Discovering A Song of Jean

I can’t believe it’s been so long since I last posted here – work/family have been filling my time but I’ve also been hacking apart an almost complete novel and trying to put it back together again. This involves courage – and some writing. I’m determined to have a new #1 draft by the beginning of the summer so I can take a few weeks off before the rewriting process begins – so this post might be my lot for another few weeks.

In the last couple of months I have been accepted as a member of the Tindal Street Fiction Group (TSFG). The group meets once a fortnight and so far I’m enjoying the experience. The evening goes like this: reading, analysis, pub. An excellent format in my opinion. I’ve never belonged to a writing group before and although TSFG has been established for years it doesn’t feel cliquey.

I have just discovered – while writing this post and trying to find links to TSFG – that one of the members, Sybil Ruth, is the author of a poem that I have read and reread since I first came across it last year. The poem won the Mslexia Poetry Competition and is called A Song of Jean – and you can read it here.

I suddenly feel even more chuffed about being a member of TSFG.

A day out in Hillfields

I’m really looking forward to the Hillfields Readers Group Open Day

Where: Hope Centre, Sparkbrook Road, Hillfields, Coventry – view on a map
When: 2pm Saturday 21st November 2009

I will be reading from Among Thieves and answering questions about how 1980s Coventry came to loom so large in my debut novel. I’ll also be milling around and enjoying all the other events on offer on the day which include Jo Roberts – Coventry’s Poet in Residence, and Martin Brown – a local Coventry poet who writes and reads humorous verse. There will also be music, dancing, a book fair, a book quiz, food and refreshments.

The day has been organised by Coventry Libraries Information Services where you can find all the information you need about readers and writers groups in your area. Hillfields Readers Group meets on alternative Fridays at 12.30pm . For further information and dates contact Colin Scott on 024 7683 2457 e-mail: colin.scott@coventry.gov.uk

Summer’s end

Summer’s end – too early to say that perhaps – but it feels like it to me. Back to work and the whole sorry jig and slide of fitting writing around earning begins again. I’ve had almost a month at home (apart from a couple of quick trips to Bath and Edinburgh). Still, it’s been a strain fitting family and creativity together without busting capillaries. School holidays. I have a wonderful ‘almost teenager’ whose bedroom is next to my office and the the whole cheek-by-Youtube hellishness of POP music through the wall has taken its toll, (I’m not sure I won’t kill something if I hear Dizzee Rascal’s Some People Think I’m Bonkers one more time).

Something colourful and autumnal

Maybe it’ll be good to get some routine back into the mix (although I’ve never been short on discipline – not since I gave up the drugs;-)). Back to the paperwork and the students and the marking. And September is my favourite month. There’s always that day in September, the one that signals the real end of summer – when there’s a freshness to the wind and the smell of something earthy and cool. And even though you know winter’s coming it doesn’t matter in that moment – because it makes you feel cosy and cheery rather than sad. You even lift your face and take a deep breath and say something like ‘I can smell a change coming’. You might even think about the jumpers you need to get out of the bottom drawer, or pumpkin soup or bonfires and get a reflected, seasonal glow. You forget about February, you forget about the cold grey banality of the English winter just around the corner.

I’m making myself miserable and I must stop. It’s only September. September is my favourite month – did I say that already?