- I began my PhD journey at Nottingham Trent Uni.
- Travelled to California for the Bold Strokes Book Fest. Shopped.
- States of Independence publishing conference. LGBT panel with Andrea Bramhall, Rebecca Buck and Kev Troughton.
- 3rd Annual BSB UK book festival. Eleven authors attend.
- The London Olympics 2012. I was there.
- I made contact with the paternal side of the family after nearly thirty years.
- Redundancy
- Florida. Mom. Kayaking with dolphins. Harry Potter land.
- The house falls apart. Washing machine floods kitchen. Toilet tanks splits in half.
- Teaching workshops on writing.
- New business opportunities land in my lap.
- Meet England Foootball manager Hope Powell.
- Work with 300 teenagers over three days. Rewarding.
And in 2013, so far:
- PhD project approval. Novel work begins in earnest.
- Teaching writing workshops.
- The Nottingham Festival of Words. LGBT Panel discussion and reading.
- States of Independence?
- Business funding?
- 10th short story comes out.
- Conference in Belfast: Mapping Feminist Movements.
- 4th Annual Bold Strokes Book Festival, UK.
- Conference in Nottingham: The F Word in Contemporary Literature
- Travel to the US. Not sure where yet.
- Editing. Writing. Reading. Editing. Writing. Reading.
- Dec: 1st draft of novel finished.
Thank you. For reading, for coming along on my journey. A writer writes to be read, and without you, I would be less.
Happy New Year. Do you have plans for 2013 yet?
Book: The Gift of Death by J. Derrida
Song: Hijo de la Luna by Mecano

Congratulations on all your accomplishments and cheers to 2013.
Enjoy a big bite of everything life has to offer.
thanks. back atcha.
will do!
Well done. You’ve inspired me to do more with my writing in 2013.
Yay! Be sure to shout and let us know how its going.
Will do.
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Happy New Year! Thanks for sharing your journey & your voice. Looking forward to what 2013 brings! xo
Thanks Liz, and to you too!
Allow me to give you an extra-especial-no-one-has-got-one-quite-like-it-because-I-just-made -this-one-up-”YAY!” on finishing your first draft.
Over New Years Eve dinner (Hideously expensive, but it was one of my rare chances to wear a suit.) my wife and I discussed writerly fantasies. What would we do if any of our writings were to be published and this Miraculous Act brought the sort of recognition that would get us invited to do exciting, writerly things…like…get invited to sit on panels? How would we deal with that?
Another topic was, what the hell would we do with ourselves, creatively, if we weren’t writing?
My first thought was, photography. But I do that anyway. My wife had all sorts of things lined up, but she does them anyway.
The fact is, for us, writing is a very, VERY special form of creativity. Besides, my Muse would nail my hide to the outhouse door if I tried to walk away from writing.
The bits and pieces that come with being published just fall into place–panels and things start to come naturally, although it’s always exciting to be asked. Write on…
Beautiful. I want to come out of 2013 with my personal ethics shored up, cracks eliminated, and intact. Sometimes I don’t know what I believe to be true about myself until I go against it for a bit. That is a really hard way to learn.
That sounds like a good goal indeed, MS. I took a class once where the professor yelled a lot. But one of the things he yelled about was people not knowing what they thought and why they thought it when they did think it. Sounds to me like your’e on the right path.
I’ll tell ya, if I had a nickle for every time I thought I knew what I was thinking before I knew I couldn’t know what I thought after I thought it but before I knew it, I’d have a small to medium-ish pile of nickles.
I’d most likely be a Philosophy Post Doc Research Fellow as well, but I would still have to find a job.
full plate… good thing those are tasty morsels… tho some look to be requiring a good bit o chewing… happy happy new year vic
xo
a
Happy New Year, Arden. So thankful for our quirky and fabulously word-laden friendship.
the pleasure is mine