A Project

For myself and maybe for some of youse, lazy daisies... that have the ability to write, but lack the je ne sais quoi* to actually send it out...
The mission is to send stuff out to every single outlet on this list....  List of Lit Mags  - or else take a random selection of their titles and use it as a prompt to write - or else simply continue to do as you were doing and see where that gets you (where you are)...

*Quoi = confidence is the what, or time, or mental energy, headspace perhaps to finish it, or pride - unwillingness to let some other human being use their power in saying no...

Alternatively start your own magazine.

I'm accepting free submissions now, in my comment box, for my upcoming blog post/ EZINE which will be published very soon or else before the third quarter of the 17th month, and for which I, quite simply, want to gather the very best of writing, or art on the world WIDE web, or wrart... and i won't be paying contributors, but they will have the honour of being part of the tremendous and wondrous thing that is the very next** in a long long line of posts, of varying length and brevity....

**(unless I decide to hold it for the post after that)

Best of luck and don't be too disheartened, I aim to answer your comment within 3 months, I don't accept simultaneous, heterogenous, homozygous, or magnatamous submissions or emmissions.

Catch up

Hiya folksies

How's the summer with ye?  It's actually summer here for the first time ever, we're living at the beach every weekend, that and the back garden, and we're slipping around a lot thanks to the sun cream that i luckily bought a whole case of at the start of the summer, since I need to have it in every bag and every pram and every car, cos I'm so crazy and unpredictable, I never know where I'm going next (to the beach) or with what bag (the big one that keeps drinks cool, or the big cheap flowery looking one).

Looking forward to Louise's new book that's coming out soon - the Doll House, and to a mini reunion that's happening soon with writing buddies of yore.  I have a new writing group, but I've only attended about 3 times in the last year, and brought my first story written in about two years in to them lately.   As opposed to the old prolific days pre baba, when all the spare energy that didn't go towards keeping work from firing me could go into writing, or radio show preparing, and we used to meet every two weeks.

No other craic here, little fella's in good form, enjoying his copy of the Caterpillar magazine and eagerly awaiting the next bus...

We only had the punk music on for a minute

and this happened....

(If I turn my back on the mess it won't exist)

In fairness though, he's probably done this just as often to a bit of Jazz, Classical or the Fair City theme music, but I wouldn't have noticed (so engrossed in the goings on of Bella, or in the case of Jazz perfecting my elbow twitch), it was just that when everything was upended this time, it fit perfectly with the music playing in the background -

(Don't be worrying now, I just put on a bit of Boyzone after and he had it all cleaned up in no time... :-)

Any weird effects of various music genres in your home?

Sketcher

Some art in reverse order, and because I'm enjoying the recent spurt of extra blogging.  :-)

Squiggle with a face

A messy disgrace

A window in space

Waiter feeds bluey lace

Fighting demons with grace

and beneath all the trace

Tate Modern and other collectors and art agent types can contact me through my telepathic line, I'll know.

Cars in the Bed

There can be little in life more irksome for a dog that loves to slumber than cars in the bed.... except perhaps for having an owner who makes you pose beside the cars in your bed, so that she can have others laugh at your plight.

I can see it in her eyes alright

"I'll get you back, some day, some way"

The Length and length

Today I've travelled the length and length of the country, well almost, woke up in Cork, went to work in Belfast, and now am on an iron road back to Cork again.  It's a cushy life, a four hour working day, with a 12 hour commute. 
I don't do it often.
I was technically also supposed to work on route, and I might yet (you see I'm very busy and important and the world will end without my input), but events conspired against me being especially productive.  You see the wireless was rubbish all the way up to the top of the country, so I couldn't speak to Mr Email all day until 1.30 when the magic elves in the office I eventually arrived to work at wove their way into my machine and planted hundreds of wonderful ideas for work into it.
You see, I'm like a hamster or some other such trained thing that sits in front of something and waits for it to tell me what to do, when the bell sounds I press the right buttons and get a treat, or a shock if I press the wrong ones, it sounds terribly cruel, but it's easier than childminding, and mysteriously they pay me enough so that I can pay someone else to childmind my beautiful child.
The day wasn't a total loss.
When the elves had moved all the magic instructions for what to do next into my machine (breathe in breathe out, check whether these oranges look nice enough for this new yogurt pot, predict the future, make up a good reason for why we're doing what we're already doing and why it has or hasn't worked), I was going to be able to read and work, and sweat and groan and respond all the way down the country again, falling down the map like an Ant down a crack in the wall with too big a crumb of sticky cake on its back on a hot june day, but no, it wasn't to be - there were no plugs on the train going to Dubland.  There are plugs on the train going to Cork though, and that is because people who go to Cork are sexier and more switched on, and brilliant in general than people going to Dubland, or maybe it's just the age of the train.  Either way
and moving swiftly along
not wanting to alienate my dublin reader
gloss gloss gloss
I didn't completely waste the day.
I got to read much of Niamh Boyce's wonderful book "The Herbalist" - It's the first book I've EVER had to skip to the end of to see what was going to happen before I continued reading, the words were too much in danger of physically hurting me, if I didn't peek ahead.  It's not something I ever have done before (as you can tell from the very sincere EVER in big letters earlier in this paragraph), but god that woman can write.  I'm very proud to have the same first name as her.   Not that this makes me as good a writer automatically per se, but it would give one some hope.
Other things I got done on route have included but not been limited to...
- noticing brilliant dublin street art between the jervis and smithfield - and I mean brilliant - almost Banksy brilliant.
- remembering brilliant times in places that I passed, like - the night we went to see republic of loose, or the time my brother and I walked in from Heuston to town on our own and I was only 8 or something and he wanted to save money for McDonalds or music or something, the time with people I'd met in Irish college in Mallow - under the railway bridge out messing late at night, windsurfing near the sandflats of malahide (ok wind drifting), watching harry potter in drogheda and having the kids in the seats behind us calling out all the words, visiting a deserted house in the shade of croke park with someone mysterious,
- also seeing people writing with marker on turnips (ok that actually happened last week in work rather than today, but it makes a good story, and if you've lasted this far down the page you deserve a good story)
- catching up with good buddies on the phone.
- getting a sizeable blog written.
 - writing a teeny tiny bit
- reading half of Staring at Lakes - a memoir by Michael Harding - an honest and funny man.

