‘Come thou, love, my own, my only,
Through the battlements of Groan;
Lingering becomes so lonely
When one lingers on one’s own.’
- ‘Linger now with me, thou Beauty’,
from Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake

On Thursday the University of Wolverhampton hosted a lecture by Sebastian Peake, son of the poet, author and artist, Mervyn Peake, most famous for his beautiful Gormenghast books. Biting cold kept the hordes away, but I was appreciative of the intimate nature of the talk; Sebastian shared many things about his father’s upbringing and personal life, and indulged us with a question and answer session at the end (after frantically scrabbling for a vaguely intelligent question, I settled on asking him about his recent recording of Peake’s Progress for a centenary audiobook). It was highly enjoyable; I got a copy of Mervyn Peake: Two Lives signed by him, and can now brag about having shaken the hand of someone who held hands with Dylan Thomas whilst being walked to school. Oh yes.

Have you looked outside, lately?

Yes, yes, England has snow. It’s nice to look at and all, but honestly, for all I care it can sod off. It’s cold, it’s wet, old people shrivel alone, cars crash, buses fail to climb hills, I fall over in it, people throw it at me, it ruins carefully straightened hair, it makes walking a chore. I’m avoiding Facebook and Twitter because  every damn time it snows, people behave like they’ve never seen it before. It’s so ~MAGICAL~ and so we must rush out into it, severely underclothed and begging attention from frostbite and friends. Good grief. Ask me to choose between gallavanting around in the snow and curling up on the sofa with homemade pizza and a bad comedy…well. Gimme dat pizza.

I’ve got some days with which to do something, this week. I want to write, read, find something to apply for, do some work on my book (I can’t bear to wait much longer – anticipation is a torment), go for a wander…I need to buy a new pen. One that won’t smudge, this time. Have unsmudgeable pens been invented yet?

I’m tired this week. Dutch-tired, as in close to how I felt after cycling around a campsite all day, digging trenches late into the night. Fuckin’ knackered would be another way of putting it. It’s all these late nights followed by early rises to kill myself at the gym, then kill myself further reading French grammar. De des eaux cette pourraient voyons jerais celui-la ces WHAT NOW? WHAT? NO REALLY, QU’EST-CE QUE C’EST? Oh, go bougre yourself! And remember: c’est la guerre.

Last night I went to Molineux to watch the FA Cup second leg tie between Wolves and Birmingham City. Our seats were directly above the mildly abusive Blues supporters, so it was noisy, but I enjoyed the atmosphere. I hadn’t been to a football match in so long; you forget how different it is to watching it at home. No covenient replays, no commentary, no worryingly orange Gary Lineker, no close-ups of the melodramatic pansies as they wilt under flimsy tackles, falling to the ground and flailing around like jilted schoolgirls…we ate at City Bar beforehand because they have an excellent vegetarian and vegan menu, as well as things stuffed with meat for everybody else.

The ground wasn’t even half full. Can’t say I blame people for not going, though. Not only were Wolves tepid and uninspired (they lost 0-1 so NO WEMBLEY FOR YOU), but it was also bloody freezing. I believe I left a few toes behind in the Steve Bull stand.

I’m really excited about a lecture being held at the local university on 2nd February. Sebastian Peake, son of Mervyn Peake, who wrote the incomparably beautiful Gormenghast books, is lecturing on his father’s work and career in the Millennium building. It’s in the evening, so if I have to work that day, I hope I’ll be able to get back in time. I cannot think of a subject I’d enjoy more over a two-hour lecture, except maybe The Most Rewarding Aspects of Stalking Spanish Tennis Players, Discussed Over Tea And Biscuits. And even then, I’d be giving the lecture.

There is more good university-related news…I have an interview next month for a librarian position in the learning centre. I need to do my homework for this one. It’s a part-time position, and I’d love to give it a try. I have retail and customer experience; I’d be up for trying something different that still allows me to obsessively re-order shelves of books. It’s a while away yet, but I’m going to work hard for this interview. I opened the letter yesterday and couldn’t quite believe they’d picked me, but there you have it. Proof that you never know what’s happening next.

