Freedom From The Mundane » Website

Bits ‘n’ Pieces

colingalbraith — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 09:13:04 +0000

Image: Les Chatfield

I finished work around 6:30am yesterday but was so tired opted to go back to bed for 90-minutes. It paid off. I felt much better after the extra nap. When I got up for the second time it was still raining but I felt like a ray of sunshine. *barf*

One thing I forgot to factor into my day was the Six Nations Championship. It was yet another terrible display by Scotland, losing in Rome due to their inability to take their chances and get the ball over the line. In two weeks we play England—I fear the worst, although we do tend to lift our game slightly for that one. With any luck the English will still be bruised after the defeat to Ireland at home later in the afternoon.

The March issue of the Ranfurly Review is ready to go and will be published tomorrow bang on schedule. I got the cover sorted after much internal debate. I’m still not entirely sure it works but I like the picture so I went with it.

I also dealt with some website updates that I forgot were languishing—that didn’t take long—then wired into the rest of the work I had planned. My father in law was round for a couple of hours, which took me up to dinner time, then with the house full of noisy kids upstairs for yet another sleepover, I spent most of the evening in the living room talking to Gail about her latest photography project. It’s a big one but I’ll need permission before I can reveal it.

Up early this morning to complete part two of the overtime work from yesterday, I’m about to head out to get a newspaper and a few messages, then make a dent into the remaining work for today. Going into Sunday my mini-GDR for the weekend now looks like this:

5,000 words on BACCARA BURNING
Complete 1st draft of stage play - STALLED
Prepare March newsletter
February GDR review
March GDR Plan – DONE
Complete Spring issue of RR – DONE
More polishing of SILLY POEMS 2 chapbook

The stageplay has stalled because it needs to be a lot longer and yet it feels complete. I have until the end of April if I’m going to submit it, which is just as well because I’m not sure what to do with it now. I agreed with myself I would sit on it for now and see if anything occurs.

It’s the final day of the month, but as it’s a Sunday and there is still much I want to do I’ll wait until tonight before publishing my monthly GDR review in a separate posting.

If you’re subscribed to my monthly newsletter now’s a good time. I’ll be unveiling the front cover to my new book, SILLY POEMS FOR WEE PEOPLE VOL.2. You can subscribe by going to this page.

Till later this evening, peace out!

The Scruffy Dog Review – Winter Issue OUT NOW!!

A Mad, Mad World

colingalbraith — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 07:54:55 +0000

Image: hammerhouse

Not a particularly long blog post today as yesterday was swamped. As Monday’s in the day job go, it was a mad one, though I was expecting it as the rota has been packed out for a few days now. Typical it would have to be my week on the “day shift” when it happened.

It’ll probably remain like this until Thursday afternoon at the earliest, which presents a real challenge finding the time to work in the evening and then get enough rest to see me through another 11-hour day. I worked from 8am and hardly had a chance to pause for breath until 7 o’clock at night. Even grabbing a lunch had to be timed perfectly.

Anyway, that stuff is boring. On the good side I did come home to a full roast beef dinner! Such an awesome thing to have on a Monday night when one is knackered and starving, having had only a cup of soup and egg roll for lunch eight hours previous. My energy pack was soon glowing again and I managed to draw enough from it to do some work before my heavy head hit the pillow.

I wrote up my review of Sunday night’s Billy Connolly gig in Glasgow for the November issue of the SDR, and I did some more work no the website. There’s quite a few holes in the archives that need filled before we can go live in November.

I started catching up on a few blogs that I normally read but couldn’t concentrate on reading from the screen by that point so gave up. I’ll maybe try again later today.

No time to waste. I’ve got another mad day ahead. Have a good ‘un y’all!

