what now?

What indeed? The Major Project submitted, a pass awarded, subject to the Programme Board of Examiners’ meeting in September.

Completing something is never how I anticipate it will be. Relief is tempered by tiredness. Elation modified by knowing it’s up to me now, as, of course, it always has been. Immediate actions include visiting neglected relatives and contacting friends who might need reminding who I am and catching up with a million tedious chores I can no longer justify ignoring.

Nicer aspects include visits to the movies without feeling obliged to analyse them for inciting incidents or turning points; guilt-free telly, no inner voice summoning me to my desk to dig deep for an original idea, a noble objective, an application of theory to practice - never cracked that one.

In fact, the closest I got to communing with literary theory was devising a character called Bakhtin. Bakhtin is a cat, whose owner exemplifies heteroglossic speech. (Please don’t anticipate an explanation). No doubt my quirky humour ruffled a few proverbial feathers – before Bakhtin got to them. If I were a writer of Salman Rushdie’s standard and repute, I might have been considered blasphemous. Instead I’ll settle for disrespectful. Hey ho.

Oddly enough, I have some fantasy of waking up one morning on a desert island, and wishing the one book I’d chosen to accompany me in my newly-acquired solitary existence was Norton’s Anthology of Theory and Criticism. It would make a change from the Bible or the complete works of Shakespeare or A.A. Milne. Or has someone already selected this particular Norton? Anyway, this is all highly academic (seriously unintended pun), as I’m unlikely to be selected for Desert Island Discs. And even if I was, I’ve a long way to go before being able to read Norton without a truck-sized dictionary and packet of paracetamol.

Enough on the subject. I don’t want to be brutally roused from my slumbers one autumnal noon to discover the Western equivalent of a fatwa on my unsullied head.

Imagine the headline: Student hounded out of UK for irreverent dig at literary theorists: creative writer under 24 hour police protection. When given a choice of new identity, student asked to become a cat. Jane Riddell has gone on record as saying her creation of a cat called Bakhtin was self-deprecating, alluding to her inability to relate literary theory to writing practice, and imploring critics to believe no offence to literary theory purists was intended. “ I am more than happy to change the cat’s name to Foucault or Saussure,’ Jane said, her hand then flying to her mouth. “But they’re linked with literary theory, aren’t they? God, I am useless.”

But I digress and this won’t do. What comes next after the Masters? Finding a mentor is high on my ‘to do’ list - a list that expands rather than shrinks. Locating a not-too-pricey room to rent two days a week purely for writing. I’ve done that before and it works. Networking, a buzz word, one I’ve tended to deride, partly through laziness and partly through a cynicism telling me such activity is an excuse for a piss-up or meal out at an institution – and ultimately the taxpayer’s - expense. So I will join writers in pubs to talk earnestly about writing and listen out for relevant opportunities.


I will carry on exchanging work with other writers, both those who’ve known my writing for years, and ones relatively new to it. I will have business cards printed, with my butterfly logo suggesting cross-fertilisation of ideas (thank you, Masters, wouldn't have thought of that a year ago), my writing CV polished and brimming with confidence and as yet untapped potential ( finally I accept the value of bullshitting: needs must, blah, blah, blah), ready to send off where appropriate. I will continue blogging, a marvellous warm up to a day’s writing, the verbal equivalent of a blast of farts, in terms of satisfying release. I will lunch regularly with writing friends/friendly writers.

I will continue to swim frequently. And I will persevere with zumba dancing, trying not to flash too many envious looks at svelte participants, knowing that if there's any justice, one day I will look less porcine.

And very soon, dear patient reader, I will resume work on one of my many writing projects.


Truthfully yours


Jane