Well, time for me to expire. No actual death involved, you understand, just an expiration of sorts involving sofas and duvets and television and little else. I’m at the bookshop more next week, and on the days between I want to start work on a competition poem and tackle that imposing block of tofu in my cupboard. White, rubbery, unappetising brick, you will be scrambled in paprika and cumin! I did herb-roasted potatoes the other day, which was a success. And surprise cupcakes. Just call me Delia and get outta here, yeah?

The list is in reading order, rather than alphabetical.

2011 READING LIST

• Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death – Gyles Brandreth
• Palo Alto – James Franco
• Byron: Life and Legend - Fiona MacCarthy
• The Ladies of Grace Adieu – Susanna Clarke
• House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski
• Talking About Detective Fiction – P.D. James
• The Border Trilogy – Cormac McCarthy
• Needful Things – Stephen King
• Coffee with Oscar Wilde – Merlin Holland
• Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
• Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes
• Coffee with Shakespeare – Stanley W. Wells
• The Colorado Kid – Stephen King
• Cycle of the Werewolf – Stephen King
• The Wind-up Girl – Paolo Bacigalupi
• Child of God – Cormac McCarthy
• The Great Shakespeare Fraud – Patricia Pierce
• Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
• Dracula: The Undead – Dacre Stoker
• Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man’s Smile – Gyles Brandreth
• Small Gods – Terry Pratchett
• Our Tragic Universe – Scarlett Thomas
• The Sunset Limited – Cormac McCarthy
• Cell – Stephen King
• A Game of Thrones - George R. R. Martin
• Yes Man – Danny Wallace
• Shutter Island – Dennis Lehane
• Matilda – Roald Dahl
• No Country For Old Man – Cormac McCarthy
• The Talisman - Stephen King & Peter Straub
• The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ - Philip Pullman
• Among Thieves – Douglas Hulick
• A Clash of Kings – George R. R. Martin
• A Storm of Swords: Steel and Snow – George R. R. Martin
• A Storm of Swords: Blood and Gold – George R. R. Martin
• Stephen King’s N – Marvel Graphic Novel
• The Once and Future King – T. H. White
• The Winter Ghosts – Kate Mosse
• Burton & Swinburne in the Curious Case of the Clockwork Man – Mark Hodder
• Temeraire – Naomi Novik
• Who Said the Race is Over? – Anno Birkin
• 11.22.63 – Stephen King
• Inheritance – Christopher Paolini
• The Last Hero – Terry Pratchett
• The American Boy – Andrew Taylor
• Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
• The Radleys – Matt Haig
• Titus Awakes – Maeve Gilmore & Mervyn Peake
• Young Romantics – Daisy Hay
• The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern
• Mr Pye – Mervyn Peake
• Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

Total books read in 2011: 54.
Total number of pages: 22, 377.

My Favourite Books in 2011

Byron: Life and Legend - Fiona MacCarthy

I was certainly born in the wrong era. To have lived in the time of the Romantics, the Cockney circle, the great poets I’ve been in love with for so long, would have been an honour. Would I have appreciated it at the time, or would I have been too involved with my (probable) tuberculosis? I’d like to think I’d be a scullery maid dangerously obsessed with Lord B, writing long letters in which I attempt to self myself to him for a single night of scandal. Fiona MacCarthy’s biography of Byron is rightly viewed as one of the definitive texts concerning the great man’s genius for poetry, and controversial personal life. It is flawless, so compelling I will never be parted from it. I will read it many more times, and though I’ve read other biographies since and will pick up many others in years to come, I can see myself always willingly returning to this one. A joy to read.

The Border Trilogy - Cormac McCarthy

This is one of the greatest works of fiction I’ve ever had the pleasure to read. I took it across America with me, and I can’t think of a better situation in which to enjoy it. Cormac McCarthy writes beautiful, haunting pieces, and everything of his that I’ve encountered has been brilliant, but the three novels that make up The Border Trilogy rise above everything else. My particular favourite was the second part, The Crossing, but I loved everything about it, and again, this is a book I plan to read many more times before my eyes cave in. Read the blurb, seek out reviews, ask a bookseller, I don’t care – if you want a story that will move you, both in terms of its emotional depth and the grand scale of its journey, these stories are for you.

