Just in case you’re wondering where the hell I’ve been, well, I want to tell you that I’m still here. For the past few weeks I was just having the perfect combination of work and assignments (and dates) and hence, I didn’t feel like writing.
Everything is slowing down this week though – work will always be there but now I really have time for it. Studies? I have just finished my first batch of assignments so I can assure you that there will be no more until at least the next three weeks.
I can breathe.
I know, I might have been too hard on myself. I spent days and weeks doing assignments, looking at a report a billion times before I finally submitted it. I stressed about it (a bit), and I really, really wanted to get good grades for my first assignments’ batch.
Why?
It’s my first semester – my first time back to university after a year (and a half) of working. I really want to know whether I can cope – whether I can still do it.
Of course, I wouldn’t know my performance until about three weeks, so there is no harm in having fun first, right?
On another note, one subject brings me to my knees.
Learning about copyediting makes you believe that everything you know prior to this subject is a lie.
A big, fat lie.
The rules you are taught back in primary school? Lies. The grammar skills you possess and believe is 100 per cent right? Lies. The things you think you know about writing? Lies.
If writing is hard, writing well is even harder.
This semester I took the subject Editorial English. There, we are to buy an expensive ‘concise’ Macquarie Dictionary and a Style Manual for authors and editors. Soon after, I’ve got a headache. Writing and editing well is harder than I thought.
There are more rules about the use of hypens, em dash, en dash, open en dash, commas, colons, semicolons and quotation marks than I know exist. Basically, there are rules in writing everything. While I fancy myself as a writer, I finally know that I really know nothing.
Welcome to the real world, Marcella. Let’s see if this subject makes your writing better.
Photo by Etienne
