Freedom From The Mundane

A hard day yesterday as we cremated a colleague and friend from our office. A large fleet of cars made its way to Mortonhall Crematorium to say our last respects to Kerr Duncan, who died last Sunday. It was a terribly sad day but the turnout of mourners testament to the man whose life was [...]

March 20th, 2010 | Tags: CIS Cup Final, Clark's Bar, crematorium, Football, funeral, Guinness, Hampden Park, Mortonhall, Rangers, rejection, short list, short story, St Mirren, Writing | Category: Editorial Comment, Fiction, Food, Drink, and Bevvy, Glasgow, Sport, Writing | Comments (2)

Image: Business Pundit

I began the mammoth task of sifting through my email yesterday. I’m still missing several days from last week despite being assured they will come through once all the data is copied over, but I remain dubious. AM – can you resend your email please? It looks like it’s got lost and I [...]

November 10th, 2009 | Tags: cold, Costco, coughing, Day Job, emails, Food, Drink, and Bevvy, Football, League Cup, muffins, phlegm, rejection, semi final, short story, St Mirren, Writing | Category: Books, Day Job, Food, Drink, and Bevvy, Publishing and Marketing, Writing, Writing Process | Comments (2)

Image: noellium

Pretty tired this morning. Not from being up extraordinarily late last night but from a very early start this morning. There’s a lot happening today ranging from training courses to writing and a fair bit of website work, so I wanted to get a head start on everything.
I’ve just wolfed down a roll with [...]

September 25th, 2009 | Tags: Assistant Editor, Coffee, Day Job, e-zine, Editing, egg & black pudding roll, Fiction, Food, Drink, and Bevvy, frreelance writing, gig listings, Hairspray, Leith, live music, London, macaroni, musical, online magazine, plotting, Publishing and Marketing, Punk, Ranfurly Review, Scottish Parliament, Scruffy Dog Review, short story, Submissions, The Leither, The Vibrators, Theatre, Tottenham Court Road, webmaster, websites, work, Writing | Category: Day Job, Fiction, Food, Drink, and Bevvy, Freelance, Internet, Publishing and Marketing, Writing, Writing Process | Comments (1)

Image: Digital Stores

I was shattered going into work yesterday. And I was in a bad mood because of it. Missing my bus didn’t help either. Fucking Lothian left early. Three coffees in the office didn’t really help move things along either, and I spent most of the day with a sore frontal lobe [...]

September 15th, 2009 | Tags: Biblio Paradise, cancer, cooking, Day Job, death, Family, Fiction, Lothian Buses, Marzetti, Patrick Swayze, short story, sleepy, spine-tinger, tired, Writing | Category: Day Job, Family, Fiction, Food, Drink, and Bevvy, Writing | Comments (1)

Image: The Sun

Did anyone else choke on their cornflakes yesterday morning when BBC News announced that the Taliban have called for a human rights investigation into a recent air strike in Afghanistan? HUMAN RIGHTS—THE TALIBAN—there’s two phrases you wouldn’t normally connect on any level of human decency or respect.
Quite a day yesterday; I have hit [...]

September 8th, 2009 | Tags: Afghanistan, Day Job, Fiction, Freelance, Human Rights, Internet, Interview, live music, Mitchell and Webb, PHP, Ray LaMontagne, rejections, short story, Submissions, Taliban, The Observer, Usher Hall, web development, webcast, Website, Writing | Category: Day Job, Editorial Comment, Fiction, Freelance, I.T., Internet, Interviews, Music, Writing, Writing Process | Comments (1)

Image: Aussiegall

Hope you all enjoyed yesterday with Michelle Miles – isn’t she a wonderfully spirited and entertaining author?
Yesterday saw the temperature finally drop to more acceptable levels. Tuesday was cloudy but still extremely humid, but yesterday, thank goodness, was far more bearable. It’s such a relief, because the last thing I enjoy is having to [...]

June 4th, 2009 | Tags: Amazon, book reviews, Books, Cancer Research, Derek Mackay MSP, e-books, Elspeth Murray, Evening Times, Fiction, Flip Flotsam, Lulu, Michelle Miles, novella, Paisley, Paolo Nutini, Poetry, Poetry Super Highway, Publishing and Marketing, short story, SNP, sponsorship, Submissions, Weather | Category: Books, Fiction, Poetry, Politics, Publishing and Marketing, Scotland, Writing, Writing Process | Comments (1)

Image: The Sun

I find that working on a public holiday has more benefits than drawbacks. The bus is empty on the way to work, the streets are clear so the journey takes less than half the time, there are no school kids lying across all the bus seats, the shops that are open have no [...]