The World Is Full Of Numpties

colingalbraith — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:53:23 +0000

Image: FruitFly

I found myself dealing with more numpties than I would normally expect to during my day job, yesterday. I mean, one has to wonder where we get the staff from at times. On one hand it boosts my profile, but on the other it is so infuriating to have to lead people by the hand who, quite frankly, shouldn’t be in the job if they don’t even know the basics.

I worked on the Ranfurly Review in the evening, dedicating my time to catching up with a backlog of submissions from as far back as July. I hate it when I fall so far behind because one thing I don’t suffer from is a lack of potential contributors. I now have issue 9 for December almost full and issue 10 for next March half way done.

I’m really suffering from a lack of flash fiction (fiction under 700 words). I have far too much poetry to deal with and far too much long fiction, that I had to resort to rejecting the numpties that sent me work that wasn’t in the correct format. I don’t mean single line instead of double kind of thing, I’m talking about when I have to download a compatibility update for MS Word just to read the type of sexy font someone has used. Don’t they understand pretty fonts don’t make the prose any better?

Another disturbing trend I’m noticing is the glut of stories from writers obsessed with sexual abuse. What’s going on? The amount of fiction containing adults facing up to childhood sexual trauma, prostitutes with hearts of gold (and no drug problem), or males that feel bad about themselves after raping or assaulting a woman, is just getting ridiculous.

Pay attention people. The guidelines are quite specific—no gratuitous sex or violence—It’s not readable, enjoyable, and it won’t make me sit up and think, “oh my, I have just discovered the next literary sensation in my lowly little magazine.” I do not want work that has been written just so you can get a load off.

I’ll be sending something out to this effect to the mailing list tonight, with a caveat that anything that breaks these guidelines will be binned immediately and the author added to my black list, which so far contains the names of two numpties.

One rather delightful thing was the letter I received from a man, who along with his submission included a letter. He was telling me the reason he was submitting to the Ranfurly Review was because he had seen my interview in The Leither magazine while lunching in Portugal during the summer. Not only that, but the guy lives about 300 yards from my house! Coincidences galore!

There will be some more work to do on the photographer’s website after a sudden flash of inspiration pointed my attention to a potential security problem. I tested it out before bed and sure enough, there’s a hole in the coding that needs plugged. I’ll need to have a think later today on how to go about it, but it won’t interrupt the service being provided unless they went looking for it.

I also heard back from another potential web client—a driving instructor—who needs a website up and running sometime soon. I’ve to call him back on Friday after work and hopefully we can batter out the requirements.

While all this was going on I was listening to Sportsound on the radio. St Mirren were playing at Kilmarnock in the 4th Round of the Leage Cup and after losing their lead with four minutes to go, ended up winning the match with a goal in the dying seconds. A superb result that sends us soaring into the quarter finals next month.

To today, and along with my usual tasks I want to get some good writing done and maybe get another tick onto my GDR list. I’ve found that dedicating an evening to a full task instead of progressing several is helping me to focus and push things along. Maybe I’ll get to that YouTube idea that’s been sitting on the list for too long now?

By the way, have you listened to Turning the Page yet? It’s my first audio recording attempt of a poem I wrote for Madness in 2007.

A Good Day’s Work

colingalbraith — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:55:36 +0000

Image: foundphotoslj

Check out my interview with Blazing Trailers, which was posted on their website yesterday. There were some good questions

Also, if you missed it, check out my gig review in Sunday’s News of the World, this week Theoretical Girl.

Good day’s work yesterday all round. The management have recognised my writing skils and have asked me to start writing a Department blog with a view to publicising ourselves in a “humorous but helpful” manner. It’s right up my street and should roll off the presses very easily, but my problem will be, as usual, knowing where to draw the line. Banter is permitted but to a degree so I’m working with one of the other guys in the department to pull all the background together. Then it’s off I go. It should be a lot of fun, actually.

My evening was devoted entirely to the website of one of my photography clients. I’ve taken a PHP script that configures the gallery and tweaked it beyond recognition. It looks great and allows for some great customer interaction, and it’s also very easy for me to upload new images when they come along, which is a huge time saver when working with a busy photographer.

