I came across an interesting podcast this morning, while browsing the iTunes store (as you do, when you should be working on something else). It's called "Brain Ready", and they offer a series of (free) quick audio exercises, designed to keep your brain active, and prevent (or even reverse) the deterioration of your mental facilities …
Sabotaging myself
I'm assuming that I'm not the only writer who seems to have a self-sabotage reflex? A recent example. One of the things that is (meant to be) occupying me at the moment is work on a novel. (A dark, dystopian fantasy.) A good friend had her first novel accepted for publication in the USA recently, and …
Book launches
Lovely news from a friend, Diana Deans – her first book, It matters that we were young together, is being launched in Christchurch on the 27th of this month. She really is a good poet – she's got a delicious sense of humour, and a very good ear (not as common as it should be …
poem in progress – Burning
I thought it was probably time to post a work-in-progress. Haibun – Burning Winter, and I’m burning tree-stumps. This one, deep in the cattle-camp of scribbly gums, sticking out a metre, with a sharp point like the one that bled the broodmare dry. Build the twig-pile around the base, burn the wood-witch at the stake. …
Poetry and Music
I use music a lot when I write. A lot of my poems have been written to what amounts to a a "theme song" – a piece (or pieces) of music that fits the emotional texture of the poem. That takes me back into the emotions that the poem is coming from. Writing being the …
A Dark Feathered Art 