House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski

This is a re-read that deserves recognition, because this is the work that’s perhaps had the single biggest influence on my prose at present. Danielewski’s fearless experiments with page format and presentation inspired me to push my own work in directions I hadn’t thought of before, and visiting the House of Leaves early this year proved to be the perfect motivation for sticking with and working hard at my novel, Doors. It’s a frantic, disturbing work that will entrance some, and test the patience of many others. I find it frightening; it stays with me for days. Parts of it make me cringe away from myself. It’s a powerful book, and a beautiful one, too. Read it in a quiet place and don’t forget it isn’t real.

A Feast for Crows – George R. R. Martin

I include this book, but really I refer to A Song of Ice and Fire as a whole. This series took over my life this summer; after long days working in Holland, I would creep back to my tent, zip myself into my sleeping bag, and read a few pages by torchlight. A Feast for Crows is the highlight of a wickedly addictive set of books, the first of which has been brought to life on TV as HBO’s Game of Thrones. I have no idea who’s going to win said game (the series is still a lengthy work in progress), but I can’t wait to find out. Unbeatable fantasy fiction. I’m a little bit in love with Jaime Lannister, but who isn’t?

Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

It’s the last book I read in 2011, but also one of the best. It’s a classic I’ve always meant to read and I’m so very glad I got around to it. It’s got a wonderful emotional depth that moved me, and though I’m not one for romance, it’s a haunting story I can see myself enjoying many more times in the years to come. Now, how to choose one of the many film and TV adaptations to watch?

I’ve set myself a 2012 Reading Challenge on Goodreads (I completed my challenge of 50 books for 2011, hooray!). This year I want to read 60 books. I reckon I can do it; remember the dizzy heights of 2010 when I managed over 80?

Here are a few overused and meaningless words I despise:

~*Fabulous*~
Festive
Fresh
Free
Fierce

Why do they all begin with F? It makes my blood boil that anything remotely feminine deemed worthy for advertisement is either fabulous or glamorous or drowning in sequins. Festive is so liberally applied to anything within five metres of a string of tinsel that it now looks wrong when applied to any other occasion, such as Hallowe’en or Easter. There is so much emphasis on food being quality and fresh when really, there is nothing fresh about Subway. The salad comes out of a bag. There ain’t nothin’ fresh about Greggs sausage rolls or pizza slices from Ditsch or pretzels or donuts or milkshakes. Stop cramming such processed twice-digested rubbish down my throat – I know what it is, it is junk! And free? Don’t make me choke. If everything claiming to be interest free or free for the first year or available now with a free digital copy or 100% extra free was actually all it was cracked up to be, we’d all be living extravagant lives without spending a dime. It’s only free if I sign my income away for the next five years or consent to buying a box three times the size I usually do or immerse myself in an embarrassing amount of debt to a company of loan sharks interested only in finishing me off. See what I did there? FINishing me off? WOW YES. What a fierce thing to say. I am actually growling ferociously as I type this, fingernails filed down to points, my remaining teeth grinding against each other in a maddened mash of filling. I mean feeling. If that doesn’t get you cavitating, I don’t know what will.

There are underused words out there deserving of love. Ones beginning with F, such as FROLIC and FRENZY and FASTIDIOUS. I am also partial to the occasional utterance of FARCICAL, which sums up the mood.

It’s been lovely to have the rabbits around for Christmas. They don’t live with me so I see them when I go to my mum’s, which isn’t all that often. Christmas has been the perfect excuse to hassle them and stuff myself with good food at the same time. I have heard all about their most recent bad behaviours – Jaster helping himself to an apple, covering himself in sawdust, playing dead on the new upstairs landing carpet and thus transforming himself into an unavoidable tripping hazard, sitting in a wheelbarrow with Chip and refusing to budge, looking like lords of their own sad little kingdom of grass cuttings. Oh, to be a rabbit without rule or reason.

I didn’t sleep well on Christmas Eve. I wish I could say it was down to excitement. I think six days of book-related retail mania at work killed off bits of my soul. I got up at sevenish on Christmas Day and unwrapped a few books, mugs and bits of baking paraphenalia which I will happily put to use in the New Year. Sue and Jack did likewise; I haven’t seen much of the latter, probably owing to the fact that he now has Uncharted 3 to distract himself with. Not the kind of game you ignore!

