Creative Writing: An Ode to an Earworm

When I was a journalist in Inverness, I decided to embark on a quest to get a degree in English with the Open University. I always loved reading but analysing texts was always a challenge and I wanted to improve my skills. I’d also done a more vocational course when I was at Napier University and maybe I should have pushed myself more academically.

Studying with the Open University

The OU was an interesting experience, one that got more and more intense as the years progressed. I think the Open University is a great idea. My impression of it for many years was that you had to tape the lectures on the BBC to play back later. Computers and the internet have made it much more accessible, with recordings and videos available online when you need them.

There was the chance to interact with your fellow students via online forums. I was even able to go to a couple of face-to-face tutorials, though being in the Highlands means there are often few people on the same modules as you.

I’ve returned to the OU this year for a mini-module in digital marketing and things have clearly moved on again in the way they present the course.

My literature modules required reading a large stack of books – classics and more modern novels. Cramming that in alongside my full-on, beyond full-time job was not easy. My hours as a journalist often stretched beyond a 9-5 and with a 40 minute drive home, I found it extremely challenging around assignment time. I would try read a few pages of the novels at any spare moment in order to get ahead. I wrote excerpts of essays on a scrap of paper so I would not forget a point I wanted to make.

I even did my final module of creative writing while pregnant, finishing my last ever assignment with a large bump and a not-quite-two-year-old. Baby made an early appearance in the end, though luckily after I pressed send on the final task.

I got there in the end though – a BA English Literature is mine!

Creative writing

Anyway, among the modules I completed were creative writing ones. I have tried to write short stories for years, in stop-start fashion, and always taken the opportunity to improve my skills and knowledge. The courses were great for developing pieces for assignments. And there was a chance to try different forms – screenwriting and poetry.

One of the poems I particularly liked writing is the one below. The assignment wanted a set of poems, on any subject and using any poetic form. With this I went for a sonnet, trying to play around with repetitions and rhyme. Reading it now, it feels a bit clumsy in the late few lines, particularly with the use of head, but that was the effect I was going for.

It was a bit of fun and I wanted to share it with someone. Hope it makes you smile.

(P.S. the picture is AI-generated. Maybe I’ll tell you about my experiments with AI another day.)

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To an Earworm

A jukebox is forever on shuffle
In my head. Your burrowing through my brain
Means I am always doing the hustle,
Means I am plagued by the constant refrain.
Personally, I blame it on boogie
That I always have to finish the lyric.
And if sometimes I seem blue and moody,
It’s because every victory is pyrrhic
When yet another tune comes in one repeat.
I want to change this tune in my head.
Rid me of this festering, repeating beat!
But I can’t get you out of my head
Or release this earworm without violence.
In the end, I say a little prayer for silence.