Despite Life telling me “You’re a Writer. Deal with it and get on with being published.”  I still need to put food on the table, while I am writing.

So I went over my CV.

Hmm, not looking too good at the moment.

While I am registered with a Supply Agency and working part-time, what I really need is a full-time permanent job in my local area. And with my teaching and degree qualifications getting older and older, that’s going to be a difficult prospect.

So I decided to find a course to update both my teaching skills as well as my Design & Technology Skills. I checked out my local college and found a part-time Art & Design GCSE as well as an evening course in PGCE Further Education and Adult Learning.

Brilliant! I thought. I can study and work at the same time.

So I applied… and promptly forgot about it

Yesterday, I had a letter from the college, inviting me to an interview for the Art & Design GCSE. It bore the phrase that strikes fear into many an artist and Designer…

“Please bring a portfolio of your work to the interview.”

Panic Stations!

Out come my sketch pads and graphic tools. I sit and stare at the blank page feeling slightly sick  (I’m sure all Writers and Artists will understand that feeling!) and tentatively sketch out a few shapes of an abstract.

Puff (my dragon writing muse) bows and makes way to his best friend, Stardust (my unicorn Art & Design Muse) who smiles and gently guides my pencils. Finally I am finished and this is what had appeared on the page:

I’m not exactly sure what Stardust was thinking, but the moment my son saw the picture he said “That’s a good duck, mummy.”

I just smiled and gave him a cuddle.

As I’m not majorly artistic, I thought I would have another go and started to sketch what was in front of me. While it turned out quite well, I really can’t put it up on here – it’s a little too obvious what I was thinking at the time! *blushes*

So, in the spirit of  “If at first you can’t succeed…” I gave up for a bit. I had Brownies to go to, so I would have had to stop anyway.

When I got back, I tried again.

This time I began sketching my favourite candle stick:

I’m about halfway through this one – The amount of detail on the candle stick is mind boggling and it’s really tricky to get the proportions right!

What has this taught me? 

Well apart from telling me that I have a very wierd mind, it’s shown me that my creativity doesn’t just run to writing. Yes, I’m a (relatively) good writer and people like my work, but I’m also creative in completely different ways! I can draw(sort of), I can knit and I can design jewellery, accessories and cards!

No wonder my mind is strange – it has all these ideas in there, swirling around and getting confused… and distracting me.

And that brings me to another thing I like to do. I like to write guest posts for other people’s blogs.

Recently, I did a post for a friend’s blog on “The Relevance of Sex in Literature in 2011”. I really enjoyed it, simply because I had to think about what I was writing and choose my words carefully. It was a lesson in the Craft of Writing, rather than the Art of Writing.

I’ve been asked to do another guest post for the same blog, this time on violence, and already my friend Puff is fluttering around excitedly and whispering ideas.

The Topic is  “Violence in Literature. When is enough, enough?” and will be running throughout the month of August. My post is the very last one – 31st August – so I have a little while to work on it!