We prepared dinner at my flat – I quickly made a round of shortbread to take back with us (YES IT WAS FRESH), and Sue started on the creme brulée. After returning to my mum’s I got started on my lovely hardback edition of Wuthering Heights and finally watched the first two episodes of Game of Thrones. Jaime doesn’t look like Jaime, I don’t like the actress playing Cersei, Jon Snow and Robb Stark look far too old, Daenarys is annoying, the direwolves are too cute, Cat has no majesty about her…but Arya is spot on, Viserys is perfect, Sean Bean is Sean Bean is The Best. So it let me down and spurred me on to pre-order the boxset, all in the space of two hours and an overdose of lengthy commercial breaks. What an emotional whirlwind.

Today we ventured into town for a walk…there were too many sale-faced bag-wielding nutters about for my liking. Sue managed to lose her bank card, and I found a nice green cardigan in Topshop to go with all my other nice green cardigans I coo over and never wear. Useful. Now I’m strapped to the settee once again, ready to watch The Borrowers with hot drink in hand and an empty head. I’m not ready for work tomorrow, but I don’t suppose any of us are ready for work. Work is something that follows you down dark alleys and looks over your shoulder when you’re desperate for privacy. Work is a life-long Nosy Parker you can only deter with carefully acquired Impossible Wealth, or a fortunate yet non-fatal injury resulting in Accidental Yet Still Welcome Impossible Wealth. How fabulous.

Burnt Sugar

Ripped paper in the morning,
burnt the sugar just past four -
now I’m sprawling, warm and yawning
thinkin there aint nothin more
I could ask of Now, this day.
Disconnected by choice,
waking only to say I am
rested, I declare myself bested by
all the festivities, the
collected best restive
you requested of me.
I have switched off the phone and
the box remains black,
finished dinner then dessert, said
Good Day to the jack of all trades
what’s gone his own Christmas Way.
The woman here is peaceful,
sits still for a change.
Watchin lights nest in branches,
knowing now it is strange to
chop trees then dress them up in this way.
Tradition I bow to ‘cos it don’t hurt and
I care not for disruption today.
I ask only to be left on my own
for this minute, the moment
containing me in it, it takes all
my restraint not to say nothin.
It feels good just to know I’m not running
for a change. Tomorrow we can stir again,
ready for a new year
what’s winging our way.
But today I aint movin or kicking,
just lickin warm custard from my spoon,
passing time without purpose,
goin nowhere
in the very best way.

25.12.2011

I hereby bring to an end the brief but painful episode in my life known as TOOTHSAGA. The damn thing’s out. The experience, on the whole, was ghastly. Needless to say I shouldn’t have gone into work, but money is an unfortunate necessity, so I did. I’m not saying it was my finest moment; I could hardly speak and definitely couldn’t smile. Move along, people. Nothing to see here. Just a toothless fool making a spectacle of herself.

Doors, the novel I’ve been working on since May of last year, is finished and currently taking up a lot of space on my desk:

I’ve got six printed copies, two of which will be bound for reading. The rest will be sent off, perhaps in pieces, to various other desks across the land. First I’ve got to get a few inserts and illustrated pages photocopied at the library:

Because I can’t sit still for five minutes and neither can my mind, I’m already getting started on what comes next. Doors reached a natural end in my mind but it was by no means where the overall plot ended, so I’ve decided to continue the story in a second novel, which for now I’m calling Flipside. It’s early days, those lovely creative spurts which make a rough draft still slow to start, but it’s good to write something new. Even though it’s not new at all; same characters, same story, just a bit less whisky. I don’t know yet if, should I indeed go down the Painting Lies publication route, I’ll want to publish both stories together or keep them as separate volumes. I’ll probably go for the two-book option. Why am I even considering this right now? This constant need to race ahead is knackering, Kent, stop it.

What should I think about instead? Christmas.

I’m not decorating because I can’t afford to, but I’ve got most of the shopping done (which is good because I hate the Christmas hordes) and started wrapping things in ribbon.

The plan this year is simple. I’m working for six days straight in the run up to Christmas, and after I’m done on Christmas Eve, I’m taking the bus to my mum’s house to chill with the bunnies and sleep. Then, on Christmas Day and after the torrent of paper has subsided, we’ll be journeying back to my place to cook dinner and enjoy specially baked festive shortbread and delicious mince pies (the baking schedule is nice and full, actually – the aforementioned, plus a top secret recipe for Sue’s birthday on the 22nd and a Caribbean Christmas cake). Then, back to mum’s to watch The Borrowers, Muppets Christmas Carol, etc. All the good stuff. I’ve got Boxing Day to lounge around and read, then it’s back to work on the 27th, and time for me to start cooking up a plan for next year. I think I still need to fully digest 2011 first. But I already have prospects, possibilities, inklings of ideas…

…and cake. There will always be cake.

