The infinite variety of poetic style, themes for poems, and opinions about poetry - what's good, bad, indifferent (and why) - never ceases to amaze me. Yesterday's Stanza meeting was another case in point when we were treated to such splendid diversity. And at the end of the day, liking a piece or not is … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 7th February →

Some days it's not how much you work but what you work on - or is it like that most days? In any event, yesterday was such a day. Tilt drafting done and now put away for a month or two; and the final review started on Not the Sonnets and Once Significant Others. Plus … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 6th February →

Saturday tends to be a rather modest day when it comes to volume of writing activity, and so it was yesterday. The most significant effort was spent on completing a first-cut of that missing section from Tilt (enough, at this stage, to take it to a book of c. 180 pages). Apart from that, a … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 5th February →

Nothing really turned out as planned yesterday - either in terms of 'Life' or writing... But I did manage to draft a little more of Tilt, and it's entirely possible that the 'missing' section will be complete by the end of tomorrow. Then we'll see. I also spent a chunk of time continuing to prepare … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 4th February →

I think the 1-2-1 mentoring went okay yesterday. It's always difficult trying to strike the right balance between honest critique and encouragement. Writing is such a personal thing, and our words can be so precious to us, that any questioning of them can feel like vicious betrayal. I know, because I've been there! Haven't we … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 3rd February →

Part one of my short burst of mentoring went reasonably well yesterday. I spent 50 minutes helping someone work out what their next steps should be on the journey to try and get their children's book into print; and later in the day, an hour reading the draft of a short story which will be … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 2nd February →

After my two writing groups yesterday I was once again left wrestling with the question of 'what constitutes poetry?' - a clearly subjective issue. And also - to a slightly lesser extent - what's the point of poetry? When I run my 2-day poetry course in the Spring, these are the first two questions I … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 1st February →

Got a fair amount done yesterday: a decent chunk of Irregular Sky reviewing, plus some further shaping of my 2-day poetry course that will run at Writers' Retreat UK at some time in the Spring (date to be confirmed). I also managed to fit-in an unscheduled podcast episode production and posting: four sonnets from my … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 31st January →

Well, I managed to put 'fingers to keyboard' again yesterday in pursuit of Tilt's missing chapter. It's interesting when going back into a project to carry on drafting new material a long while after you last did so (and have done some editing of the already existing in between!); picking up the tone and rhythm … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 30th January →