The next step is to integrate it all with a shopping cart/e-commerce solution so customers can order and pay on the spot. One step at a time, though. This website has been a huge learning curve for me since the day it began.

That’s about my lot for yesterday. Today will be more of much the same but with the website out the way I can get back to some writing. I missed the deadline for the cover image competition, but the story has grown so I’m going to use it for my submission to New Writing Scotland.

I’ve still got a lot of work—achievable work—to get done before the end of the month. It’s been a good one so far but I want to end my “first writing month of the new year” on a high.

Finally, Madness’ latest album, the re-packaged release of Total Madness, hit the shelves today. It comes in 2 discs, one with all 23 of their chart hits, the other a spiffing DVD and comes in at a very reasonable £9.98 from Amazon. Gail, if you’re reading, my borthday is in a few days…

Mitchell, Webb and Galbraith

colingalbraith — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:41:24 +0000

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 a major high in the writing stakes. Despite coming home from work to find two rejections—well, one of them from a magazine that has now sadly folded, but at least the editor took the time to read my work and say he had enjoyed it nevertheless—it was a most accomplished day.

I got a lot finished in the day job, and back at home I worked on the interview, the spine-tingler story, and a little more on BACCARA BURNING. The short story is now almost complete; wish I could say the same for BACCARA but it’s getting there.

I heard about a live webcast by taking place at 7pm by Mitchell and Webb, so I logged on. David Mitchell, who also writes for The Observer, is running a campaign to save said paper as it is being threatened with closure despite not being in any financial or sales figure-related trouble. Half way through the webcast I typed into the little box: “COLIN GALBRAITH SAYS SAVE THE OBSERVER!!!”

Webb read it aloud as it passed over their monitor and turned his nose up at it. “What the fuck’s he on about? Save The Observer?” To which Mitchell jumped in and backed me up, initiating a debate about why the paper in question should in fact be saved.

I like to do my bit.

Later on, I moved onto some technical issues. One of my web clients needs a client login facility, where her wedding customers can login to their own individual section of the website and view their own personal wedding photographs and place orders. Without actually buying a solution, this is complicated stuff.

It took me a while—I’ve been working on this for a few weeks actually, to find a way of doing it that fits the bill—but last night I finally made the breakthrough. It meant learning up on PHP coding, but last night I delivered the client login, and it comes complete with a spiffing new gallery layout. I’m very pleased with it.

I struggled to get out of bed and into work toady, but I’ve got a few things on that should shake me out of it. As well as my usual writing requirements, I found out late last night I’m on the guest list for tonight’s Ray LaMontagne gig at the Usher Hall. Not sure what to expect, but from the small amount of research I’ve done this morning, he lives on a farm in Maine, has released three albums, and is only two months older then me.

Not Enough Shrill

Colin — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:04:53 +0000

Image: laffy4k

Long day yesterday.

The alarm on my new phone isn’t shrill enough to yank me out of my sleep, and so invariably I find myself flopping back and lying for longer as I wait for another, stronger spur to get out of bed. Yesterday morning it was the sound of my wife’s alarm clock, indicating I had gone way past my normal and should already have been in the office. Today I did not bad, but only because I set my CD alarm to blast The Specials at me.

Day job dragged but I managed to pepper it with some writing over lunch. I got some editing done on a short story – a relief to be back in fiction-land again – before heading home for more promo work and a dash of freelance.

I’m still having difficulties moving a client over from GNHosting but I made some progress. I managed to get the site up at a temporary domain while I go to war with the hosting company. She’s getting pissed off and it’s hard explaining how it works, which I can totally understand. I thought I was going to lose her as a client but I talked her round and I can’t see me charging anything for this one. I may even offer an overhaul in the near future for no charge.

