Did a massive stint yesterday on New Contexts: 5. Having finished the shortlisting process, the next step is to pull together the first draft of the book. This means copying all the selected entries (79 of them) into one master document, and then begin the formatting process to ensure that the fonts, spacing, page layouts, … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 21st July →

Thanks to another solid session re-reading New Contexts: 5 submissions yesterday I should have my final shortlist for the anthology by the end of today. The next step after that is to pull together a rough draft of the volume to see how it looks, check it for balance etc. - at that point I'll … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 20th July →

For what seems like the first time in ages, I actually managed to work on three different things yesterday. I started with New Contexts: 5 and began reading through long-listed pieces to decide whether they would go in the anthology or not. Expecting it to be difficult, the process proved surprisingly easy, with me struggling … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 19th July →

Day 200 of consecutive posts - and thoughts about immortality! Yesterday saw me finally complete the first read-through of pieces submitted to New Contexts: 5. 25% have been immediately selected, with 35% in the 'long-list' pile to be re-read and a binary 'in or out' decision made on those. So, pretty much on-track to finish … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 18th July →

Well, yesterday I finally managed to do two things in the same day again! I'm nearly through reading all the prose pieces submitted to New Contexts: 5 and I did a little work on 'Z'. Neither are particularly earth-shattering, but I'll settle for it. Now Wimbledon's finished I may get through the rest of the … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 17th July →

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 →