Completion - Fiction & Reading into Writing Modules

Happy New Year to one and all. I'm still a bit dizzy from the festivities (though I was the nominated driver and drank nothing). We attended a formal dinner at a lovely French restaurant - Frere Jacques - along the river in Kingston upon Thames, only to discover it had gone a little down market for celebration time. Initially we moved the tat, party hats, poppers, streamers, cheap wind-up cars, bowl filled with tiny coloured balls and two multi-coloured blowpipes - yes, blowpipes! We felt certain that no one would take up this rather mental idea of wearing hats and parping at each other. We were all civilised adults (excepts for the kids, and even they'd dressed up).

So it was, by 10pm December 31st, we realised we'd been sat in the worst of all places. Two factions had been established between the right and left sides of the restaurant, and we were smack bang in the middle, taking flack from both sides. The coloured balls were tightly wound spitballs, meant for use in the blowpipes! We needed cover and we needed vengeance for being pelted on the heads.

When those dining outside felt the need to come to the doorway and join in, I ducked under the table and began retaliatory fire (you can fire up to four spitballs and once from those things, you know). I quickly discovered that from my mostly-safe vantage point on the floor, a pillar at my back and a line of tables and chairs to protect my front I took advantage of rebound shots - being able to judge the right point at which to fire a volley and ricochet it off the ceiling.

Similarly amusing then was to fire on the waiters and waitresses who had served up the most exquisite Breast of Pheasant with grilled Portobello Mushroom, Red Onion compote honey-roasted Parsnips and Rosemary Jus, and a divine Rack of Lamb: Roti Dijonnaise,Gratin Dauophinois & sautéed Salsifi with Red Wine Jus (naturally I had to finish Laura's meal off), and who were still stuck with taking orders for drinks and having to dart back and forth across the battlefield.

My knees were scuffed up something rotten and I've never spent so much time scrabbling around on a restaurant floor fighting an 8 year-old child for control of spitballs!

Anyhoo, on with the writing:

I have just packaged and posted my two module assignments and am now looking ahead to the Professional Development module (still much to do, and much to be done while away in New Zealand - side note: you can catch up with our antics over at http://discovernewzealand.blogspot.com where I will be blogging about our travels).

So, in the meantime, you can catch up on what I've been doing for the past four months over on my website's NAW page, or you may wish to peruse the module's pdfs:

Reading into Writing
You can now read the full short story of Morgan le Fay (that I have been badgering on about for weeks).

• Morgan le Fay and the Green Knight - Creative Response.pdf
  - A 3,000 word creative response to the Sir Gawain and the Green Knight text - the machinations of Morgana.
  
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Account of Literary Qualities.pdf
  - Assessing the literary qualities of the Sir Gawain text and how I've interpreted and utilised them in my response.
  
• Reading into Writing - 4 Reviews.pdf
  - Four reviews. Three of the four books we read on the course and one as chosen by myself.

Fiction
And included here is what was originally the opening to an urban-fantasy novel, and has now become a short literary story.

• Pride and Pretence.pdf
  - A 6,000 word short story on love, licentiousness and loss in the 1950s.
  
• Pride and Pretence - Commentary.pdf
  - A commentary on my short story, considering its conception, creation, placement, weaknesses and themes.