I am feeling pleased with myself: I have written just over 4,000 words of good quality original prose since Friday lunchtime.
I am particularly pleased as I’ve been dithering over this for ages and I spent most of yesterday having a day away from the screen. It seems that writing, like many things in life, is dependent on how – or perhaps if – you focus.
I’ve been to several poetry readings in the last couple of weeks, including an anthology launch where I was among the readers, and one by the elderly New Zealand poet C.K. Stead.
The other events, though, were more formal and I was disconcerted to see people in the audience tapping away at their smart phones and laptop keyboards when I thought they should be listening. (That’s why I chose the photo of the owl, an eminently educated bird, with those marvellously disapproving eyebrows I can never hope to match however much I frown on modern youth.)
Continue reading “modern manners”
In the moonlight
giant moths
gather on my bedroom wall
Actually, it’s the light of a street lamp, and therefore they only gather there until midnight and from 5:30am as the local council switch the lights off during the darkest part of the night to save energy.
And, of course, they aren’t quite moths. But they are near enough to have made me think about the poor creatures trapped in the net of the curtains and want to put the thought down here in case I can use it at some point in the future.
At school, my favourite subject was Latin. If the Classics teacher hadn’t got pregnant I’d have gone on to study Greek, too, and I suspect my life would have been quite different. Instead, over the years I’ve dabbled in maths, economics, English, Spanish, IT, poetry…
Not having a proper classical education has been one of my few regrets, so when I saw this on a poster at the university campus recently I thought perhaps I was going to have a chance to redress the situation:
Continue reading “high days and holy days”
don't confuse the narrator 