June 16th 2016
My Writing Life
Goodness! It’s nearly a month since the last blog. That’s because there’s been a heat wave and I’ve been going out to the allotment until it was too hot and then coming back to collapse in the house. Anyway, last Friday it rained, big time, and has been raining more or less ever since, and things are back to normal.
In spite of not blogging, my writing life has not come to a standstill. Over the last few weeks I have written a sequence of poems about our holiday in April in the North of Ireland and Donegal. Always in the past I have exclaimed fiercely that I can’t write sequences and whenever I write two poems on the same subject and someone, usually someone in my writing group or a poetry workshop, says ‘you could write a sequence’, I have instantly dried up. However this time I wasn’t even trying and a sequence of five poems has just popped out.
One of my projects at present is to send groups of poems off to magazines in the hope of getting some published, and four of these five will be going off on a hopeful journey soon.
The kind readers of my children’s book have nearly reached the end, and July is set aside to write the third draft in time to submit the book to the Mslexia children’s novel competition in September.
July is also my website review month and I hope to be getting several things up there as follows:
- A poem of the month from my previously published work, as often as possible a reflection on the time of year or similar.
- The posting of the first part of ‘Ways of Exploring Morecambe Bay,’ poems and photographs of the Bay, a collaborative project with Sid Barlow, stained glass artist and photographer.
- Information about my forthcoming series of Creative Writing Workshops here in Lancaster.
So watch this space!
Reading Week (or weeks really!)
The best book I’ve read recently was Owen Shears’ There was a Man and I just finished it last week. It’s very well written with engaging characters and a good story unfolding through a wonderful sequence of flashbacks and moments of suspense. The best section, to my mind, is the one dealing with a character who, as a member of the US Air Force, works in a station in central United States, firing drone controlled missiles remotely at identified targets in the Iraq War. Through the character, Shears explores the moral and ethical dilemmas of drone warfare in a very moving and realistic way. It gave me much food for thought.
Hare in the Headlights
This isn’t really scary, well I hope not, just a reminder that Kendal’s first ever Poetry Festival takes place 24th 26th June, and I’ll be there throughout and report back on my next blog.
For now.