‘I’ll let my balloons go in the wind’, I said to Lynley Edmeades, the course co-ordinator of the Master of Creative Writing programme at the University of Otago in October of 2025. Late 2024, When I saw that the year-long thesis programme was first offered for 2025 I lovingly wrapped it in cellophane – so it remained visual in my mind, but safely put away in my pipe dream cupboard. Pipe dreams are what late nineteenth century opium smokers experienced and are hallucinatory in nature. Such dreams we experience in the eye of our minds, not in reality. But many suggest they can be insightful and take us beyond the mental fences we construct ourselves. This dream of mine crept further back into the cupboard as the year wore on.
Come the later part of 2025 I had been teaching 100-level Creative Writing for the English Programme for the last seven years. It was time to do something different yet I desperately needed an income. My various balloons were job applications and with encouragement from colleagues I was sitting in Lynley’s office discussing the Master’s programme that was under her nurturing wing. My 2026 would take a fatalistic reality of either; one, I obtain a worthwhile new job (income); two, I am accepted into the Master’s Programme (no income but what an awesome opportunity; or three, I do the same as I have done these last years with various university tutoring contracts. The Master’s option had a sub-heading. As I like to point out, ‘People with mortgages don’t indulge in expensive university fees’. No doubt there are situations where it can work but not in mine. In October however, what felt like an hallucinatory dream was my reading an advertisement for the 2026 course, which noted a full-tuition scholarship was on offer. I can’t tell you how many times I looked at this, and continue to look at it and still the reality of it won’t stick. The scholarship was for those studying digital narrative or game writing.
David Ciccoricco’s expertise includes digital fiction.I was to work with him in teaching Creative Writing When he first described digital fiction to me, my brain fluttered with glee at its possibilities. In business I enjoyed website work and my limited skills at using hyper-text language, revelling in the magic of journeying readers through a map of defined links and building in visual material that can add to meaning and experience. Imaginative writing and words I love, and for fiction this could add a whole new layer of creativity. A few years later I wrote my first digital fiction, Where Scorpions Fear to Tread.
Back to now. Numerous job applications followed by numerous rejection letters later, on 10 December Lynley wrote letting me know I had not only been accepted into the Master’s programme but also been awarded the scholarship. From all the low blows I had no expectations, so I received the news with a high emotional hit. I’ve been told I put in a good project proposal. The premise of my story is that unlikely friendships can develop and hold steadfast when trust in the world has been lost, and needs to be regained. The fantastical backdrop is when anthropocentric views push earth too far and planet earth, an entity itself, rebels. Earth disrupts place and time, and humanity is no more. However, human-like thought and emotion remains in other entities.
Today is 1 February. The course officially began on 1 January. I have meandered away the first of twelve months mulling over ideas on the story-line, characters, technical process and thinking about where life for us is presently at. What matters, what is meaningful, where we’ve come and what the future holds. How does developing AI affect us? How to connect with readers. A few days ago Lynley held a meeting with we group of new students. Ten of us in total. All wonderful, creative people at different stages of life and working on different genres. All with interesting projects. All with a strong desire to write, and as one pointed out by doing this Master’s course we can give ourselves permission to treat our writing as a serious pursuit. I’ve spent the last few days attempting to combat a sense of overwhelm and fear at the work to be done. I have already read and taken notes on several of the texts to be studied. Now I aim to write in some way each day including this journal. I hope you will join me and share your thoughts by adding comments. I will put shorter note on the Facebook page. Think, experience the embodied, live creatively.
With love Bice Grace Lapin❤️🔥
P.S. If there are any typos you may attribute them to the new household kitten leaping around my desk 🙂 Now I’m going to procrastinate by cleaning some windows – badly needed, after which I promise I will be back on task!
Bice Grace Lapin 