SPREADING MYSELF TOO THINLY

Tuesday 1st September 2026

Good first WRITE Festival session at The Word in South Shields today. Marisse Whittaker is highly knowledgeable about crime thrillers and talked the group through various genres, including cosy crime, psychological thriller, police procedural, etc. We made mood boards using pictures and fragments of magazine text. Today I considered getting a ticket for Pistols and Frank Carter, who are playing Newcastle in December. 11.15pm.


Wednesday 2nd September 2026

I'm onto my sixteenth little A6 volume of Gratitude Journal. I've been keeping one daily since 2012. I've knocked up another batch of Waddington Street Writers The Perfect Opportunity anthology for tomorrow’s Poetry Jam. This evening I worked on the Washington Writers anthology and responded to recent emails from contributors. I listened to Handwriting by TV Smith. I might read in bed but will probably just fall asleep. 11.50pm.


Thursday 3rd September 2026

Got the Sonder Frontier back from Bits4Bikes today. Shaun has fitted new brake pads and adjusted the bash guard. I took the scenic route home and rode down the grassy heaps. I spotted some good little step-ups but wasn't fit enough to ride them. Back home, I selected poems for Poetry Jam and wrapped a birthday present. I tried to read on the bus to Durham but fell asleep. I set up for the gig, then had beef steak with salad and baked potato. I wrote notes for the evening, then opened at seven. Great turnout. Excellent sets from Sharon Milley, David Rutherford and Cat Bell. Great contributions from a variety of new and familiar voices: Stephen Watson, Kevin Robson, Chris Short, Ivy Hudson... I read She Says the Curtains… and Let’s Get Together This Winter from the forthcoming book. Stayed back till nearly eleven to tidy up. Only four people on last bus out of Durham. I should be home by midnight. 11.17pm.


Friday 4th September 2026

Long day. I struggled to get motivated. I think I was a wee bit distracted by the fact that the Sex Pistols with Frank Carter gig didn't sell out in the pre-sale, and I thought about it for ages before I bought a ticket. Very expensive, but it's a one-off and the chance of Matlock, Jones and Cook playing together in Newcastle on the 50th anniversary of their original cancelled City Hall booking was too good to miss. I got a lesson plan sorted this afternoon and rehashed the running order of my set for Lit and Phil with Joan Johnston and friends on the 24th of September. Tonight's For Better Or Verse was great. Lovely to see a very animated Pip McDonald using the full floor. Blackhill Club is perfect for her kind of performance. Kevin Robson did a nice mix of silly and serious. I was surprised to see Jenni and her mam there. We're now on the bus back to Newcastle. OK. 10.25pm.


Saturday 5th September 2026

Good to hear Kym Deyn and Rishi Dastidar talk at WRITE festival with total transparency about the various jobs of a writer and what it takes to make headway. The session before theirs featured fantasy writers talking about getting published and the benefits of a good working relationship with an editor. OK. 10.20pm.


Sunday 6th September 2026

Jenni and I enjoyed seeing punk band Slalom D and TV Smith at The Globe in Newcastle this afternoon. Tim Smith signed a copy of his Handwriting album for me. I asked him about working with Rollins. He told me the Nashville project is a punk museum. He played a few new songs, including Apparently Not, and old favourites such as Expensive Being Poor, One Chord Wonders and, of course, Gary Gilmore's Eyes. Totally brilliant gig. OK. 11.46pm.

Monday 7th September 2026

Contents of the new book have been spread across the living room floor for over a month. Sequencing has stalled at page twelve. As per usual, my personal creativity goes to the back of the queue. I need to sort workshop plans. The reason I'm going to several WRITE Festival workshops is to get my mojo back and see some packaged approaches to writing facilitation and compare them with my own. Tonight I heard the hardcore band Gallows for the first time. Pretty fucking brutal. Mr Carter is considerably more mellow now, fronting Sex Pistols. John Lydon can still perform with PIL but isn't energetic enough to deliver Never Mind the Bollocks. 10.22pm.