I’ve also completed my GoodReads Reading Challenge for this year. I wanted to fit in fifty books this year, which I managed. This is despite me living like a nomad in a tent for five months. I’m surprised I didn’t forget how to read and revert to a more primitive point in evolution.

I might push for sixty books next year, or settle for forty. Or maybe I should put the damn books down and go outside, find myself a few friends? Altogether now…

…NAH!

I think I’m just going to have it pulled. Yanked out of my head, with archaic methods they really should look into improving, preferably whilst under sedation. The most cringe-inducing part is knowing even if it doesn’t hurt, I’m going to cry like a baby and make a dick of myself, because I’m scared of scared of dentists by default. Even if they’re really nice people and the procedure doesn’t hurt a bit. Blergh.

Let’s look at pictures of pretty things and pretend there are no such things as teeth or dentists or drills or antiobiotics or teeth at all, really. What hopeless things.

On Wednesday I went to Cardiff with Susan, just because we’d never been before and thought it would make a nice change. It’s a lovely city, with lots of nice old buildings and all that, a gorgeous secondhand bookshop hidden away in one of the many arcades, and a castle at the end of the high street. As you do.

We walked, shopped, indulged in decadent hot chocolate, coffee and cake…

I got a few ideas for Christmas gifts (not going mad this year, ready for the impersonal onslaught of scented soap I’ll receive in return), and bought Jack’s birthday presents (he turned 22 on the 8th). I’ve also posted off cards to friends in America and other foreign lands, so they should be well on their way by now. I usually leave it to the last minute, panic and forget somebody, so here’s to being organised for a change.

More pretty things? There was a market similar to Birmingham’s Frankfurt market, and also a labyrinthine shopping centre we got lost in more than once.

We also walked down to Millennium Stadium and saw tributes left for Gary Speed…touching. We didn’t find the sea because it was too cold/I didn’t fancy being blown away and never seen again.

It was a nice day out, as days out go. I’d like to go again when I can afford to pay £11 to walk around a castle…yikes!

I also found out this week that one of my poems, Wisp, is probably going to be published in the next issue of Railroad. This excites me. I feel like I’ve made positive steps with my poetry this year, and potentially having something printed by such an inspiring project is brilliant. If you’re not already a Railroader, click the link and be enlightened! I’ll be sure to spam you all when the issue is released.

Right. Time for a cup of tea and an hour spent in the company of mad rabbits and Titus Awakes, the lost book of Gormenghast I’m finally reading. Mervyn Peake possessed an incomparable imagination. Let me into your head, sir, so I can watch the cogs as they whir.

To take my mind off the grind, I had a think about the things I depend upon. We get told that material possessions are evil and that greed will kill us all, which I’m sure is true. Still, it’s nice to find meaning in objects. They don’t even have to be terribly expensive to be lovely. Here are a few of my treasures.

What crowds my desk

I have two working typewriters, both salvaged from the wasteland of second-hand neglect, and I love them. They’re old, loud and redundant. To me they mean progress – I sat and transcribed the first draft of Doors on the one pictured here, turning it from a mess of handwritten notes into a coherent narrative. Every heavy clack of the keys says I’m getting somewhere.

What drips from my head

It’s nice to see my own books, whether in a bookshop, on a website, or in somebody’s hands. Seeing the spare copies and proofs I have lined up on my desk reminds me of the hard work I’ve done so far, and how much further there is still to go until I do my imagination justice. I have become one of those people incapable of rest.

What gets me thinking

My complete works of Shakespeare (I have more than one edition, but this is the prettiest) was found in a charity shop for next to nothing. Never say no to such finds – how somebody could part with it I’ll never know. I do not ever intend to. Next to it is my 209-year-old copy of A Winter’s Tale, because it is the oldest thing I own. I paid 50p for it in Hay-on-Wye. It pays to seek out the crumbling relics hidden in shop corners, sometimes.