Now for some actual work, sure I've another 2 hours on the train yet!!!

Caterpillar News

So the younger sibling of the marvellous Moth Magazine, aka the Caterpillar, was launched yesterday and anyway, I've a poem in it.  I'm quite thrilled about it, as it's the only submission I've made this year, so, so far 2013 has been a year of 100% success.

The poem chosen to be in this very special first edition of Ireland's first (that I'm aware of) literary magazine for children... is non other than the very first ever of my Poems to Dissuade.  Click here to see the full line up in the magazine.  It's a very pretty looking publication I have to say.

In other news, there was a marathon in our city today.  I say city, but you can walk from one end to the other in 20 mins.  In fact, you can run 26 miles around it too, as it turns out - causing all kinds of traffic tomfoolery on the way.  We caught the train in and saw a few of the mad things that were finishing the run. I have to say, it was quite a spectacle.  People with all inhibitions lost, bodies and faces contorted in severe pain, but with joy there too, and they didn't seem one bit disappointed that after all that effort, all the months of preparation and training, the course led them right back to where they had begun.

Meanwhile, little boy turned two on Saturday. Just because he's only two doesn't mean he can't blow out the candles 3 times though (and he knows how to enjoy himself at a rock festival)

Hope your Summer is taking care of you......................

 

So I built a wall on a beach.  What did you do with the summer so far?

Vicious Fishes

I thought we'd be safe enough - to watch a cookery show - me and the little man this evening.  I didn't feel like dancing, or running up and down the hallway with cars, trying to stop him climbing into the sink (yes he's discovered the art of chair dragging) so tv it was, now I don't know about you, but I've had enough tellytubbies, and yet somehow knew he wouldn't go for a boring old soap - inspired by his excited perusal of a cookery book last night, screeching "oh yummy yummy" at every page, i put a cookery show playing on the player.
It started well.  Fishing boats.  Men walking over rocks. Children picking periwinkles, squealing and laughing.  He was all in favour.
Then the horror.  Sea Bass it might have been.  Beheaded.  Then filleted.  My compassionate little soldier was almost sobbing on the sofa next to me, worry and pure revulsion showing in his little eyes as the cook held up the bones showing off how little meat was left on them.  Looking at me, as if to say, why are you not outraged, why are we not going to tell that man that this is not nice behaviour.... (after all he's not allowed kick the dog, surely this is unfair?)  

We will not be watching "Martin's Mad About Fish" for some time, and I may even write a strongly worded letter to the broadcaster insisting that they should have a warning for parents that young children may find the images disturbing....  Or not.
It did look pretty tasty.

A load of balls

Working next door to a cash and carry has its advantages.  I enjoy sometimes going in for a browse, imagining buying a big wheel of cheese to make some mouse crazy with happiness, or marvelling at the pillow sized bags of marshmallows that only a giant could possibly finish (in one go)...  There are insane frozen chocolate cakes too with enough in them for a hike to the arctic circle and possibly back....
but most things there are just too much -  you'll never use that much ketchup yourself, unless you bath in it, the only way you'd ever need that much porridge would be if you were covering the driveway in it, so I don't shop there.
Too much is too much sometimes, and another thing there is a little too much of in my life right now is balls. There are hundreds of balls inside and outside of my home.  The dog probably brought the first of them, but now Danger has acquired a fair few, but worst of all we have tons of balls contributed from the neighbours - they throw and kick them into our back garden at all hours of the day and night.  They break windows.  Knock on the door looking for them back.  Do I sound like a grouch?  I do my best to give the balls back to their rightful owners, unlike the guy who used to live here, apparently his name was Hitler, and he never gave back a single ball - anyway - even as I type, the summer is approaching, the toddler is being fitted with a helmet, balls are bouncing off the windows, the dog is salivating... there is a surplus of round things.