Daddy-Daughter Day
A most welcome day off work today for school holiday cover, and the sun shone brightly over Edinburgh. Spring feels close, but I’m not getting too excited just yet. This gave Laura and I the chance to do something together.
As we were eating breakfast and watching Spongebob Squarepants, the postie delivered our mail. There was only one package and I knew what it was instantly. It was the first copy of Poolside Poetry in all it’s glory.
It looks fabulous. The cover is pristine and the font came out really well. It goes with the style and feel of the book and I’m really happy with it. It appears smaller than Fringe Fantastic but of course it’s not; it’s just slightly thinner – yet has more poems! I was more prudent with the layout this time.
All in all, I’m utterly delighted to finally see it in print. The poems always look so different on paper than they do on the screen, and with it almost behind me, I can move onto targeting the promotion. Whether it sells or not I’m proud of it. It’s another step forward in my poetic development.
After all the excitement of the new book arriving, we got ready and headed out for a while. We went into town and into Waterstone’s at the east end. I was after something in particular from my GDR list. I wanted to get my hands on The Dhammapada – Essential Teachings of the Buddha. I found it in the religious section and it is not what I envisaged at all.
It’s a small hardback book, containing verse and proverbs translated as closely to the words of the Buddha. When it was recommended to me, I assumed it would be a big book with lots of reading, but given it’s content I knew I would need something to go along with it to make it clearer in meaning. So I also bought How to Practice – The Way to a Meaningful Life , by the Dalai Lama.
Before leaving I bought Laura a couple of new books. Her keenness for the written word is very encouraging, and she’s a bit like me in that she has a huge backlog of reading to get through. She knows what she wants though, despite me trying to get her to try a Famous Five book.
Laura helped me choose a Valentine’s Day card for Gail then we went into my Saturday morning coffee shop for a cappuccino and hot chocolate. We sat in the window and read our new books, watched the world go by and talked about things. It was excellent.
On the way home we stopped into the aquarium shop. There was nothing worth buying though they did have a rare Zebra Pleco in. This little thing is only about an inch long at the moment and will only grow to about 3.5 inches. It comes from Brazil and it costs – £400! Not for me. It would probably be dead within a week in my tank.
The rest of the day we played; listened to music, ate a late lunch and made dinner (chicken tikka masala), and then she was off out to her gran’s house. It was a lovely day.
I’m beginning to wonder if I’m stretching myself too thin with all the work I’m trying to accomplish. I have given myself so much fiction, freelance, poetry, promotion, marketing and reading work to do, I feel so overcome by it all. Last night I couldn’t sleep for thinking about everything, and despite all my planning, I don’t feel able to concentrate on one particular thing for long before the fear of other things I also need to do come to the fore.
With that in mind, I have taken the step of altering my GDR for the month. I’ve taken out stuff and removed stuff entirely. My main focus for this year was fiction and poetry, and while I do have other things to do, I have to focus on what makes me happy. If I am happy with what I am doing then that will lead to better work, and if it is better quality work, then it’s more likely to sell if I pitch it.
Make sense? It does to me.
