Roadblocks Before Romance

Monday 8th February

Keyed in morning pages. Put up Saturday’s piece as a noted essay on Facebook. Student feedback done and printouts for tomorrow’s sessions. Got a load of Marvel Comics ‘how to draw characters’ stuff from the post office – late birthday present from Jenni. Hopefully get some time to play with that lot in the next few weeks. Had a nice chilli and rice lunch and some raspberry ice cream. Been sidetracked by technological glitches for much of the day. Aiming to have lots of info links and pages on Blogger by Easter. Wanted to watch Gotham this evening but too distracted. Saw The X Files. Keyed in morning pages. Mucked about with Blogger. Seems it’s going to be the best site for me to use. 

11.17 pm.

Tuesday 9th February 2016

Got a new mini zine by Julia Eff in the post today. Usually they’re quarter-size and handwritten but this one was eighth-size typeset. Sixteen pages. All about a shitty run up to Christmas. Descriptions of tense working conditions, tough living conditions. Julia’s zines can be a punch in the face. Three hour commutes, tough schedules, physical labour, dysfunctional families. We need writers telling the truth. “Beloved Hero Cheats Death” – I read it three times. I love the fury, the turn of phrase, the bleak humour. I’ll read it again, for sure. I want more writing from Julia. Such a talented zinester. More from Julia Eff, yes please! Sessions were good today. First and last lines plus a repeat of stepping stone narratives at Waddy. Keyed in morning pages just riffing on making a new website. Then lush chicken curry. Tonight’s session was standard week four – This is Just to Say and About His Person. On the downside think I’ve lost a Thinsulate heat machine hat. But compared to food stamp 40+ hour weeks in Detroit, life is easy. 11.19 pm.

Wednesday 10th February 2016

This evening’s Ways with Words was cancelled. I left the house at ten past three after being told I needed to be at Waddy by five to gain access to the building. At four-thirty a Go North East worker informed a number of irate people in Consett bus station that a fatality and gas leak in Durham City had caused a main road to be closed. No buses in or out for us. Walked back home. Spent an hour looking through perzines – mainly Julia Eff and Jessie Lynn McMains, plus a few UK titles. Then some typesetting. I want an early night so I’m good for Mind session first thing tomorrow. Then for the rest of the week I’ll be trying to build a blog / website. Got offered a five-week course starting after Easter. Losing an eight-week evening course due to funding cuts. Need more new employment or I’m snookered. 10.55 pm.

Thursday 11th February 2016

Good session at Mind this morning. Slam tickets sorted, readarounds of last week’s work then a look through some small press magazines and a collaborative senses poem taking us up to lunchtime. Bought a hot beef half stottie and chips for lunch, much to Jen’s delight. Started in on a new Blogger site this afternoon. It’s a lot brighter than my ‘Scribbles’. I’ll be using it as a website, keeping the home page sparse with links to lots of pages. Went out to Tesco this evening for extra food supplies and bought a writing magazine. Me and Jenni watched a Martina Cole Ladykillers documentary about Mary Ann Cotton. Tom Kelly wrote a sequence of poems about her. I’m looking forward to a few days of focused promo activity. Only two days in at work next week because it’s half term. 11.27 pm.

Friday 12th February 2016

Long day at the computer just trial and error making my way through the first steps of building a site. Listened to Queen Live at the Rainbow for a while. I’m hoping to get to bed before a headache starts kicking in. Took me about two hours to remove the white borders blogger automatically puts on picture uploads. Jenni is having an allergic reaction to some medication; rash on her leg all scratchy and sore, cancelled a meeting this afternoon. Haven’t read anything but my own stuff. Freezing this evening. 11.12 pm.

Saturday 13th February 2016

Much of the day spent putting the bookshop page of my site together. Meticulous keyboard malarkey to prevent the text scattering across the screen after tweaking posted text. Jenni took a little trip to Consett this afternoon. I got quite a surprise when she returned at half seven with three bags of shopping. Chuffed to make progress on Blogger. 10. 58 pm.

Sunday 14th February 2016

Massive Valentine’s Day card from Jenni this morning with two teddies on it eating pizza. We had a lovely late Sunday lunch: bangers and mash with broccoli, carrots, peas, little boiled potatoes and thick gravy. Keyed in some morning pages then watched three episodes of Breaking Bad. Tweaked a bit more of my Blogger build. Keyed in previous six journal entries while Jenni watched Deutschland 83. I’m almost done for the day. Lots of student feedback work tomorrow. 10.37 pm.