Ever decreasing circles



Life is busy – multifarious demands and activities – but mostly fun. (Well, I’ve had several hours of manuscript editing during the past week, and the best one can say about that is – it’s money. Fun it ain’t.)

Last Friday evening was storytelling up in Hebden Bridge (it’s over the Yorkshire border so I had to check my visa was up to date), then on Saturday we had a wonderful choral concert in the Parish Church – Josquin’s mass L’homme armé – and I spent most of Sunday at a storytelling workshop in Wensley, where I developed a Peak District tale to tellable standard. I’ll probably use it at our next Meet The Authors session on 16th March in Chapel en le Frith. I taught a maths tutorial on Monday (they say variety is the spice of something or other) and yesterday – Tuesday – there was a really good Literature Group meeting, which left me with a copy of John Lanchester’s massive Capital to read before April 5th, when we next meet. I’ve done tons of stuff for the creative writing group (seeking new sources of funding, posting an example of a plot board on the website – I hate plot boards, which for me are much more of a handicap than a help – and finishing a children’s story we started in last Thursday’s class), and I’ve finished the draft of my projected radio play based on the story of the Murders in the Winnats Pass… rather over 12,000 words. I shall now let the draft sit and mature for a while before returning to it and polishing it ready for submission to somewhere that wants radio plays. The radio, perhaps.

Tomorrow (Thursday) is the next creative writing group session, then in the evening I’ll meet the rest of the Creative Focus team for the first time since we finished the Snow Queen performances. We’ll plan our 16th March session in Chapel and also, I hope, a visit to Elizabeth Gaskell’s house in Manchester this coming Sunday (March 6th). We all admire the author of North and South, Cranford, and those other wonderful social-commentary novels of the Victorian age. On Friday evening I’ll be going to Matlock for the Storytelling Cafe. Most of Saturday will be devoted to a discussion of Ishiguro’s brilliant Remains of the Day, comparing the novel with the Anthony Hopkins film, but in the evening I’ll be back in the Parish Church for a Glossop Concert Cociety performance of Schubert’s Winterreise. Then Mrs Gaskell’s house on Sunday, and another mathematics tutorial on Monday…

It’s now approaching half past nine in the evening and I’ve been working at one task or another all day – even managing to fit in a few household chores in between them. Being busy keeps you young, they say.

I’m considering working on the draft of a short story (intended for a ghost story competition) before I switch off my computer and relax prior to falling into bed. Maybe I’ll just have a drink instead. It won’t do the story any harm to wait until… no, tomorrow’s full… and so’s Friday… and Saturday… and Sunday… Monday, perhaps, after the tutorial.

Unless, of course, I’m inundated with more manuscripts to edit before then!

So perhaps I should…

Yep, decided. Drink.

 

Leave a Comment

Logged in as - Log out