Till Next Year...

Monday 24th December 2018

Up at seven to do morning pages then out to Consett to buy a chicken for the big dinner tomorrow. Jenni is having a veggie roast. Back home by half-ten. A book about poetry publishing arrived, but I spent most of the day tidying the house and doing all the vacuuming. Jenni arrived around half-five. We had a veggie pizza with spicy potato wedges, followed by Lebkucken biscuits, a mince pie each and nuts. Watched The Royle Family 2008 Xmas special, sorted through unopened DVDs from previous Xmas and birthdays to watch over the coming days. Good laid back evening. I fell asleep for a while. Chuffed to have my first gig of 2019 booked already. 11.39 pm.

Tuesday 25th December 2018

Tried to write about yesterday in morning pages without writing about writing. Brought presents downstairs, did the washing-up and started reading Chris Hamilton-Emery’s ‘101 Ways to Make Poems Sell’. Jenni got up around half-ten. We had fun opening the presents and survived Christmas dinner. Every year we say it will be smaller but still managed to consume a mountain of food. Watched the Jungle Book, Michael McIntyre and Mrs Brown’s Boys. Jenni is currently cutting huge slabs of Xmas cake and loving the Lebkucken biscuits. Food gives energy but I’ve been wiped out. Enough of this nonsense. Suppertime! 11.02 pm.

Wednesday 26th December 2018

Quiet time this morning reading '101 Ways to Make Poems Sell'. The opening pages are pretty brutal about the difficulty of placing poems with book publishers. Good to have curry today. The house is surprisingly warm despite not having central heating on. Me and Jenni were expecting a visit from Brother Mark but he didn’t come. Wished Mam a happy birthday on the phone, thanked her and Ernie for presents. I slept a bit this afternoon, watched ‘Look Around You’ science piss-take DVD. Enjoyed David Walliams’ The Midnight Gang as well. 11.30 pm.

Thursday 27th December 2018

Best to get the diary done before supper coz my head is splitting. Too long a day keying in notes and sorting pix for a hardback book. Haven’t shaved my head for a few days. Only been outside to dispose of a chicken carcass. I posted book launch date on Facebook today. Will do more rehearsing next week. Bacon and mushroom sandwich for tea. Xmas cake. Treacle sponge, crisps, peanuts. Read more of Mr Hamilton-Emery. Watched Poirot. Jenni says she can’t be doing with John Malkovich’s attempt at a Belgian accent, says she likes dramas with nice gentle murders, not these new vicious ones with all the sickly stuff in them. Without hat, Malkovich reminds me of American spoken word artist Buddy Wakefield. If I don’t go to bed soon I’m going to be sick. 9.46 pm.

Friday 28th December 2018

Me and Jenni were set to visit her mam and John today but cancelled coz her mam has a heavy cold. I’m wary of putting myself at risk when the book launch is so close. Went to Consett for supplies and brought back more food than intended. Rather fond of the Lebkucken dark chocolate coated ginger and apricot biscuits from Poundland. We were going to watch Donnie Darko on DVD this afternoon but just watched TV. Poirot was excruciatingly dull. Later on Jenni showed me how to access Spotify on my android tablet. Sounded awful, so she Bluetoothed it through an external speaker which made Bad Pollyanna and Queen Live at the Rainbow sound fucking awesome in the living room. DVDs will keep for the weekend. 11.28 pm.

Saturday 29th December 2018

Up around half-eight. Wrote some pages then spent rest of morning doing journal copy-ups. Had lentil Soup then fell asleep this afternoon. Watched Donnie Darko – wasn’t struck, but Jenni enjoyed it. Evening viewing was the rather grim but excellent Hereditary. Enjoyed the relentless domestic dysfunction and eerie soundtrack. More pies and fizzy pop and QI on TV. 11.01 pm.

Sunday 30th December 2018

Good to get caught up with the stray journal entries and look through notebooks for my end of year round-up. Made a sausage and veg dinner for me and Jenni. Watched The Greatest Showman. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Then a new adaptation of one of Jenni’s favourites, Les Miserables. Good documentary on its adapter Andrew Davies afterwards. 10.50 pm.

Monday 31st December 2018

Up early to make a new 2019 morning pages book, keyed in the above entries and re-edited my end of year roundup. I still have a bit of admin to do before the final wind-down. This afternoon, after a full English brunch, I’m heading off into town to buy a new work-log notebook and some meat for tomorrow. This evening me and Jenni will probably eat too many dark chocolate Lebkucken and mince pies and watch music programmes on TV… 12.05 pm.

Compared to previous years, 2018 was a bit low-key for me in many respects but still plenty to be thankful for. I facilitated sixty-six writing workshops – thanks to Appletree, New College Durham, Wadddington Street Centre, Durham Writers, Tyneside Mind, Jarrow Big Local Hub, Hexham Safe Space, Consett Writers and Consett Library for employment and venues; and thanks to all the resource coordinators and individual participants.

Writing-wise I produced another 1095 morning pages before breakfast, uploaded 365 diary entries in blog posts and produced a couple of handmade volumes – 'Anomalies 1989-2014' and 'My Dark Matter'. Thanks to all who bought books and pamphlets. 

In terms of spoken word performance I made a couple of dozen appearances with feature sets and open mic at Squeak Easy, Arch Remarks, Babble Gum, Sunderland Writing Festival, Gong Fu Poets, The Word Slam, Apples and Snakes - Nexus Takeover, Abernathy at Lit & Phil, King Ink, Consett Bowls Club and Consett Library. Thanks to all the organisers and venues.

Many thanks to everyone who came to Poetry Jam – all the feature guests, open floor jammers and audiences. As ever, thanks again to Waddy for the cafe venue and staff member Fergus for all his help each month.

Other highlights included: seeing Toyah Willcox play twice in the North East; Michael Gira's solo acoustic show at Boiler Shop and meeting him afterwards; meeting Henry Rollins in Sheffield; Andrew O'Neil's comedy show at the Edinburgh Festival; and Bad Pollyanna's awesome set at Think Tank in Newcastle.

But the standout month for me was October - when I become a zombie and got paid to scare thousands of punters during 'Terror in the Trees' at Beamish Hall. Megathanks to entire cast and crew for the best Halloween of my life. And to Jenni Pascoe for prompting me to go for the job in the first place.

The last few weeks have featured more private book production, and preparation for the launch of LAUGHTER TO SPLIT GLASS, my next official book from Red Squirrel Press, which takes place on Wednesday 9th January 2019 at the Lit & Phil in Newcastle.

Thanks to all who have enriched the journey over the last twelve months.

All the best for the New Year.

Keep it going!