What I come wrapped in

I’d never claim to be fashionable, but like any girl, I love my wardrobe. Fuck Narnia, get me a direct route to Topshop and I’d be quite happy! I have favourite things which I wear to death, like the vintage knee-high boots I bought from Camden Town all those years ago, or the flowery Republic dress that gets me through most debauched nights. Familiar clothes are comfort. Never be afraid to wear the same thing twice ninety thousand times.

What covers my ears

Can you call hair a possession? Well, I just did. Maybe mine’s more of a feature. Whatever it is, red is my favourite colour, and the one I think suits me best. Bright, dark, up, down, straight, curled, wavy, knotted from a long night without a comb. My hair says a lot about my personality. It’s loud, a tangled mess, tough to ignore and will not do as it is told.

What lurks in the cupboard

Ingredients are strange bits and pieces that make beautiful cakes, or granola, or savoury dishes, or pie. Mostly cakes, though, if you’re round at my place. The alchemy of food is magic. Over this past year I’ve learnt to enjoy cooking for myself, and baking for others. It’s a true pleasure.

What my eyes are glued to

I’ve grown up playing video games. I have all the time in the world for them and no time for people who blame them for awful children and their occasional lapses into psychotic behaviour. My PS3 (and PS2, DS, Megadrive, Gameboy, etc…) is entertainment, gateway to other worlds. Ones usually filled with CGI Asian pretty boys, and days’ worth of headaches and level building. Love it.

What fills my shelves

I really need to get a goddamn bookcase. Good grief. Books are precious to me, as they are to most everyone. Words are powerful weapons, whether ones used for ill-gain or comfort. Stack your books high and appreciate the fact that you can read, that others write, and that so many unbelievable thoughts have already been put to paper.

What takes me places

If you’d told me this time last year that I’d end 2011 in love with a kids’ bike with bright pink wheels, I would’ve told you to fuck right off. Alas, here we are. The Stycle is still off-road on account of it being an embarrassment (see also: dodgy brakes, even dodgier gears, crooked handlebars and a wonky front wheel), but I can’t wait to get it back. Just a shame Britain doesn’t have as excellent a cycle lane system as Holland. I miss long bike rides to Leiden.

What aches at the end of the day

The last on this list must be these unsightly things. Feet, my friend, feet! How many places have they taken me this year alone? Across continents and beaches, up and down the same stairs each day, across the road outside my home. Still so many places left to go. One of my favourite things to do, if I’m restless or stressed, is to put my headphones on and walk, lost in thought. If you asked me to choose between cutting my arms off or my legs, I’d go for the arms and hope I could learn to write with a pen between my teeth, because really, I would miss walking all too much.

I’m going with King’s novel first, of course, but I’m eager to read Inheritance. I haven’t looked yet but I’m hoping there’s an introductory chapter recapping what went on in the prior novels. It’s been so damn long since I read them that I really won’t have a clue what’s going on otherwise. I remember not enjoying Brisingr, but maybe Paolini’s improved since then. Or his editors have woken up. If it’s a bad book, at least I’ll be able to laugh at it. I feel hypocritical, seeing how I based a module of university work on Paolini’s blatant Tolkien-worship, but I feel like I need to read it, see how the whole shin-dig ends. I’ve seen Star Wars, though, so if I just chuck in a couple of dragons and go easy on the Death Stars, I could probably figure it out for myself.

This week’s baked goods consist of scrumptious slices filled with raspberries, fresh lemon juice and almonds (I wanted to give them a catchy name, but can’t think of any decent alternatives for tangy, a word I don’t much like), and crumbly shortbread. I couldn’t resist a piece of the latter straight out of the oven…God, I do love me some warm shortbread.

I’ve been feeling quite reflective for the past few days. The 8th was the anniversy of Anno Birkin’s death. I felt sad, but obviously on a different level from what his family would be feeling. I just think talent can be such a curse, along with potential. You will always wonder what could have been when you should focus on what’s been achieved already. He did enough, more than enough for me. I wouldn’t write and want to be a better writer if I hadn’t found his poetry and music. Maybe he would have progressed and become even better, but that shouldn’t matter. What he left was enough to start something, and I’m sure I’m not alone in having him to thank for that.

