The uselessness of letters Some snow this morning. Struggling with words today. With both a long poem Atlantis and on my substantial edit of Skelton Yawngrave intermittently through the day, both at a stage where careful thought is needed and in the case of Skelton Yawngrave this is slightly nerve-racking. The text is coming out the other end of this process is far cleaner and the plot is much faster. Calliope is bored by bad weather and is indoors more and constantly bringing her catnip mouse and rubber ball into my study and thundering about with them, or jumping up at my keyboard to rub her chops on my face at critical moments. The only respite was a violent screeching fight with another cat. Amazing to see her rocket to the top of a wall and beat the intruder like a ginger stepchild. She smugly returned from her battle completely unharmed. I've never seen a scratch on her. Otherwise I finished listening to Dark Matter by Michelle Paver (which I would heartily recommend), wh...
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Restraint Amazing how many beer bottles seven music loving gents can gargle through of an evening. Staring at them reinforced the urgent request from the liver and kidney dept. to focus on tea and mineral water. Self-restraint is a beautiful thing. Actually I felt as if I were on holiday today. I finalised bookings for Guernsey Literary Festival, and otherwise left the outside world to its own devices, which were mainly of the steady rain turning to snow variety. Chatted to Anton as there is a tense meeting between Manchester United and Chelsea this weekend which we will watch together. And to Mum and Mas who tomorrow set off on the first leg of their journey to Costa Rica. There in the sunshine they are going to meet up Joan and Dick, and Toby and Romy. Have almost finished listening to the audiobook of the creepy Dark Matter by Michelle Paver, which is something of a tour de force as a good old-fashioned ghost story. I have been listening to it alone, which as the creepy stuff happ...
Plan B Plan A was going to go up to London to schmooze and see pals, but I biffed this as I was feeling ropey. Instead, once I'd cleared the regurgitated cat biscuits from my study chair, worked on restructuring Skelton Yawngrave. The child character Grace is now the conduit through which you encounter all the others. It is the obvious way to do it, of course, and I was resisting it for this reason. But I find the story feels far more rooted this way. Co-incidentally I got a note from Catriona about the three sessions I will be running for children in the Guernsey Literary festival on Friday 13th May, which is focusing my mind somewhat. Also a note from Matt getting the ball rolling on a new performance of This Concert will fall in love with you , on the day before Valentine's Day. Otherwise listening to Dark Matter by Michelle Paver. This is a truly gripping story, subtly disconcerting, and a properly constructed ghost story set in the Arctic. Lovely stuff.
Dark flow Brighton today. Lots of bits and pieces to be getting on with, but dogged by a black gloom. Produced images for This Concert and had email chats with Richard about A Guernsey Double. Popped out this afternoon for some air and to work on my poems in the magic cafe. Discovered I hadn't packed the poems though, and as I did this bumped into Di Turner and we ended up having a quick coffee. Rather worn thin tonight. Watched space programmes, and in the process learned a little about dark matter and dark flow, the surges of nothingness that are filling the multiverse from a Horizon documentary, and about the unlikeliness of finding life from The Sky at Night, still hosted by the near immortal Patrick Moore after 53 years - apparently the world's longest stint as a host of a TV show. Below Patrick Moore.