Yesterday & Today: 11th July

A relatively light day yesterday which saw me run through all the ‘R’ and most of the ‘S’ poetry submissions for New Contexts: 5. In terms of subject and style, the spectrum of work is as wide as ever; I never know what I’m going to get when I open a document to read! It’s really rewarding when I come across a piece that I know has to be included in the anthology. In such cases, I can’t wait to tell the authors concerned – though of course I will wait until I’ve my final shortlist!

Worked a little on ‘Z’ (light edit of what I’d drafted on Sunday), then other bits and pieces around Stanza groups, planning for the future etc.

I also received feedback on 17 Alma Road from the first of my beta readers. And very useful feedback it was, especially in relation to a couple of the main characters. I’ll wait and see what I get back from my other advance copy reviewers, but I think there’s work to be done on the book in the autumn. (If it happened to get picked up by an agent in the interim, I’m pretty sure they will be saying similar things to my first reader.)

It’s a ‘groups day’ today with ‘Write-on Ripon’ this afternoon and then my Stanza group in the evening. I should get some work done this morning too, so hopefully a busy one!

Finished the binge-watch of the BBC documentary series Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland last night. A remarkable piece of television; one of the few things I have ever sat through with someone else and never uttered a word. Gripping, honest, brutal, sad. There aren’t really adjectives enough. And the participants were brave too, confessing all sorts: “I planted a bomb”, “I was the ‘gun man’ for the group”, “I shot a child with a rubber bullet”. The only possible conclusion was that there were no winners in the struggles; everyone lost.

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