Tuesday 8th September 2026

Good little writing session at Waddington Street Centre this afternoon. I used a Raymond Carver story and some flash fiction from the Bristol anthology. Then off to Gateshead on the X21. Some annoying twat playing loud music on his phone deserved a fucking axe through his skull. No public decorum. Thankfully, I kept mine. Writing for wellbeing with Helen Aitchison was canny. I wrote about the above incident to the prompt of 'fracture'. Helen told me to send it to one of the publishers she recommended. I read some of Clive Barker's novella The Hellbound Heart on the bus today. Over halfway. Tonight, on the way back, I made a quick pit stop to buy food. Got home at ten to find the freezer making grating noises. I unplugged it, completely defrosted it as suggested online, then plugged it in and switched it on again, but that didn't rectify the situation. Another major financial outlay. No meat or cheese for Stevie. OK. 11.45pm.


Wednesday 9th September 2026

Following the demise of the fridge freezer, the lawnmower decided to cut out after about twenty minutes this morning. This happens pretty much every time I use it, but today it wouldn't restart. Not after 15 minutes. Not after 30. Not after 45 minutes of rest. I was just about to go to town for a new one but gave it one last try. Hey-ho, it's off to grass we mow. This afternoon I caught up on some admin. Reshuffled and inserted more poems for the Washington Anthology. Hope to get it signed off soon. 9.28pm.


Thursday 10th September 2026

Up just after five to do swift morning pages then have a shave and out on the 6.37am bus to Consett. The X70 to Gateshead didn't show up at seven, so the journey was two hours and twenty minutes from my front door to Gateshead Interchange. I got to South Shields by half past nine. The First Spark to Publication novel workshop was more of a lecture with a seemingly endless series of slides covering all the usual elements. My right wrist was in an uproar after a few hours of note-taking. A few people were expecting some generative exercises, as was I. Five hours is a long time to have theory mostly read out to you. But all the information was sound. It's just that it had the adverse effect of putting me off ever attempting to write a novel. I read the end of Clive Barker's The Hellbound Heart. Then some poems from Bukowski’s posthumous Storm for the Living and the Dead. His best since The Roominghouse Madrigals. OK. 9.45pm.


Friday 11th September 2026

Another long day. Out at quarter past eight. Bus journeys were okay. But I had a stressful morning. I got to Arts Centre Washington in good time, but due to an electrical fault in The Granary, we had to use the Lower Barn instead. The session was a repeat of Tuesday: trinkets, mind maps, stepping stones, Carver story analysis, and a look at flash fiction. Good chat with Alwyn Bathan about writing and publishing in the car on the way back to Metro Centre. Grateful for the lift. Then a pit-stop at Jen’s place, before going out to The Word for TM Logan's book talk. Three million book sales in the UK. Several TV adaptations. Thirty-three people in the audience. Only four of which were blokes, for a male author. Interesting, but I didn't buy a book. Back at Jen's after a Tesco food haul. Titanic, Would I Lie to You, then Mrs Brown's Boys. I'm tired and have eaten a lot of pastry, sandwiches, and chocolate. OK. 9.52pm.


Saturday 12th September 2026

Up early to ensure prompt arrival for the Helen Aitchison novel writing workshop at The Word WRITE Festival in South Shields. Some good advice, more instructive than generative. A lot of the sessions have been do's and don'ts, but not much actual creative writing. This afternoon's non-fiction panel was better, but I forget the contributors’ names. Then over to The White Room in Stanley, County Durham, to see Tom Waits For No Man, who were sensational. Got a signed CD. OK. 10.58pm.

Sunday 13th September 2026

Back pain at its worst early morning. I wanted to read and write today but couldn't settle on a single novel or short story. My annoyance at rules of structure, plot and pacing put me off my own work – so I watched footage of Sex Pistols at Dallas Longhorn Ballroom, then had a pie and veg tea. I'm still without a fridge freezer until after next weekend. I hope tomorrow is a better day. OK. 10.37pm.


