Sunday, September 26, 2010

Reviews, queues and haikus

Book News:

Tuluscan Six and the Time Circle gained a review at Tam's Reads today (scroll down to view) so thank you, Tam! And yesterday I was lucky enough to be the featured author at Michelenjeff Reviews and, at the same time, they gave a 5-star review to Tommy's Blind Date - so thank you also for that.

Meanwhile, determined not to be forgotten, Martin and The Wolf received a 5-star review from Two Lips Reviews - many thanks, Tina. All this is a nice boost for my current gay short story, Brady's Choice, which is slowly, oh so slowly, being written and I've finally struggled my way up to 5,000 words (hurrah!), with another 2000 to go. I think. I'm hoping to get it finished sometime over the next couple of weeks or so but my rate of writing is distinctly not speedy at the moment, so who knows, eh. There's just a hell of a lot of other stuff going on (see below).

However, I'm pleased to say that my latest poetry collection, Sunday Haiku, is currently being advertised at Goodreads so if you catch it on your travels, please do say hello and maybe even add it to your book list there - poetry's not as weird as you think! Speaking of shopping, the good news is that there's 20% off all my Dreamspinner Press titles this weekend so still time to bag yourself a bargain before Monday is upon us.

Here's a meditation poem for this week:


Meditation 433
There on the mountain
the wind shatters rock,
ground heaves
and strange fire
scorches your skin

but it is only
when your mind eases open
for that still, small voice
that you sense at last
the possible nearness of God.


The Sunday haiku today is:

Nameless shadows drift
across my heart; they stifle
hope and fortitude.


Life News:

Lots of redecorating, DIY and decluttering has continued to take place wherever possible. We've now all but finished the hallway - just one section of carpet to take up in order to gloss the skirting board near the front door. We've also given the bedroom a lick of paint where needed and cleaned the walls where they're dirty. Yesterday, K did one trip to the council tip, and today I've done two trips, plus an extra trip to the local book recycling point with another five bags of books. I reckon I could probably do another 5 bags of books or more on top of that but I'll sort those out when I put them back on the spare room shelves. Because at the moment I'm typing this in the middle of the spare room with, behind me, a bare painted area (where the computer usually goes but not now!), and in front of me an area of total clutter. Once the half behind me is fully done, ie painted with a coat or two more, we'll swap over those areas. To enable this, our three tall book cases which normally stand like sentinels of learning (mainly theology) behind me as I type are now standing in the outside hallway, and the books are on the two smaller bookcases now outside our front door, or on the large bookcases on the remaining shelves (the movable shelves we have stored separately), or in the inner hallway in front of the mirror or in the middle and side of the living room. That includes our domestic and professional business files. Thank goodness there's only one item to iron tonight, eh, as there's no room for anything else.

Things I've discovered/rediscovered during the course of today: electric sanders are great fun and very good, and the spare room walls are in fact not as bad as we'd feared (there was great gloom and depression last night after we'd washed them but a lick of paint is a marvellous thing indeed even in an old Victorian house); roller painting is fun and fast, and very good for ceilings though I do end up with a white nose that amused K way way too much; my lost sock was hiding behind the bedroom chest of drawers and has after 18 months been reunited with its partner; the Henry Hoover double strength suction pad will try to suck in a shirt if aimed inadvertently in its direction; the cat flap on our front door is not a standard size but we will nail a piece of wood over the damn thing and repaint properly.

While all this has been going on, I spent a large part of yesterday at the University's Move In Saturday, arriving at 7.45am and leaving at about 3.30pm. It seemed much smoother than last year, possibly because I knew better what I was supposed to be doing, and most students have settled in nicely so far. A fair amount of queueing at our key times but they were all very jolly. Tomorrow Freshers' Week starts in reality and it will be all systems go at our Information Point from 8.30am to 6pm. Goodness knows how exhausted I'll be when I get back but I'm planning on tackling the skirting board behind me in the spare room, and K has taken that section of carpet up in advance so I don't have to think too much. I just like to Paint 'n Go, you know.

Finally, is it just me, or do all our three main party leaders now look so much like each other that they might as well be triplets? Lordy, I really can't tell them apart ...

Anne Brooke

2 comments:

Jason Shaw said...

Pats on the back for the good reviews.

Gosh you have been busy, all that recycling, all those boxes, all those books, sound very organised to me.

Freshers week already? Where has this year gone!

Have a great week.

Anne Brooke said...

Thank you! I know - it's been soooo busy! Hope your week is a good one too :))

Anne
xxx