008/100 days of aspirin

It's funny, how the taste of dispersible aspirin sends you back to childhood. Warm water from the kettle used to dissolve the fat tablet, fizzing limply, and then swallowing down lukewarm bitty bitterness. I don't really remember why I needed them, presumably for the pain of tonsillitis. Apart from that I was a pretty healthy child, that and my ears.

So it is a bit of a shock that I am confined, if not exactly bed-ridden. It's not as if I feel ill, or even much pain. Heaviness and aching and throbbing, yes. Lazy, too. As if I have too eagerly embraced the opportunity to sit and do very little for weeks.

I'm still on with the blanket, stitching the final section together at the table. Then it is finishing off the ends, and knitting an edging around the blanket. I am already planning the next one in my head, I don't think I can make a satisfyying landscape out of what I have, so will revert back to a sea-inspired abstract diamond shapes one.

Bank holiday here, and it's sunny and hot, with no breeze. The flat is relatively cool but I get flushed if I do something of more than minimal exertion. Writing it is then... two prediction pieces are complete and just need posting here. One 400 piece of the sea still to come...

I've found an idea...

...for the August challenge over at http://houseofwriters.ning.com/

now all I need to do is write it!

try

BluePrintReview book+lit blog: Magpie Days - Julia Davies

BluePrintReview book+lit blog: Magpie Days - Julia Davies: In July and August, the 100 Days Project gathered story writers, poets, painters, photographers, filmmakers, musicians, and programmers together...

click above to see the BluePrintReview's blog review of my 100 Days project - please!

100 days project

A pictorial update... we are 78 days in & I am 5 days behind; I started 10days behind everyone else, on day 11 so I have made up some ground! I've been playing around with collecting all the images together for an issuu publication when complete, and am loving the patchwork grid/stained glass effect; and the best part about looking at the completed-so-far grid is realising just how much I have already done.

5th & 56th

Even the media had picked up on it. "A timely return and a timely warning."
Strangely, those who thought of three risk-boosting behaviours rated their chances of getting heart disease to be higher than those who thought of eight.
No dust dancing. Put one before the other and begin.
You were real.


An activity suggested by Sina at 100 Days of Sun and Art


1.  The Snowman:  Jo Nesbo
2.  The Summer Tree:  Guy Gavriel Kay
3.  Risk (the science and Politics of Fear):  Dan Gardner
4.  Kraken: China Miéville
5.  The seven days of Peter Crumb:  Jonny Glynn
6.  Henry and June:  Anaïs Nin

madness?

I talk to you
when you are
not there

this is called
writing

100 days 2011

A new project ;)

onehundreddays.net

http://jkdaviespractice100days2011.blogspot.com

kopfschmerz

another time, I will be in tune with what other people want...

Rathaus windows

There is a "windows thing" over at YB Poetry, which I have bookmarked and intend to do something about.   There have been a couple of pieces of flash on office life, cubicle farms, most notably "Lost at Sea" by Kori Dremow with it's line 'Every now and again you can peer longingly out of a plate of glass to the world outside; you can look but you cannot touch'

This photo, taken on my ramble around my home town today, shows reflections in the windows of the Rathaus, inside the offices this (reversed) must be their view. Hopefully together this will lead to some inspiration for a poem for the YB themed issue. But now, to Photoshop ;)

Carnival reflections

What does the >language>place carnival mean to me? I think Michael Solender put it most succinctly when he described it as being about "belonging and connections". It is about linking up with people around the world who have at heart a love of language, and an expression of my admiration for people writing, living in a language not their own. I recognise that although I do not live in my native country, I am far from being fluent in Germany, my adopted country, in either language or culture. Sometimes language is all about barriers, and sometimes I am looking for barriers; this carnival helps me realise that I don't need to build them, that I can connect with people who have similar experiences.

Michelle Elvy is hosting edition #06 over at Glow Worm, with the theme "language and place on the edge" - I am hoping to have something to submit to her shortly - I have a piece in mind but need to check it out first ;)

I've returned from a three week trip to the USA, which has been virtually writing free, and felt the need to be creative again, so I put together a new page here in practice makes perfect to keep track of all the editions, before noticing that Dorothee has done the same thing! (here). Lets hope this kicks off some actual writing!

updates... roundups... letdowns...