Monday 14th September 2026

My spine eased a bit quicker today. Tomorrow I might walk around for a while before doing pages. Walking seems to ease the ache a fair bit. By late afternoon I was able to work on a short run of Failed Rock Star to take with me to Morecambe this weekend. I came up with a tagline for the thriller/horror mood board from last week’s workshop at The Word. It’s opened up a space in my head that might take in some sort of story. 10.37pm.


Tuesday 15th September 2026

Got to Waddy at twenty-five to twelve. I photocopied a few things, set up in the seminar room, then had oxtail soup upstairs. Only a couple of people came this afternoon. But we had a crack at Absurd Words, American Sentences, Haiku, Tanka and Rondelet. This evening I cleaned out the dead fridge because the door was starting to get mould on it. I tidied the kitchen, then made a colour cut-and-paste meme about the Carter-fronted Pistols detractors. My back isn't so bad today. I'm super busy for the next week, so I took things easy this evening. It was a warm day. I wish I could have been down by the River Derwent on my Sonder Frontier bike. Anyway, I'm expecting to get Poetry Jam publicity done tomorrow. OK. 11.05pm.


Wednesday 16th September 2026

The Poetry Jam publicity took a while this morning. But I think it came out okay. The bios balanced up nicely. I selected about twenty poems for Morecambe. I read through them on the way to Tynemouth. Jenni was the featured guest at The Performance Menagerie. She did a great set as usual. She always reads the room well. Her new Macca-packer poem was well received. She had Monty monographs for those interested. I spoke to Christine Fowler about her book. I read a few things from my Morecambe set. We think it will be about eighteen to twenty minutes each on Saturday afternoon. I've eaten quite a lot today. And will probably eat too much at Morecambe over the weekend. OK. 11.19pm.


Thursday 17th September 2026

Windy evening in Morecambe. Jenni and I arrived about half-seven, then wheeled our cases towards town and along the seafront at dusk. All sorted at The Shipping Lanes B&B: clothes hung up, bits and pieces laid out. It's been a long day. I attended the killer thriller crime writing workshop at The Word in South Shields this afternoon. I'm not really warming to the work-in-pairs approach to novel writing, but Marisse knows her stuff, and I'm clueless so I did as best I could. The trains to Morecambe were fine. We saw Tony and Roz Gadd outside The Bath venue. We are off to the King’s Arms to catch Peter Buckley Hill and Fall in Green. My memory is letting me down a bit. I forgot my wheelie case when I left The Word and had to go back. Then thought I'd left a bag of supplies in Carlisle. I anticipate a lot of gratuitous calorific intake over the weekend. But hey, it's only once a year. OK. 8.32pm.


Friday 18th September 2026

Rainy day in Lancaster. I bought a steak and Stilton pasty from Greggs and didn't like it. The smell after one bite was an insult, but the fucking taste was unbelievably bad. Jenni assured me that Greggs were still doing a deal where, if you didn't like it, you could exchange it for something else, so I went back and politely said, this is fucking crap. Actually, I just looked at her like an infant who’d had an accident in his pants and said I don't like this. And she said, okay, no problem. She looked over to her colleague and said, That's FIVE. How many more people will hate it? They gave me a regular steak bake. I’d already bought spicy wedges. Jenni and I had a wet walk to Lancaster Castle, the biggest we've been to. We passed a soaked Robin Ince on the way back to the train station. We had pot noodles for tea. Tonight we saw John Cooper Clarke, who several people thought was somewhat average. Trystan Lewis, who opened, was better. And of course, now here we are at the King's Arms. A super packed full house. Thick Richard has just blown the fucking roof off. Near the knuckle? He nearly put a knife through his hand onstage. But a really good gig. OK. 11.42pm.


Saturday 19th September 2026

Loads of great poets at the King's Arms this afternoon. Particularly Kate Ireland, who riffed on her grandma being a revolutionary. Also enjoyed Tim Barlow from Hastings. Me, Jenni and Donald Jenkins had great sets for our Geordie takeover. Jenni felt wiped out and went back to the B&B. I saw a good set from Henry Normal and enjoyed quite a lot of Selena Godden's poems. I walked back to the B&B straight after. OK. 10.46pm.