Today you can find me over at Michelle Miles’ Ye Olde Inkwell, on the latest stop of my STELLA World Tour. And Sage Cohen still has that free copy of STELLA up for grabs. All you have to do is pop over and leave a comment to qualify for the draw – what could be easier?

Speaking of the tour. I’ve added a coupe of new dates. I’ll be a guest at the blog of Cate Masters on the 18th, and this coming Saturday I’ll be the guest writer at Love, Romances & More – not my usual forum, I know, which is why it should make for an interesting day!

View all my other appearances here

Tomorrow is my friend’s funeral so I won’t be posting any of my usual stuff. I have to write his obituary today, which I’ll post tonight for publication tomorrow. I’m not looking forward to it at all. Gail has taken the day off work to come through with me, which I didn’t really expect her to do but I think, in hindsight, I’m glad she has.

Part of my apprehension isn’t just down to it being a friend who has died, it’s also about the living ones I’m going to meet. There will be people at the funeral from long ago in my life, from when I was a very small boy up to my mid 20s, and some of them I have deliberately put distance between for a reason. Now, I will be with them again, and I fear there will be a rush of horrible (and good) memories when I see their faces.

See you on Friday.

I Love The Summer

Colin — Fri, 29 May 2009 08:46:41 +0000

Image: Life.com

One of the managers in another department has been giving us hassle over getting some software installed and configured quick-sharp. It’s led to much debate and juggling of people’s already hectic schedules. So today I took a look. It took me a good couple of hours but I discovered the software was already installed and running, and to prove it I started using it. The email I returned to the other manager was succinct and professional, but basically recommended to him to consider read the manual first. Major feather in my cap for not a whole lot of effort.

All the promotional material for STELLA arrived this afternoon. The cards and flyers look awesome – using high-res images really does pay off with this kind of thing. I’ve got a few goodies for competitions, such as key rings, magnets and a t-shirt (who would wear it, I don’t know). The rest is for local distribution, such as the flyers, postcards and bookmarks. I also treated myself to a glossy poster for my office wall. It’s purely of the book cover but it looks fantastic. I may even get it framed once I’ve taken care of my Shawlands painting.

Made a few updates in the evening to my website. The media kit is now downloadable and I’ve started emailing prospective hosts for a June blog tour. I’ve already heard from two people who want to be involved, but if anyone reading this wants to host me, drop me an email and I’ll send you the information.

I’ve also got hold of an extensive list of book review websites from my publisher. That’s tonight’s task – email review sites to see if they might fancy reading and reviewing the book. If you happen to be a book reviewer, drop me an email and I’ll send you the information.

Attention all romance readers and red-blooded males, I’ve got another guest scheduled to appear here on my blog. Michelle Miles will be stopping by in a couple of days, so stay tuned to read all about her new book Take Me I’m Yours, and read the interview I recently did with her. She’s a steamy romance author – and I mean steamy!! – so she’s well worth hanging around for to find out more.

The weather here has taken an amazing turn for the weekend. All week it’s been muggy, but as I looked out of my office window this morning it was already warm with blue skies. Walking to work was glorious – spaghetti straps and mini skirts everywhere.

I love the summer.

It’s not too late to sign up to my newsletter for the chance to win a free e-book of STELLA and some signed promo stuff. Enter your email address here and when the next newsletter comes out on 1st June you’ll have five days to get your entry in. The answer is really easy – all you have to do is watch the promotional video on my site to be in with a chance.

Viva La Sushi

Colin — Fri, 08 May 2009 08:10:54 +0000

Image: Kristiaan

I wasn’t in the best of moods when I got up today, and things didn’t improve by mid-morning. The sore throat I’ve had these past few days has started to go, but in its wake has left a stuffy, annoying head cold that just seems to be sitting there like a cold pizza on a damp Glasgow street.

Add that to the arsehole in my office that went into a bad mood because I couldn’t talk to him about knitting, because I was too busy contending with my work and an extremely hectic morning (the boss called in sick) and you’ll understand when I tell you I snapped and bit the old bugger’s head off.

