I am not deliberately ignoring the Theory and Innovation module from this record.  It’s just that it is so new to me and although I understand it perfectly when Sam is talking,  I haven’t yet consolidated it for myself so that I can turn round and talk about it to someone else.  I need to make more time to do a lot more background reading.   I have also been a little taken aback by my utter lack of knowledge in this area.  It’s not that I don’t understand it or don’t agree with it, it just hasn’t reached my radar until now.   This last week I was rather bowled over by the amount of which I don’t know and the realisation that I read as reader, not a writer.  Pass the gin….

This week Sam talked about metafictional devices.  It was quite exciting to realise that I recognised a lot of them, but that only got me to wondering about whether writers actually sat down and thought:

“Now then.  Which metafictional device do I fancy today…ah the old infinite regress. Yes that’s the one.  Where’s my pipe?”

Surely most of these were a result of an idea, the offspring of pure creativity and necessity, not a decision to use a metafictional device?  Almost at the exact moment I was thinking that, Sam said that we would recognise them all and indeed would probably have used some of them at one point, probably unconsciously.  Hallelujah I thought!  I am a genius!  She then said that in her earlier life as a literary agent she would throw out most manuscripts that used metafictional devices unconsciously!  Talk about a fast demotion.  I could feel all that genius leaving me for the shops.    I did put my hand up in class at that point to ask her to explain further but someone else got in their question first and the moment passed.  I am making a note in my diary to bring that up again.