April 13th, 2009 | Tags: Coffee, Day Job, e-books, Easter, Edinburgh: the City & the Festivals, Fiction, poems, Poetry, public holiday, short story, spring, summer, sunny, Walking, Weather, Writing | Category: Day Job, Edinburgh: the City & the Festivals, Fiction, Food, Drink, and Bevvy, Poetry, Scotland, Writing | Comments (1)

Image: Mozzercork

There was need to bring sandwiches into work today because our Christmas dinner was being served. For the small cost of £3.40 we got to sit in the staff canteen and force a 3-course meal down our gullets in a per-arranged, and ticketed, 40-minute slot.
The food wasn’t all that bad as it turned out; [...]

December 16th, 2008 | Tags: Bush, Christmas dinner, column, CV, Day Job, Fiction, Freelance, gannets, Iraq, letter, Scruffy Dog Review, Secret Service, shoe throwing, short story | Category: Day Job, Editorial Comment, Fiction, Food, Drink, and Bevvy, Freelance, Writing, Writing Process | Leave a comment

Rather miraculously, I managed to get myself up and into the day job before 8:30 this morning. Considering I had a belly full of beer and vodka last night, followed by 5 hours of broken sleep, I think I deserve some kind of prize for my efforts – a Blue Peter badge or such like, [...]

August 15th, 2008 | Tags: Chambers Dictionary, Chinese meal, Day Job, Fiction, Jeremy Paxman, novel, opinion, Publishing and Marketing, Robert Burns, Scotland, short story, submission, Writing | Category: Day Job, Editorial Comment, Food, Drink, and Bevvy, Publishing and Marketing, Scotland, Writing, Writing Process | Comments (1)

Started work for 5.30am, and started the day job for 7.30am. Not bad going at all if I don’t say so myself. I spent the first couple of hours of a cloudy but humid day working on the short story I worked out last week. I’m writing it in 1st person – only the second [...]

June 9th, 2008 | Tags: Fiction, Freelance, PDF, pitching, Poetry, press release, Ranfurly Review, Reading, Scotland's Treasure, Scruffy Dog Review, short story, Submissions, Website, Writing, writing gigs | Category: Freelance, Poetry, Publishing and Marketing, Reading, Writing | Comments (1)

Dawn Copeman (www.Writing-World.com) spoke in her weekly mailing how this time of year always presents new problems and challenges for writers, because the great weather tempts us “to spend more time outside enjoying the weather, rather than inside writing.”
How true, especially here in the UK where Dawn is also based, where we have been basking [...]

June 6th, 2008 | Tags: beer, Edinburgh: the City & the Festivals, festivals, Fiction, Food, Drink, and Bevvy, friends, Garden, Indian, Musselburgh, novel, outside, short story, summer, Weather, Writing | Category: Edinburgh: the City & the Festivals, Family, Food, Drink, and Bevvy, Freelance, Scotland, Writing | Comments (1)

I’m knackered. All this week I’ve fully intended on getting to bed early so I can get up early, but each night has seen something drag out until at least 1am. Last night it was 1:30am before I turned out the light, and it was all because I got caught up the Tom Cruise film, [...]

June 5th, 2008 | Tags: chapbook, clients, Coffee, Day Job, Fiction, Freelance, knackered, movies, novel, Photography, poems, Poetry, Rome, short story, Tom Cruise, Website, Writing | Category: Day Job, Freelance, Poetry, Writing, Writing Process | Comments (2)

I’m delighted to announce that Static Movement Magazine has published On A Monday Morning in its May issue, which is out now. It’s my first fiction credit for a wee while, so I’m totally thrilled.
I wrote On A Monday Morning back in 2006 for a competition in Writing Magazine, with the remit that it had [...]

May 1st, 2008 | Tags: Editorial Comment, GDR's, osteopathy, Publishing and Marketing, short story | Category: Editorial Comment, Publishing and Marketing, Writing Process | Comments (2)