Contractors. Who needs ‘em?

As the day wore on I got worse. My eyes grew heavier, my head sorer, and I just wanted to sleep it all away. It was the funniest thing, though. I met my sister at Ocean Terminal to see a film (she was through working in Reekie for the day) and we bought some food to take in with us. I bought a wee tray of Sushi, complete with Soy sauce, fresh ginger stems and wasabi. By the end of the night I was feeling noticeably better. By this morning, I was feeling pretty good. Tired, still, but the sore eyes and head have gone.

The film we went to see was Star Trek. I had my reservations but there was nothing else worth seeing that we hadn’t already – or to be more accurate, my sister hadn’t seen. Not being a Trekkie by any stretch, I have to admit this was a surprisingly excellent film. It was exciting, dramatic, true to the story, and it was really funny. It’s definitely worth seeing even if you don’t like sc-fi or are even into Star Trek. I’m not much of a buff on either, but I’d go again.

On the working front, I didn’t have much time left when I got home from the flix. While I was feeling much better, I still wanted to get a reasonably early night and shake as much of this cold away as I could before today.

Basically, I ran through my email – today is launch day for EP’s May releases and I had 170 alone just from them! – and carried out an update to my photography client, my lovely wife. If you are that way inclined, feel free to pop over and check her site with all its new images up: www.gailgalbraith.co.uk

Today, I’m hoping to make a start on the Stella sequel, complete a short story, and do a whole bunch of work on the marketing plan for Stella. With under a month to go now, I must be prepared as much as possible.

I’m still feeling the head cold’s presence, but it doesn’t feel like it has the power to ruin my weekend any longer. Viva la sushi!

CHEAP AND FREE E-BOOKS!!

Selektion – FREE!
Brick by Brick – FREE!
Silly Poems for Wee People Vol.1 – FREE!
Fringe Fantastic – £3 (£5 OFF!!!)
Poolside Poetry – £3 (£2 OFF!!!)

Sunshine On Leith

Colin — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 21:12:57 +0000

Image: Juan Tello

The weather could not have been nicer this weekend. From Saturday morning until Sunday night the sun shone, the sky was blue, and everyone seemed to get a lift from the summer-come-early weather. The last couple of years’ springs and summers have been pretty dire affairs, but the three years prior started similar to this so I’m hoping this is a return to the nicer weather.

I took advantage of my first weekend away from Day Job Overtime to head up town early on Saturday morning. I got the bus at 8am and headed for the West End where there were a couple of shops I wanted to visit on a kind of research jaunt.

That didn’t take too long so I strolled in the sunshine from Haymarket back into the centre of town, cutting through the Old Town and taking in some of the quieter, less used streets, before coming back out onto George Street, doffing my cap to Jackie McCann’s old hide-out, and then into Rose Street. I was looking for a divine epiphany over the future of Hunting Jack but it never came.

I popped into Fopp while I was there and browsed through the records and books for a while, and came away with some cracking purchases. Musically, I purchase the new Prodigy album, Invaders Must Die, an album called English Chamber Music by Selfish Cunt (yes, that’s the band’s name), and a CD I have been after for many a trip to the record shop – The Three E.P.’s by The Beta Band.

Literature-wise I bought Ska’d For Life by Horace Panter, a personal biography of The Specials bass player’s time with the band, and a book of short stories called Punk Fiction, an anthology inspired by various original punk songs.

From there I visited my usual coffee shop to sit and peruse my new gets, and as I sank my cappuccino and chocolate filled pastry I found myself writing into my notebook. I came away with three new poems, and as I later found out, the space I was writing in is also home to a slam poetry group I hadn’t heard of, and so I think I may have caught the vibe while I was there.