Sunday 20th September 2026

Great day at the festival. Best one of the weekend. Jackie Kay was ace. Elvis McGonagall was outstanding. I was surprisingly impressed by Luke Wright's full-length emotive show about adoption. Nothing like his usual stuff. Also enjoyed Kate Fox with a Sycamore Gap show set to music by Staid. Attila the Stockbroker was canny. Brian Bilston was mint. Now at King's Arms with Jenni, listening to Newtown Neurotics. OK. 11.52pm.


Monday 21st September 2026

Final Shipping Lanes B&B breakfast was continental: lots of fruit, cereal, cheese and ham. Jenni and I had a walk around Morecambe, including the pier bookshop. Saw a Harry Crews collection and a signed Giles Brandreth diary. After checking out charity shops with tempting suede Doc Martens and military jackets, we had three plates for a tenner in the local Spoons. Trains back to Newcastle via Lancaster, Penrith and Carlisle. Jenni is still very ill with some kind of bronchial Black Death and did well to engage with most of the festival sets over the weekend. I have eaten way too much food and will need to have a week of tuna and fresh fruit, and hopefully a couple of bike rides to reset the body. I've slept a lot, sometimes nodding off during shows this weekend. But I had a good time. I don't know if I'll be able to attend next year. I aim to be at WRITE Festival in South Shields again tomorrow. OK. 10.41pm.

Tuesday 22nd September 2026

Today’s ‘Business of Writing’ sessions from the Business & IP Centre at The Word were great. Elaine Cusack invited me to pitch in from the audience with insights relating to poetry. I'm pleased she showed the slide that states the average income for a writer in the UK is £7,000. And that £7,000 includes talks, workshops, readings, broadcasts - not just the physical writing of a book. I used to earn more than that in 2012. Not anymore. Nowhere close. Crime fiction author Glynis Drew said she spent a couple of thousand just advertising her first novel. Add to that Criminology courses and professional editing. And she spent twenty years getting from first idea to where she is now, several books into her career. This evening I watched TV with Jenni, then got the bus back to Consett. NHS letters on the doormat informed me of the date for my hernia operation: Wednesday 21st October. With a preliminary assessment on the 8th – a day before the Pit Pony gig. I'll need to cancel a few workshops. Oh well, can't be helped. OK. 11.54pm.


Wednesday 23rd September 2026

First ride on the Sonder Frontier bike for nearly three weeks. Back pain from gardening kept me off it for a fortnight then being away at the Morecambe Poetry Festival. I didn't get out until about four o'clock this afternoon. Really lethargic. But I ended up having a good ride. The bike rode nicely, and the trails are still hard and dry. Even after recent rain. I didn't really ride well but was grateful just to be out. My computer is being an utter cunt and won't display thumbnail photo files just blank tiles so uploading pics to Facebook tonight has been very taxing. And I'm sick of all the do your duty and die for your country coming from that stupid fucking anachronistic streak of piss. Send your family to the front if you're so fucking dutiful. I've done a few runs through my little set for Joan Johnston's Lit and Phil gig. OK. 11.38pm.


Thursday 24th September 2026

A lot of time has been spent on the conundrum of the fridge freezer. Before I buy, I have to be sure it will be installable, but the cooker needs disconnecting from the gas valve so it can be moved to clear a path for removal of the old fridge freezer and installation of a new one. Cousin Gordon is going to help me out next week. I copied up notes then packed for another visit to Jen's place. Tonight I took part in a reading at the Literary and Philosophical Society in Newcastle with Ellen Pheathean, Joan Johnston, Ali May, Pippa Little, Catherine Ayres, Kathleen Kenny and Nev Clay. We did about 8 to 10 minutes each. Nev did a couple of songs. I enjoyed reading. I would have preferred not to use a mic, but the room is quite large and there was a good turnout. I got back to Jen’s by half nine. Gogglebox is on telly. The National Poetry Day gig info is up on social media. OK. 10.48pm.