Anno’s Journey

Watching water drip down windows,
wondering where his thoughts lie, if anywhere,
in which direction they fly.
Didn’t see your soul soar overhead,
sad fact I’m too taken
with the tangled yarn in my head;
many minutes gone this morning
before I remembered you, dead.
Not gone, no,
not yet.
If we remember
there’s no time to forget
or regret minutes spent
on the edge of your tongue,
ink in your pen
a steady stream of intent.
You made a journey
and I make one tonight,
in your stead.
To where you went,
or the streets I know well,
ones I’ll walk in the morning
when dawn is
still only a rumour.
Humour me, boy,
tell me there’s life at the end;
tell me dreams are not wasted,
that hoping hearts might transcend
and with imagination I’ll fly
for an indeterminable time
with you, supernova,
crashing back to earth by my side.
I could forget mortal men
if I knew you again,
in the next life.
The heart tells me
your journey’s not done yet,
not by some miles.
I hope heart is right.
Turn my head from him,
back to you and your words,
hums of youth
and a promise of pathways.
I’ll pick a pencil to
scrawl like a spider down margins,
fill pages with hard lines,
know it’s you
I’ll be reaching for at
the end of my days.

Doors is going well. I’m on page 190, editing chapitre 78 (though they’re not really chapters - some are only a few lines in length), organising the printing and binding of manuscripts. I’ve got a new extract to share but I’ll save it for the weekend. I’m going to have a stab at a cover letter some point soon, whenever I remember. I’ve also got a couple of reference books from the library to aid me in my editing. Hopefully Alex will agree to proof read again, he did such a good job with Revolve. Fingers crossed! Everybody’s always so busy, me included. I wish this was my full-time job, with all of my heart. It’s the only thing I’m even remotely good at.

Apart from cake. Getting pretty nifty with the ol’ whisk, these days.

Anyway, my books have been selling well in recent weeks. There are copies to be shifted at Waterstone’s, but I’ve been monitoring at Amazon and they’ve been requesting new stock, so that’s positive. Reckon if I do a naked webcast or two, we might see a spike in my sales? You think I’m kidding.

Don’t think there’s much else to report at this point in time. I went to the dentist and for a change she didn’t want to rip teeth out of my head or stick needles in my gums, which was a pleasant surprise. Let’s end this with another poem, one I wrote some months ago but feel is more relevant now. I like it when you can create something with one person in mind, and even if that person becomes irrelevant, the writing can still apply to something else. Effort is rarely a waste of time.

Well-Spaced

I don’t think you mean it
you meant not a scratch
when you said you were sad
you were not,
but they said you were sad I
was gone, oh.
Did you say that?
Was it writ on your face
like bad lines on a postcard?
Wish I knew what to say
what to say to
you. I am glad you are far.
Stay from me, angel,
you’re trouble, I know.
It’s a good thing you’re gone.
Don’t know what was said
what to say to you.
Don’t know if there’s anything but
w h a t    d i d   y o u   m e a n   ?
and I don’t like the feeling
of drowning.
Listen through walls
to high voices, a bedlam
but I can’t pick
your sounds from the crowd.
Fine phrases I miss,
the awkward in you
and the fact that
I don’t know why
I care.
Long nights to fester the thought,
to imagine and
deny my own interest,
to admit I should know better
to accept I know nothing
except I wish
you were t h e r e .

This reminds me, I must record a reading of my Duinrell-related poem, and post that up next time. Another one for the weekend. Just got a few shifts of bookselling to make it through first…

Naomi bought me this mug as a housewarming gift. I can’t think of anything else that more accurately sums me up as a person, except maybe this. Yes, that is a leaning tower of Stephen King books. As the move continues, I find myself +literature, -shelving. Oh dear.

The fortnight’s gone well since my return. I’ve eaten two jacket potatoes, caught up with all of the news, got my 2011 reading challenge back on track, applied for several jobs and got the vast majority of my things in order. I’ve sorted out home insurance, the taxman, made a dentist’s appointment and sent off forms in case I want to do the mad holiday courier thing again, next year. We shall see. It’s an option, at least. I’ve also asked Wolverhampton council for information on local writing groups; I’d like to find one I could fit into, if such a thing exists. I want to start French classes as well, or find a lonely French person to speak to. Self-improvement is non-negotiable.