By the time I got back home it was early afternoon and I was just in time for lunch. I stuck the bunnies out for the afternoon, took care of some tidying and washing in the house I had to do, and settled down to listen to my new music and flick through the new books I had bought.

I took some notes towards a couple of the projects I am working on, but the main piece of work that I involved myself with was the development of a new chapbook. I want to submit a new e-book to this year’s PSH Free-For-All, so the main thing was finding a theme or subject. I began looking through the poems I’ve written and gathered so far this year, and struck on an Edinburgh theme. I don’t mean like my book Fringe Fantastic, which is about a specific part of Edinburgh-life, I mean many of the poems I’ve written are just about daily life in Edinburgh and the things I’ve seen around me, none written with any reason in mind, just inspired by street-life.

So I’m going to submit a once-only e-book to the PSH FFA and then develop that further into a proper chapbook for release later this year. No title yet, only a bunch of poems, so we’ll see where this takes me.

Into Sunday and I had a bit of a lie in (9:30am). After breakfast I persuaded Gail to come with me to the pet store in Corstorphine. We were able to drive with the windows down and our sunglasses on, it was that nice a day. I collected a bunch of supplies for the rabbits: hay, pellets, muesli, cleaning liquid, corn stalks, etc. and while there I noticed there were hardly any bunnies in the store, all snapped up by people for Easter presents. I only hope they aren’t let loose after a couple of weeks when they realise the amount of care they need. In the same way dogs aren’t just for Christmas, nor are bunnies just for Easter.

Back home again and the bunnies were back out into the garden and I took care of the rest of the cleaning in the house, mowed the lawn, tidied up and organised my paperwork, and invoiced one of my web clients. I had to check the contract before I sent the bill out, because I think when he sees what he owes me he might wish he was paying me on a monthly maintenance agreement instead of what we agreed – in writing.

I did the rest of some website work for one of my other clients – she’s on holiday for a week so I can’t do any more without her being back– and decided to ditch the amalgamation of my freelance writing and website design sites. I’m going to focus Compass Freelance on the website side of things so I need to remove much of the writing promotion pages.

The contracts for most of the contributors for the summer issue of the Ranfurly Review went out, and I think I may have to stick out a call for submissions soon if things don’t pick up. Submission levels are not something I’ve had a problem with until the last couple of months, although a summer drop is usual, the drop this year has been more significant than previous.

I think that’s about everything. The warmth and sunshine was a bit of a distraction over the weekend but it was a welcome one. How often do we Scots get treated to such glorious weather this early in the year? Not much, let me tell you.

Into the week and it’s going to be another busy one. I’m off work on Wednesday for a special occasion, but I’ll explain more on that come the time – let me just say it’s something I’m really looking forward to!

Cheap and free e-books:

Selektion – FREE!
Brick by Brick – FREE!
Silly Poems for Wee People Vol.1 – FREE!
Fringe Fantastic – £3 (£5 OFF!!!)
Poolside Poetry – £3 (£2 OFF!!!)

Dead, But Without The Coffin

Colin — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 21:39:34 +0000

Image: Ambient Damage

As I said before, I knew it was going to be a tough weekend; I just didn’t appreciate how tough it was going to be. As I write this I am still in the recovery zone, the place where stress and caffeine levels drop to normal, and where my body tries to return to a normal sleeping pattern.

If you will remember, Saturday night was a late one and it was followed up by part 3 on Sunday morning – a 6am start, which in relation to the previous day’s stress, this one beat it hands down. I logged on to The Company network to discover disaster had struck overnight. I can’t go into it for obvious reasons, but after several urgent phone calls a decision was made and the problems were able to be rectified.

I worked until 2pm then crawled into bed for a couple of hours. With my father-in-law drilling holes in the kitchen walls and sending earthquake-like vibrations through the house structure, this was no mean feat, and gives you an indication of just how tired and stressed out I had become.

