Tilda.
The launch went well - Tina was a fabulous host at the Bookshop, and even got me involved in recording a piece about Tilda for the Merton Talking News October Magazine... I pop up at around 7 minutes into the recording.
I had some lovely surprises in that folk popped into the shop I hadn't expected to see at all, and it was lovely to spend the day chatting to old friends and new about all sorts of things. Course, I sold a few copies as well...
If you read Tilda, do please consider leaving a review on Amazon or Goodreads; word of mouth is the best form of recommendation, and there are some banging reviews up already. (Five stars!)
Family.
We've been down to Bristol to fit secondary glazing in Squidgeling J's flat, because the old sash windows were so drafty. My cardmaking skills of days gone by came in useful, especially when we had to peel the backing off the double sided sticky tape. All went well until Mr Squidge fitted some shims to prevent the plastic being ripped off when the windows were opened; when he went to test it, he realised he couldn't.
We'd forgotten that once the plastic was on and shrunk, there was nothing to hold onto to open the window! An emergency visit to Wilkos and three handles later... Voila! Opening windows.
Combined with the new boiler that's been fitted in the flat, Squidgeling J is now toasty in time for the winter.
We also went up to Manchester in the same week to see Squidgeling T - he came home with us for the weekend. As is the way of things, we didn't see too much of him as he caught up with friends at home, but it was good to hear about how his course is going. He's not developed a 'rock star' look yet, but there was passing mention of tattoos and piercings... *gulp*
Word Art.
At NIBS in September, the group worked on an 'I remember' exercise focused around people we had loved and lost, with a view to turning it into an artwork for a community project exhibition at church called 'The Art of Remembrance'. On large sheets of paper, we wrote some of the words and phrases we'd generated, often with a more artistic arrangement, and then the large sheets were chopped up.
Well, this week, I've been helping Jacqui Gallon, the artist who is facilitating the exhibition and associated workshops, to sew the paper onto fabric to create the final artwork.
A DIY MA in Creative Writing.
I've taken the decision to work on a course designed by the amazing Andrew Wille with a group of Denizen friends. It's basically everything that goes into a formal MA course, but you can work through it at your own pace. We've tried to structure it a bit, timewise, and I've attempted a couple of exercises. Only problem is that I don't seem to have much writing time...
So, to that end, I've just bought myself an academic diary to try to plan my writing a bit better. The 'free' days I had hoped were going to be writing opportunities are getting eaten up fast by lots of different things. And yet developing writing practise is a big part of the MA - it almost feels like I'm failing before I've even started. I've been here before though, when life gets in the way and writing's always - ALWAYS - the first thing to get shoved onto a back burner. I would do NaNoEdMo again, but I'd have to set myself a very, very low word count!!
Anyway, I'll stop rattling on here, and get down to writing up an overheard dialogue exercise... If only I hadn't been so interested in eavesdropping, I might have written down more of the conversation!
See you later, Scribblers.
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