Thanks to two meetings, yesterday was one of my busiest for a while. Both sessions proved true to form. 'Write-on Ripon' offered a variety of style and talent against a largely common theme - as well as a somewhat heated debate about the nature of Artificial Intelligence and 'consciousness' (prompted by someone reading a 'poem' … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 12th 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 … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 11th July →

A slightly odd day yesterday in that I didn't get to do any of the one time-critical thing on my plate; namely, NC:5 submission reviewing. Time-wise, that was replaced by putting together some competition entries, and a little planning of what I need to do after the summer, mainly in the context of Coverstory books. … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 10th July →

I managed to get through to poems beginning 'Q' in my New Contexts: 5 submission reviewing yesterday - and the pattern remains consistent: 23% shortlisted, 35% long-listed, 42% rejected. On that basis it seems likely that the jury will be out on around 60-65 pieces at the end of the first cycle - so the … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 9th July →

It's funny how, when reading anthology submissions, they seem to go in 'waves': three or four good, then three or four not so good. That's was how the process seemed to go yesterday as I made my way through the poems beginning 'L' and 'M'. And I can't help but wonder if there is someone … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 8th July →

Having shifted the sequence of a small number of episodes in 'Z', drafting resumed with some vigour yesterday. I've now reached over 26k words (for those of you who like to measure such things), and the projection for the whole is now 100k. If finished, it will be a rambling portmanteau kind of novel with … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 7th July →

I must have been feeling a little more generous during one of my NC:5 submission reviewing sessions yesterday as a higher proportion made it straight to the shortlist. Either that or it was the happy accident of a few good poems that happened to be alphabetically sequential... The overall ratios - 25%, 35%, 40% for … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 6th July →

Given I spent much of yesterday out, there's little surprise in the fact that I only managed a skim-edit of Monday's 'Z' work and the reading of some more NC:5 submissions. For the latter, a little over 20% are making it straight to 'shortlist', and about 35% to 'longlist'. Is that the norm at this … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 5th July →

As anticipated, I began the selection process for New Contexts: 5 yesterday alongside some 'Z' drafting which (I have to say) went very well in that it flowed, I was into the character I was working on etc. I must have spent over an hour in a single session simply adding to the stock of … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 4th July →

A very quiet day yesterday with virtually no work other than a little 'Z' drafting. And I'm afraid the reason is a little feeble... There was sport on the TV. Ever since I was a kid I've devoured most sports when they're on TV - especially live sport. Yesterday it was the Irish Derby (I've … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 3rd July →