....As I made for the door, the shopkeeper called 'El Maestro! El Maestro!' She introduced me to the author, an eminent local journalist and poet who just happened to be passing . He came back to the shop and signed my copy. * The following week his daughter happened to be in a class I ran for local Spanish teachers. Carmen and I became friends.

I wish all coincidences were so pleasant, unlike the latest one. GBS wrote The Doctor's Dilemma to prove that he could write a play about death. On the day I sat down to review it, my son reminded me that I was to attend the funeral of a family friend.


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In my blog at the moment an chat with our webmaster.

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Okay. So the authors I respect most and the authors I share online work with all say approximately the same thing. It goes something like this: “Everybody gets rejected. Even (Insert favorite author here.) was rejected. Don’t take it personally.” I have heard and read this ‘old saw’ more times than I can count. It is beyond cliché…which is ironic when you consider it comes from a group that normally avoids cliché like the bubonic plague. But here’s the thing – I DO take it personally. And I think, if they are being honest, most writers do.

The impetus for this rant has its roots in winter when...Read More Here...

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I must admit I do like to be entertained when I go to see a show, which is why I awarded five stars to this freely adapted version of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', seen at Coram's Fields last Saturday. A Beatles score and lots of slapstick may not be to everyone's taste, but it is to mine.


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I am not ‘mailing the post in’ today despite what you, my gentle reader, may think. I am merely in education mode; a phenomena which overtakes my general sensiblilty every now and then. Harry Partch (1901-1974) was one of the most interesting and daring composers of the twentieth century. When his ideas for a 41 note octave couldn’t be realized with traditional instruments he set about designing and building instruments which would be capable of producing the tones in his head. Remember, this was BEFORE electric instruments or electronica had been ...Read More Here...

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Okay. So this is strange, perhaps very strange, but if you were to write a Science Fiction short then this is a must have soundtrack. This is from Richard Waters website: “The Waterphone was invented and is patented by Richard Waters (pat.#3896696). Each instrument is unique and ...Read More Here...

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If that sounds to you like the recipe for a great day then you are right. I worked on the boat this morning. (Yes! It’s in the water.) I came home about noonish and read from the Collected Works of Edna St.Vincent Millay while I ate salad and a sandwich. After an hour in my journal I pulled out the fiddle and ran 6/8 jigs until ...Read More Here...

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I've blogged before about procrastination, whether it's happening because your Inner Critic has found a dozen reasons for you Not Getting On With It, or he's declaring that it's all been done already, or he's dressed up as someone else to persuade you. Or sometimes you've dealt with all of those and still can't write, because you've simply run out of fuel.

But, assuming your Inner Critic has been gagged and bound, you're brimming over with ideas and energy for the next writing piece of work, you've cleared the house and the diary of humans... so many of us still find that we still can't get going. Suddenly we need another cup of coffee and some desk-tidying and email-answering; or we can only manage ten minutes or so, before we're reaching for the forums for writers or mums or steam train enthusiasts, for Facebook and its kin, for Scrabble, for a bit of very trivial research, for the blogs, and if all else fails, there's always Solitaire. And then you've finished your coffee, so you'd better go and make another, to drink while you start writing. And then when you get back you'd better just check FB and a couple of other places before you start...

We've all been tempted and most of us succumb, and there's no denying that the Internet has made it a hundred times worse, because the tools we need to write are also the tools we can use to avoid writing. A well known agent, joining Twitter, was startled to see just how many of her authors were tweeting away, in the hours when she'd foolishly assumed they were beavering away on their overdue manuscript. The trouble is, it's just too easy to kid yourself that you're only diverting for a moment: you're not really Not Writing. Not really. Oh dear me, no.

I've been known to go downstairs and unplug the router. You can get programmes to shut down your internet access for a set amount of time. I find even just disconnecting the internet does mean that when I'm tempted re-connect I'm more conscious that I'm Not Writing. But that doesn't always stop me re-connecting, and sometimes I genuinely do need to be online, for some stages of revisions, in particular.

So what's going on?

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I have a series of poems published in The Linnet's Wings this month. Go to the link, click on the magazine cover to read on-line or buy on Kindle or print http://www.thelinnetswings.org/?stn=1427&pageno=11

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Trae was in town for a couple of days to play a dance and conduct workshops. He’s a great fiddler and storyteller but perhaps his greatest attribute is the documentation of Michigan fiddlers’ lives. I went to the morning workshop where we learned McIlmoyles Reel and shared a few memories. I must have had a good time because I went home, blew off work, and played violin for the next couple hours. Trae also spent a few minutes showing the basics of podorhythmie; the French Canadien custom of tapping feet to the the music to provide ...Read More Here...

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