Thursday, August 07, 2008

Hallsfoot, Equinox and a clean getaway after all ...

Have spent most of the day working on Hallsfoot's Battle and am now at the grand total of 21,500 words. Or thereabouts. I've just got to the telling of the First Gathandrian Legend, which is basically Gathandria's creation story. So that's proving challenging to make up as I go along, for sure. Fun too. Annyeke and I are hoping this will be the first stage in helping Simon to come to terms with who he is and what he can do with the mind-cane but, really, it's anyone's guess just now.

I was also really pleased to see that my poem, The Death of Marat, is included in Issue 18 of the Equinox poetry journal. And I'm among some great company too. I think it's the best poetry magazine I've had the pleasure of reading for a long, long time. Bloody hell, I might even subscribe, if I can find the energy for it. I particularly enjoyed offerings from Nigel Humphreys, Navkirat Sodhi, Andrew Geary and Barbara Daniels. Thought I'd best name-drop in advance, just in case they become hugely and justifiably famous later, you know ...

And the postal service is becoming stranger - I found Mother's postcard in the mud behind the recycling bins, so I had to scramble around in the dirt in order to retrieve it. It was lucky I glimpsed it at all. Anyway, she's having fun in Cork. As you do. Though she was sorry to have missed Jersey - the seas were too rough. I would have thought she'd have been able to get there with her broomstick as usual, mind you. Perhaps she left it at home?

In terms of reading, I've given up in bored despair with the pretentious and poorly written No Country for Old Men. Shame on you, Cormac McCarthy! Have you not heard of speech marks? Dull claptrap, to my mind. I hope the film was better, for those of you who've seen it. The strapline for this book tells me: There are no clean getaways. Well, actually, yes there are: just remove the bookmark and start something else. That'll do it.

Meanwhile, at home.com, Lord H has returned from hunting the buffalo and leapt straight into fixing our very droopy telephone wire. And I hadn't even realised it was something we could fix - seeing as we're so high up here in the shires. Lord H's response when I asked how he'd done it: I have very long arms, you know. Hmm, I suspect it was rather a matter of pulling at the end and using a carefully positioned couple of nails and a hammer. Still, I could be wrong. It has been known.

Tonight, I'm planning an evening of sudokus and TV. I am strangely involved with "Lab Rats" now. Hell, I'll miss them when it's finished.

Today's nice things:

1. Writing Hallsfoot
2. A published poem
3. Abandoning a bad book
4. TV.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on the poem!

Sounds like Hallsfoot is really going well - I guess mind canes don't come with a handy instruction pack?

Ok - I'd better go see if I can dredge up a few words from somewhere :)

Sarah

Anne Brooke said...

Thanks, Sarah! And tee hee - I wish they did! That would cut out about 30,000 words at least.

:))

Happy writing!

A
xxx

Anonymous said...

Hi Anne
I found your blog through WriteWords and thought you might be interested in this Short-Story Competition from CompletelyNovel - a new online community for writers and readers that lets you share your work online and sell it as a paperback. They are celebrating their launch to the public in October with a competition for short stories to appear in their CompletelyNovel Launch Anthology. Winners are being selected by people from across the publishing industry.
More details at http://www.completelynovel.com/home/competition
Thanks
Robert

Anne Brooke said...

I do wish people would have the courtesy to ask me before they post sales emails on my blog. We are distinctly not amused, Robert. If I knew how to delete your comment, I would. I must say I was fairly okay about the Completely Novel site before, but due to you I am less so now.

People - be warned!

==:O

A
xxx