these markets, though years ago I did get some features published in a tabloid magazine. The stuff I've sent to 'quality' papers.... well they're not good enough to be even passed to subs for a good clear up and tweak here and there.

I thought Bazza's Boot Camp would clear my head. No chance. Housing, housing, that 'four way' meeting next week, council fucking council. Miraculously my body did as it was told and I got through the class. But flipping hell, while I couldn't stop thinking, I had a thought:

"Stigmum, could you just piss off."

I can write on this blog - badly, not badly it hardly matters. Why can I write? Well because it's not me is it, it's Stigmum.

I am her subject and she knows me back to front and inside out. She's the one who chooses what I write, like this for example.

If I want to write something, I dunno, like scheduling Mad Men and Desperate Housewives at the same time or the ducks dancing on ice on Hampstead pond, it gets passed over for something else.

Right now, I want to do my homework, but she's dragged me on here by the pony tail, because writing, or being a writer has been a topic in blogland this week.

So yes, I'm struggling, really struggling, to write a news story.

I'm also worried I'll make a right dog's ear of it (the Black Dog has descended following yesterday's post so that's a bit of a pun....)

I wish I was like her and didn't give a flying fairy cake what I wrote, but I'm not, I do care. Alot. Because I care, I think. Too much.

"Chill out," she's saying. "It's a basic news writing course. You're doing the right thing. Who cares if you're rubbish, you've been away from it for years. I won't be here forever, you have to start thinking of your future."

I don't like that thought stiggers, you not being here forever.

"Oh you know what I mean. Now switch off your laptop, settle down on the carpet with a pencil and a piece of paper and start with the 'quality' piece. Dash off the 'tabloid' in the morning, you played around with it enough last night. You never know, you may pull off something average and for a beginner's class, that's quite an achievement."

Oh stiggers, what ever would I do without you?