One of those happy accidents yesterday. A few years ago I went through a short phase of writing 100-word flash fiction stories. There was one I remembered but, when I tried to find it on my computer about a month ago, I came up empty handed. I was sorting and packing my notebooks yesterday when, … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 16th July →

Whether it is partly because I managed so little work yesterday, or the fact that I know the next five weeks will be relatively unexciting in terms of my writing work (until after the house move), but I'm actually thinking of calling a halt to "yesterday and today" in advance of the year end. Let's … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 15th July →

Just about the only writing-related thing I did yesterday was to start reading the prose submissions for New Contexts: 5. I suspect it's going to take me longer than I thought to get through these... And then I have to cycle back and revisit all the items I put in my 'long-list' in order to … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 14th July →

I forgot to mention in yesterday's post that I would be attending my last Ripon Writers' Group meeting in the evening. Given we are going to be very busy packing etc. it seemed to make sense to settle on a defined last day as Chair. The meeting was dedicated to the adjudication of our 'Writing … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 13th July →

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 →