I come from the north, From grey harling, drizzled crags and scree. Dandelion and burdock. Engage low gear now. Bacon for breakfast. Breaking in your boots. Passing places and bloody tourists. The library’s parquet gleam. Peewits and feral cats. Toasted arse against the Aga. Wellies and broken veins. Creosote on the fence. Shirt […]
What’s been going on this week
March already and I’m still picking pine needles from between the floorboards. Best thing to do for World Book Day? … buy a book and read it It’s World Book Day today and all over the country parents are tearing their hair out at the unreasonable costume demands this causes. Mercifully, the head teacher at […]
Spookily in disguise as a proper parenting blogger
Did you have a good Halloween? I spent mine in an MLitt class with a lot of poetry in it followed by some chasing around the county collecting and dropping off children. The poetry has the potential to be very scary – or not. Just when I think I’ve got the measure of it and […]
Writing: seeking satisfaction
Previously, I’d imagined Writer’s block was an empty loft. Nothing there but pigeon shit and echoes It’s not though. It is stuffed, rammed, jammed and bloody well bunged up. Like a colon after Christmas. Too much feasting on the fabulous Bingeing. Masticating and swallowing. Until All at once Immobile, There’s belly ache and belching. […]
Something I wrote – Talking like a teenager
Here’s another writing exercise, you might like. It came from the week we looked at The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan. I’m fairly sure proper literary types are supposed to study the book and its inhabitants from a dispassionate point of view. However, I just loved Anais, the tragic kid at the heart of the story. […]