I've been working flat-out on the WIP, and I can now see the end of the story, in the sense that I know pretty much how I'm going to get to the end which has always been there, though I still need to imagine-out-and-write my way through all the exact moves... So I didn't get out for my statutory walk till after ten last night, and halfway round it I had a qualm. The last few days' writing is quite brisk because there's lots happening; there's not much expansion of setting or atmosphere, nor much in the way of flashback, exploration, thinking (in the ruminative sense), or a sense of the world outside the small house I've got four people penned up in, in a thoroughly unstable stew of relationships.

I do think a rhythm of tension and release, action and reflection, systole and diastole, is absolutely essential to a good story: one reason I work looking at two full pages of MS at a time on screen is because I can see - literally, see - the pattern of dialogue and narrative, short paragraphs and long. But is this bit too briskly, plainly, forward-moving, I worried: is there not enough human flesh on the lay-figures' bones, for too long? I thought back to the last time I was writing multi-layered and richly (I hope) evocative stuff, and realised it was a whole week ago. That's ages for the reader to be plodding along with bare dialogue and stage directions; should I cut, fillet, amplify lavishly?... delete? Is the fact that it felt unsatisfactory to my memory as I walked, telling me I'm on the wrong track altogether, without scenes which get my best writing out of me?

Except that it isn't ages at all, it's about 5,000 words ago.

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This morning I got my courage up and went through the poems that have been sitting in folders for two months and more. Many I tossed as unusable ideas. Some I rewrote and reshelved in a new folder. There were some, however, that I still felt good about even after the two month period of rest I use to clear myself of new-poem bias...Read More Here

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Personally, I like my crime to have a more literary flavour than your average Agatha Christie affords , but Mark Mills could take a few tips from the 'Queen of Crime' with regard to plot development. Nobody in the library crime reading group liked this, a Dan Brown-style mystery/murder set around a villa in Florence.

The main problem is that the murders happened some years before, during wartime, so there's no sense of urgency, although it does have some bearing on who is the rightful heir to ownership of the property. It's not particularly well-written and the narrator is too immature and lacking in character for us to empathise.



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When they get to my age, some people like a good funeral. I prefer a nice book launch :

It's an excuse to visit a (usually) posh part of London
The bookshop ambience is convivial
The author gives a little talk about his/her next book
There's a chance to talk to friendly book-readers
Not least, there's free wine and nibbles




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The fanfare is to welcome our new Strictly, Derek Thompson, who has manfully stepped into the shoes of our beloved Rod, who is off to poetical pastures new. We’ll miss Rod’s wit and wisdom hugely, but Derek will be bringing his own brand to the party, as a comedy writer (among other things) and occasional coach. So, on behalf of all Strictly followers, we decided to plonk the new boy down in the hot seat, direct a bright light into his eyes, and interrogate…er, that is, interview him:


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This is another one I saw but failed to blog about at the time. I went with an ex-colleague who still lectures at the same local South London College I left in 2004. Even so, she gasped at some of the language.I thought it was pretty toe-curling,too, accustomed as I am to the grittiness of some fringe theatre shows. It reminded me a bit of a film called Romper Stomper, (1992) but maybe it was a coincidence that the playwright was Australian.


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I must catch up with my blog
I must catch up with my blog
I must catch up with my blog

Something I never learn: I can't be out and in at the same time. When I'm at home I'm usually sitting in front of the laptop, but having made the review deadline I'm caught by some other attention-grabbing event. Maybe I should cancel my subscription to Time Out.

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Had Lewis Carroll and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn been partners in building design they might well have come up with Canada Water Library. In fact it was designed by Piers Gough, and opened in November 2011. It's said to have solved the problem of how to build a library on too small a site, as if the fact of a new library were not miracle enough in a time of widespread closures. Inside, it was warm and cosy; not at all like the set for a Murnau film.

The U3A ‘Day for Aspiring, Self-published and Published Writers’ attracted some 40 enthusiasts, from London and other regions. I know because I was i/c of ticking off names.


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Yesterday's lessons went well but spring fever has officially hit the Upper Peninsula and attendance is falling off as a result. We celebrated International Poem In Your Pocket Day at the music store and...Read More Here

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There was a good turn-out at Manor Park Library, and I spotted some reading-group members among the standing-up throng. They should have come earlier, I thought. But they'd been vulturing in the adjoining room, where the giveaway books were laid out. By the time I got in there it was almost bare. Never mind, I enjoyed the delicious home-made snack - canapes, they've been called at other minglings I've attended. Especially memorable were tiny jerk vegetable patties and spiced mini potato- cakes. Shame I was off the wine that day, because there was plenty of that.


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