She's nearly here...

After much toing and froing Madame Ecosse is finally at the printers - I'm so looking forward to seeing the book jump out of my head (off the page) and come to life as a real thing!

I did a phone interview for Napier University student magazine about my writing which you can read the write-up of here.

I'm enjoying having time to read and start to write again. Tentatively writing notes, odd lines and images - slowing feeling my way back into writing mode. I've been reading James Wright and today I started reading Adam Zagajewski's Unseen Hand collection - wonderful wonderful poems.

After having spent Christmas in the hyperreality that is Disneyland Paris - where the initial dream-like cartoony fantasy-joy of sweet childhood nostalgia turns eventually into some Kafkaesque nightmare where every time you close your eyes magnified shapes and colours turn endlessly, cloying disney music burns on your brain and Cheshire cat smiles grow grotesquely larger on every princess' face. 'The Happiest Place on Earth' - where everyone is happy whether or not they are happy (sounds more like North Korea). However I did enjoy it - an experience truly of our age, and of course my kids had a blast though after four days they too were glad to get away from it.

Now is the time to break back into that distant memory of writing poems - put an end to post-holiday fatigue and discipline the days again.  

Plan - 

Spend an hour a day close reading The Golden Bough, making notes

Start working on random poems to break the inertia - read Lawrence and Bhatt for inspiration

Read Read Read

Continue this until the bones of a theme start to reveal themselves

Happy New Year!