Slow starts and stories

A gloriously slow start to the day today. And Lordy but that doesn't happen often. Didn't actually get up till gone 9am, which is about a three hour lie-in compared to a University day and two to a non-University one, hurrah! Total bliss really. So here's this morning's meditation (which was nearly an afternoon one):

Meditation 170

All those years
and years of travel

and when the destination’s
finally in sight,

just there over the hill,
all you can do

is gaze and gaze
at untouched beauty,

knowing you will never
enter it.


Talking of literary matters, I'm pleased to say that my short story, The Last Morning, is now published at The Foundling Review and two of my earlier meditation poems can be found at Pens On Fire webzine.

It certainly makes up for the two or three rejections (boo! hiss!) I've had this week - I'm storing them up for the moment as I can't raise the energy to resend stuff out while I'm seriously getting into the novel edit for Hallsfoot's Battle. The beginning is actually going fairly smoothly and I'm now as far into it as Chapter Four (which is further than you might think as Ralph's sections of the story don't count as chapters but as part of the Lammas Chronicles, and I've had two of those already). So far my most amusing changes have been to do with Annyeke's house which I appear to have completely redecorated in the two days' gap between the ending of The Gifting and the start of this novel. Hell, no wonder she's tired! I suspect there will be a lot more changes to come, and deeper ones too, however.

Tonight, I must ring Mother and try to sound relatively normal (ho ho) and I must also try to glean some manner of television out of this evening's sparse programming. At least we have last week's video of Mock the Week still to watch, plus a fair amount of DVD Spaced episodes, hurrah.

This week's haiku is:

Each word hooks meaning
into my skin; their temple
rises to the skies.

Today's nice thing:

1. A lie-in
2. Poetry
3. Short story and poetry publications
4. The Hallsfoot edit
5. Videos/DVDs
6. Haiku.

Anne Brooke - relishing slowness