Inspiration and a Light

Is it the end of the tunnel or the oncoming train? I mean, hopefully the former, but I guess I’ll find out. I have three more chapters to go on this round of edits before I read the book on my kindle to make some more notes. Which means I’m on track to get this turned in on time or ahead.

Yesterday was the more-or-less monthly meetup of the Edinburgh SFF Writers, which is really just an excuse to take over a pub and share good news and beers. After that i headed out with a friend to my favourite bar and we listened to four guys on acoustic guitars having a little session of classic rock and it was perfect and beautiful.

The trek back home was hazy and drunken, the bridge lights glowing off the clouds.

Thanks to meetups, I’ve fallen behind on Skate Canada, so hopefully I’ll catch up some later this week, but in the meantime my own skating is slowly progressing.

For the first time I actually think a sit spin might be possible?

This damn thing has been my nemesis for years, I just cannot get it. But on a good day I think I’m about an inch or two off parallel, so that’s huge progress from what it was.

Since there’s not much writing news at the moment, I’ll leave you with a poem:

The Winter Suburbia Ice Cream Van Tour

Ice cream vans flood

summer sirens down

wynds and closes,

pulling milk teeth children

loose from doorways.

The sound feral

as the untouchable state

of turning nine

when everything felt

harder, stranger, fiercer.

It jangles through

veins sludged

with fish suppers, tennants,

ten hour amazon shifts.

But it’s february, the echoes

waltz tinny and thin, and

when you bought a cone in

the glen it gagged you

with sugared paste

and communion wafer

crumbs in your throat.

These are the ghosts

that ring church bells

on a saturday

endlessly and call

your name through

woollen mouths, distant,

soft and insistent.