Friday 25th September 2026

Smartly dressed in Bensham by ten to ten and in Arts Centre Washington an hour later. We wrote short poems and looked at the near-final version of our anthology. Writing exercises today were: Absurd Words, 26-word stories, American Sentences, Haiku, Tanka and Rondelet. Then we made mini-zine templates. It was a good two-hour session. Many thanks to Alwyn Bathan for the lift to Metro Centre, where I bought some supplies for tea. Jenni and I watched a lot of telly. Dragons' Den always pisses me off; it annoys me that stupid schemes can win favour – not with Dragons, but with the public. I suppose you have to be a bit thick-skinned and audacious to be in business. I am not a businessman; I am a scribbler who happens to be published. Jenni and I are going to The Word is Murder event at WRITE Festival tomorrow. OK. 9.41pm.

Saturday 26th September 2026

Early rise and out to South Shields with Jenni for The Word is Murder - the final event of WRITE Festival. We arrived just five minutes before the start. Gill Main from Washington Writers was there. We listened to about nine or ten authors, including a great opening panel discussing their personal ill health and the therapeutic benefits of writing. A few panels weren't so hot, but Mark Billingham's closer was highly entertaining. Tonight we watched a lot of standard Saturday night TV. I ate lots of chicken. OK. 10.17pm.

Sunday 27th September 2026

Selected a lot of potential poems for the National Poetry Day library gig. Some are loosely connected to the theme of wonder; most aren’t. Watched the Porridge spin-off Going Straight. Then Jesus Christ Superstar. Followed by the full series of Catterick. Jenni prepared fishcakes, chips and beans. I read a lot of Lydia Davis short vignettes on the bus back to Consett. Canny weekend. OK. 10.17pm.


Monday 28th September 2026

Big thanks to Cousin Gordon for helping me out by uncoupling the gas pipe from the cooker and getting the old freezer over the carpet so we could lift it outside. I've sent a couple of invoices today; one will just about cover the cost of a new freezer, which is being delivered on Wednesday. This afternoon, I made posters for November and December's Poetry Jams on Publisher before Microsoft makes the software obsolete mid-week. I haven't had time to get to grips with a new package yet. I made a lot of colour blog plates to take me to the end of next February. Tomorrow's workshop is prepped and good to go. I listened to Newcastle band Pit Pony this evening. I'm going to see them in Byker a week on Friday. I did some physio and had marmalade on toast for supper. 11.00pm.

Tuesday 29th September 2026

Only two people at the Waddy workshop today. If I were still doing sessions for the college, I’d need at least eight. So it’s just as well I’m doing them for free, coz there’s no way I could still jump through bureaucratic hoops these days. Two decades was more than enough to tip me over the edge. Sentence Stems, Story Circles and Mini-Zines. The theme of Wonder kind of got lost along the way. Tonight I lost two hours listening to an excruciating Henry Rollins interview. He very graciously stayed on topic for well over an hour before subtly suggesting a change of direction, but the interviewer kept pressing on and on. I don’t go to a Rollins interview for an extended geopolitics lesson. Ask him about the forthcoming memoir, for fuck’s sake! Or the Nashville project. There’s still another hour to go – but not for me tonight. I have a pretend Pot Noodle waiting for me. And a day of editing ahead of me. Goodnight! 11.18pm.


Wednesday 30th September 2026

I couldn’t sleep last night, so I listened to the final hour of the mega long Rollins interview. Mercifully, a few changes of topic. Hank touched on ‘the horror’ from Apocalypse Now and how PTSD still throws him over thirty-five years after the murder of his best friend. I saw him talk about Joe Cole onstage a few feet away from me in Glasgow in 1992, and it was a very moving experience. Today I stayed home for the delivery of a new fridge-freezer. I got a black one. It should last me for the rest of my days. The old one was thirty-five years old. I doubt I’ll still be here in 2061. I’ve just trawled through a month of morning pages, intending to include a couple of entries in the blog, but have decided not to. Tomorrow is National Poetry Day. I have a gig with Jenni Pascoe at Durham Clayport Library at 2.00pm. There’ll be an open mic session as well. Then there’s the Poetry Jam at Waddington Street Centre at 7.00pm. Thanks for reading. Cheers! 3.45pm.