Yesterday & Today: 17th March

Unfortunately, owing to events beyond my control, the Crash rehearsal didn't happen yesterday which meant the day proved a bit of a damp squib. I did manage to do a little further work reviewing Tilt, and some more on "C", but you know what it's like when you're set on a plan that you don't … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 17th March

Yesterday & Today: 16th March

I shouldn't be surprised that I did no work of any real note yesterday. Not only was it a 'transition day' after the retreat on which I mentored, but it offered me a chance to 'refill the tanks'. On Tuesday, after the final workshop and a full-on day of 1-2-1s, I had been absolutely drained; … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 16th March

Yesterday & Today: 15th March

Sometimes on retreats there is something of a 'push' on the final day - and yesterday was a case in point: a full book of 1-2-1s, chairing two workshops, plus the 'read around' in the evening. Thoroughly enjoyable. Yesterday, one 'newbie' asked a seasoned 'Retreater' which had been their favourite retreat. It's an interesting - … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 15th March

“All the men I never married”

I confess that, for no good reason, I was slightly wary of Kim Moore's "All the men I never married". Perhaps it was a uniquely male fear of some kind, perhaps against being exposed. Or of not understanding what Moore was talking about. I needn't have worried. "All the men I never married" is a … Continue reading “All the men I never married”

Yesterday & Today: 14th March

Yesterday was one of those days which will perhaps be easy to summarise on paper yet will also live on in the memory much longer. As far as the bones of the retreat went, I ran my "Character Building" workshop and help a couple of 1-2-1s - all of which we enjoyable and, I hope, … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 14th March

Yesterday & Today: 13th March

The 'You as Writer' workshop seemed to go down well at the retreat yesterday. It's a deliberately - but superficially simple-looking - session when I ask participants five questions: Why do you write? Who do you write for? What kind of writer are you? What are you writing? Invariably these get people thinking about what … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 13th March

Yesterday & Today: 12th March

Yesterday morning I managed to get a little work done on Tilt revision and "C" before heading off to the retreat in Beal. There are six attendees here, primarily writers of fiction both long- and short-form. Over the next three days we will have a number of 1-2-1s and probably four workshops. We'll start today … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 12th March

Yesterday & Today: 11th March

One thing I hadn't expected to be doing yesterday was preparing some of my books for a Coverstory books publication in May - all in the event of them not being picked up by an agent/other publisher. (Though if one of the short stories in the collection wins a prize in the interim it might … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 11th March

Yesterday & Today: 10th March

After the relative cut-and-thrust of Wednesday, yesterday was pretty much back to normal: chunks of effort of various sizes on Tilt, "C", poetry, retreat preparation, and some residual Ripon Writers' Group stuff in the wake of our poetry exercise... I understand that poetry isn't to everyone's taste - but neither is prose for others. So … Continue reading Yesterday & Today: 10th March

The Cottage Hospital

The poem below is the response to a recent writing group challenge, 'write one poem to the tune of another'. My source was John Betjeman's "The Cottage Hospital"; my response a kind of WK Auden / Dylan Thomas mash-up. Far from perfect, but here it is... The Cottage Hospital Beyond municipal green, a maudlin wall … Continue reading The Cottage Hospital