Sorry for the quietness folks as last week I was off and ended up chilling really, helped my other half Cathy celebrate her birthday a little, and did a little bit of writing while looking for a new job.
In relation to a new job, for the record, the place I work at during the day, the Co-operative announced the section I work is to close unless things change probably by the end of the year, which is very upsetting to be honest, and in this climate will prove somewhat hard to get a new job.
However, of course this will mean lots more time for writing which I am currently sorting out as I speak.
Gig wise, as I advised the week before last I did two gigs, one on Monday 11th July for W.O.L. Stockport re-titled for the night ‘Read Out Loud’ where I performed three poems ‘Ghosts of Manchester Victoria’, ‘Leaving Belfast’ and ‘Percy’. All of these should have had backing footage, but sadly we couldn’t get it to accept my files. Oh well – there will be other times but I was pleased with the gig on a whole.
Thursday of the same week – My gang ‘A Means to an End’ did a short set at the Revolution night at Cord Bar in the Northern Quarter. Although the crowd was sparse and I wasn’t wild on the venue, I did enjoy performing at the gig where we did ‘Up on the Roof’, ‘Memories of Moss Side’ and ‘Genocide’ and felt we
Delivered quite a decent set.
Gig wise, as I advised before, there won’t be anything for a while now as I am taking a break from performing to concerate on my writing. As a writer who is constantly gigging, getting chance to sit down to write proper is sometimes quite in short supply, henceforth for the break.
New Project wise, First of all, I did a surprise poetry book for my other half; Cathy called ‘Love Songs for Cathy II’ which can be downloaded for free athttp://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/love-songs-for-cathy-ii/16225254 for her birthday.
This of course is not an official book, as it is a very personal book and not something I will be stocking but if anybody wishes to download the book for free (or buy it as it is at cost price through lulu.com), they are welcome.
New projects wise, part of the reason for the break is for me and my partner in a Means to an End, Jeffarama to write our joint book ‘A Means to an End’ together. The book I can announce is very, very nearly complete and will be around 60 pages and will market at lulu.com probably for a little over £5 (excluding P & P) (and through us a little cheaper with a bonus CD).
I am now also working with the American poet, Amanda Silbernagel on a project too which is currently untitled but her stuff can be read on www.amandasilbernagel.com - her stuff is quite different to mine as it’s a lot more experimental but I’m having a lot of fun creating break-beats, little drops of noise etc to it. Brings back a lot of memories of my days in M.A.N. and B.A.N.
Also in the pipeline of possibles, which may or may not happen over the end of this year into the beginning of 2012 is doing a tribute book to a poet friend of mine, Gary Morris who sadly passed away last year. I worked with Gary for a good number of years with the writing workshops ’24 Hour Arty People’ and ‘Trio Writers’ and saw his writing grow and develop like mine in sometimes quite similar ways and I want to get sorted out a tribute book to him as I have access to a lot of material of his.
Cathy my other half is doing a charity book on her disabled charity work which will get called ‘Unique, Driven and Determined’ also from the beginning of August which I am going to help her design and publish. I forget all of the detail for this, but I will confirm shortly.
Jeff, my guitarist is also talking about doing some kind of booklet too for W.O.L. Bolton in the Autumn which will feature poetry read out at Butterflies in Bolton over a certain period, which’ll I will help him publish and organise too.
Into 2012, I am also thinking about my second full length collection ‘Detective Novel’ which I will start to get together more once my split book is completed, but that’ll be more towards the end of 2012, maybe 2013.
When I know what is going on with my job, I would like to also return to my novel ‘The End’ and give this another draft, as I think I got to another 50,000 words (160 pages or so) on the first draft and would like to see how that develops with the second draft. Again – this’ll be 2013 I reckon.
I’ve also got some children’s poetry wrote, which I would love to go back to again and do some more on, but who knows what I would do with that yet.
As you can see, plenty in progress here.
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