Sunday 29 September 2013

Book Review - Howard's End is on the Landing by Susan Hill


Book review - Howard's End is on the Landing - Susan Hill

I always enjoy a good ghost story by Susan Hill and Howard's End is on the Landing is a delight. Her memoir on reading is scattered through out with tidbits of wisdom, encounters and friendships with other authors and information on what in her mind makes a good book. 

I found it inspiring and it reminded me why I began writing in the first place. And that is for the pure love of reading.

Rating: 4/5 

For more info:


Sunday 7 April 2013

Website and blog updates

A new issue of Dark Metre is now available. This months horror poetry by Christian Carter-Stephenson and J.J. Steinfeld.

Also updated:

Writing credits
Poets
Writing Prompts

Recent blog posts:
An Age Old Meeting

It seems that Spring is finally creeping across the land.

Tuesday 2 April 2013

An Age Old Meeting

My short story An Age Old Meeting is on display at the OCA Student Association website.

Sunday 3 March 2013

Website updates

The arrival of March has brought the following updates to the main website:

Dark Metre issue 20 now online
Horror poets updated
Writing Prompts updated

Expect an overhaul of the site during the summer once I've got my next assessment period out of the way. I'm so looking forward to taking a brief break in my studies.

Sunday 3 February 2013

Website updates

Please see below for the latest updates to the main website and it is well over due a makeover. Once my next assessment is out of the way, I'm hoping to make some changes and decide what direction this blog will take.

Issue 19 of Dark Metre is now online.

Writing prompts updated.

Sunday 4 November 2012

Website and Blog Updates

New issue of Dark Metre online.

Recent blog posts you may have missed:

Row80 - Check in 6
ROW80 - Check in 5
ROW80 - Check in 4
ROW80 - Check in 3

Stitched Up on Tuesdays - Week 3

ROW80 - Check in 2

Wednesday 31 October 2012

ROW80 - Check in 6

Progress, progress, why do you avoid me so.

I'm still hit and miss with my goals. Sunday was taken up by knitting class so was fairly tired when I got home in the evening. Poetry goals went out the window on Monday after I decided to do my knitting homework instead and started stitching up a journal cover.

Last night, I managed about 40 minutes of studying and think that this current section is going to hurt. I hit a rut with the research which I'm rolling back to Saturday as I'll be able to spend a good few hours online and digging through my reference books for comparison.

Also got about half way through the current exercise but the focus is on building character through dialogue and I hardly write dialogue normally. I'm also not entirely sure who these people are as I kind of plucked them out of thin air for a previous exercise. Decided to skip to the next exercise and that curled my toes even more.

Although I did start adding dividers to my course folder so I can refer to earlier sections more easily.

Reading has fallen by the wayside so I'll make that my lunch break activity for the next few days at least. It's only a short novel so I should get a good chunk of it read and then get back to reading some horror.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Sunday 28 October 2012

ROW80 - Check in 5

I neglected to check in on Wednesday, made a little progress since then:

began first drafting a new poem and made some editing notes after it needed to change direction slightly. Even worked out how and why I would want to use the "comments" function in my word processor.

Sent another crit to my poetry group although I need to get this up to 2 a week but as a newbie I'm still in my grace period. It's forcing me to actively think about what I read which is a good thing, it's easy to get passive rather than active. And I'm discovering new poetic forms as well. The simpler ones I may try myself. I still shy away from attempting to write in syllabic metre or using a heavy rhyme scheme as it feels restrictive.

Studying hasn't come along as much as I would have liked, typed up some more notes and read another chapter of my recommended reading. I did sign up for the study day my college are holding at Cambridge which is later next month. That should prove inspiring.

Still fighting a lack of energy which I'm putting down to the recent greyness and have realised I need to get exercise back on to my goals as yoga counteracted winter last year.

Hope everyone is well