More fun should be had, as well. Stop denying yourself things you enjoy. If I want to scoff cake and biscuits, I damn well will. That’s precisely what Naomi and I did last night.

Isn’t it fantastic how you can shove all of these messy, ‘orrible things in a bowl, stir it up a bit, whack it in the oven and produce a lovely, glorious banana loaf?

Lisa and Luke came over just in time, as the cake was cooling. We watched Megamind, ate, drank tea and squash, talked a load of rubbish. Good times. I think Naomi’s going to come to Wolves on Saturday to check out the vegan festival that’s being held at the Civic Hall…that should be a nutritious and environmentally friendly good day.

My brother, mother and I went to see Funeral For a Friend’s gig at the Wulfrun Hall on Sunday night. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a live band. The support acts were decent and FFAF were, of course, terrific – they played Your Revolution Is A Joke, which was beautiful. Matt still seems to be madly in love with his music, it was great to watch. The show was a nice, irrelevant warm-up for the legendary Miss Britney Spears, who me and Lisa will be watching this Sunday. I actually can’t wait. I’ve only ever been to one pop concert before, BSB in 2008, but I can’t imagine that can compare to the kind of budget and showmanship Britney commands. Mind you, she could turn up on stage in her pyjamas, off her face and not even bothering to lip sync and I’d be quite happy. So maybe I’m not a fair judge.

Right, back to the day I must go. Yet more stuff was retrieved from storage this morning, so I should go home and tidy, then do a bit more work on Doors. I’m formatting the manuscript at the moment, and once that’s done, I’m going to give it another read through, double-triple-quadruple check everything, then get a couple of copies printed to hand out. It’s good to be at this stage of things. I like that I’m proud of it. I love that already I’m having serious ideas about the next installment. Did I mention that it might take me three books to tell the entire story?

It’s so good to have my boys back.

Ah, nothing like looking out on a bit of middenveld council estate first thing of a morning! Well, I maintain that it’s better than seeing the shambolic store tent filled with dirt, lacking in sponges and smelling distinctly of piss.

I’m cramming in all that I can. I went to Amsterdam with a few people for one last venture, which was fun. We went round Anne Frank’s house (really thought-provoking), visited the Ice Bar (as freezing cold as one might expect), did a bit of shopping…I’ve almost caught up with A Song of Ice and Fire, so I had to get a new book for the journey home. I went for T.H. White’s The Once and Future King because I’m craving wizards, warlocks and dragons at the moment; my head is filled with the stuff. I wanted to carry straight on to A Dance With Dragons, but it’s 25 euros over here…yikes!

Me and Eilidh have been baking cupcakes…peanut butter, chocolate, vanilla, marshmallow. The Great Duinrell bake-off hasn’t happened yet (Monday, I’m told!), but even if it never does, I’m going to make a big fuck-off cake for everyone to gorge themselves on.

This isn’t cake, it’s just me with a bit of red in my hair again. I’ve got two bottles of the good stuff waiting for me at home so I can start feeling like myself. This does, of course, mean my Hallowe’en costume options are once again limited, unless I invest in a wig. If I had any sort of figure at all I’d go as Jessica Rabbit-via-roadkill. I would like to dress as roadkill, just the once. Don’t imagine much effort is required.

I handed in my form for reunion, so I’m going! Hoorah! Reunion is basically one weekend in late November when all of us couriers, past and present, will unite for a weekend of drink, debauchery and karaoke sensible behaviour. You know, the usual. Jobs have been applied for left, right and centre and even though I don’t expect I’ll get one, it’d be nice to think they’d still allow me to go. Seventy-five quid down the drain, otherwise. Sod that for a bag of chips.

Right, I don’t know what me and Daf should do for our last night. Maybe sitting and chatting with an amaretto and coke would be best. And if it should descend into chaos we can roll with it…

Before we part, can I show you a little something in my documents folder?

It’s just something that I’ve been working on in the mornings. It’s nearly finished, so when I get home I’m going to record a reading and post it on here. It’ll just be a recap of what’s happened these past six months, a fun way of summing it all up. I feel like my USA roadtrip and Waterstone’s was years ago, part of another girl’s life. I’d like to think I’ve learnt a lot from this, but really, I’ve just learnt to avoid frogs named Rick and appreciate immaculate German holidaymakers. The little things.