I am just about keeping my head above water with write1sub1 - see the stats below ;)
In the last couple of weeks, although I have been writing less, I have had a couple of pieces accepted for later publication - look out for 'Foot and Mouth' in MuDJoB mid/late March, and 'liminal' in the May edition of negative suck.  Also, my poem 'the river tonight' was chosen as an editors pick at thepoetrycircle ;)

I am annoyed with myself that I could not get my head in the right place to meet a couple of deadlines - notably the >language>place carnival edition #4 to be hosted by Jean Morris at tasting rhubarb.  Also, I wanted to do something collaborative for Dorothee Lang's synergetic transformations at BluePrint Review, I just never got to the right mindstate.

oh well, onwards and upwards...

blink|ink #5

More celebrations are due!  After the >language >place carnival rolled into town, the new blink|ink (edition #5) hits town, and I have a poem "v-word" featured!

OK, good things come in threes, so I'm kind of waiting for the third one now, except I don't believe myself to be a superstitious person.  Waiting is something both familiar and repulsive to me, I somehow feel I should make things happen, not wait, passively, for things to happen to me.  I don't believe in things that I can't touch; often I don't believe in the things I can touch, everything is mutable.  But most of life seems to be waiting, for all the carpe diem hullaballoo, I for one am still mostly comfortable with the 9-5 (OK, 7:30-18:00) life, as long as I get a bit of creativity time to keep me going.

Look at me, look at my reality check... my celebratory news turned, by my fear of heightened expectations into a sobering downbeat grumble.  Oh well, I blame PMT...

Countdown >language >place

Edition #3 is due out on 25th January

This round is hosted by Michael Solender at not from here, are you?

This one has a theme, "A place I felt I really belonged" and my piece, "where I live/where I love" has been chosen for inclusion.  This piece inspired a number of other authors over at the 6S social network, check them out here

sang the starting maelstrom

circle splish swirl

whirl splash

circle swish

bubbles pop up

cycle swirl

circle

begins again

Still somewhat (I know, this enthusiasm will be the death of me) inspired by the flood pictures I took last weekend, this picture took me a while to get "right" but the flash fiction it prompted seemed to flow and now it's submitted so I can tick off the sub part of Write1Sub1 too for the week - anything more will be a bonus!

more tired

please
do not reject me
(yes of course
I mean
my poetry)
when I
have PMT

stepping in to the river

Bruce Springsteen sings "We go down to the river, and into the river we dive" on my drive home from work. When I get home I step into the river of stones and feel my toes get warm here, or cold there, and my other senses are tweaked as I read the words of strangers and I sit on the teak bench and feel its pressure against my capacious flesh and my shoulders drop as I stare at the screen and my lower back starts to ache.  The river tugs at me, but I just wrote a poem about abjectivity that has been buzzing in my head for a couple of days instead.
I want to dive into the river but today I forgot my swimming costume and my mind is still sloshing abjectness around and I cannot skinny dip today.  But I will keep standing here on the bank and maybe tomorrow I will have a perfectly observed stone.

A small stone is a polished moment of paying proper attention.

Starting in January
a daily challenge, to
pay attention
to the world
observe it and
polish it.

discovery

Last weekend, on a lazy morning blog browsing I discovered the concept of Blog Carnivals from Dorothee Lang.  Intrigued with the idea, I then lost several hours exploring a heady mix of people and places from around the world, checking out blogs with pictures, poems and writing, both fiction and non-fiction.
Dorothee has now created a blog roll page (automatically updating) for all the people who have already contributed to the carnival, and I recommend checking it out.  It has updates from Germany, Finland, Ukraine, Slovenia, Switzerland, UK, Canada, USA, Mexico, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, India, Zimbabwe and hopefully more to come in following carnival months.  Go on, have a look!

 http://languageplace.blogspot.com/

And what do you do?

I guess I don't write
to understand the world; I
build oblique fences