I enjoyed a nice dinner before spending the evening completing some work for a website client. This was about all I could manage having been working in intense technology-mode all weekend, I couldn’t switch into creative-mode with the energy levels I had remaining. So I did this instead. Better than nothing and it’s paid work.

After going to bed for 2 hours of crap sleep I was up again at 1:30am to finish part 4 of the weekend extravaganza. Two-and-a-half hours later and it was finally over, I climbed into bed with the alarm set for 6:30am.

When I got up at 7am I was totally zombified. I could not have even told you my name. I sent a text to my boss – I wasn’t going in. Sleep was now more important if I was to survive and I went back to bed for a couple more hours. When I got up again I felt better but I felt like I was in some kind of weird limbo between reality and sleep for the rest of the day – see recovery mode description in paragraph 1.

To today then and my creative energy was filling back up nicely, enough to be able to work on book two of the Stella story. I call it book two because I think the way the story ideas are developing in my mind I could be looking at a trilogy.

I did some more website work in the evening for another client, before calling it all to a close early and a much-needed proper night’s sleep. Bliss!

Some advance notice for Wednesday: I’ll be publishing a special one-off post at 8am BST in between my two regular daily posts, a one-off exclusive interview with award-winning poet Sage Cohen – you won’t want to miss it.

Cheap and free e-books:

Selektion – FREE!
Brick by Brick – FREE!
Silly Poems for Wee People Vol.1 – FREE!
Fringe Fantastic – £3 (£5 OFF!!!)
Poolside Poetry – £3 (£2 OFF!!!)

Summer’s Come Early

Colin — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 22:18:19 +0000

Image: Gordana Adamovic-Mladenovic

Not a good day to be a Scotland rugby fan, but the defeat to England at Twickenham wasn’t exactly unexpected. This year’s Six Nations Chamionship ended as bad as it could do for us losing in the Calcutta Cup.

I didn’t decide until late on I was going to watch the game because I almost made the decision to go to Hamilton to watch St.Mirren play at New Douglas Park in a vital league match. In the end I never went, and despite it ending goalless I had a good day otherwise.

I had a lazy start to the day, getting up late and enjoying some fresh coffee and a bagel. No trip up town – after the last week and couple of weekends away I was glad to make the best of the fact there would be no father-in-law present over the course of the weekend. Sometimes it’s just good to stay home.

With the bunnies out in the garden and enjoying the glorious sunshine of a spring full of promise – I tell a lie, it was more like summer – I cleaned the top floor of the house and got my office back into a respectable fashion. Then it was down to work with the radio on in the background (for the St.Mirren game) and the TV on in the bedroom (for the rugby). Multimedia me.

Next month’s newsletter is now almost complete, I just need a free poem to include and any other updates that might come in regarding Stella. I’m still waiting for a date but it can’t be that far off given the speed everything else has moved at.

I’ve got new front page splash for my website: take a peek here.

I got back to work on Greened is the Grass and saw to tying up my Scotland’s Treasure column for April’s issue of The Scruffy Dog Review.

In the evening I prepared a delicious and over-filling lasagne before settling down to watch a film.

A good day.

Cheap and free e-books:

Selektion – FREE!
Brick by Brick – FREE!
Silly Poems for Wee People Vol.1 – FREE!
Fringe Fantastic – £3 (£5 OFF!!!)
Poolside Poetry – £3 (£2 OFF!!!)

Solid Snowy Sunday

Colin — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:27:33 +0000

Image: Melle Plante

It took around 20 minutes from waking up to remember that I sold Stella yesterday, and that it is going to be published. It’s a great feeling, and today when I actually signed the contract, I felt like I had achieved something; an unexpected step forward at a time when it couldn’t have come any sweeter.

After some fresh coffee and a bagel, I got down to work on reformatting the Stella manuscript for the publisher’s requirements. I also started preparing the material they sent me that has to go off to the different departments: the copy editors, cover artists, and of course, the marketers.

I got a lot of that done before pausing to watch the rugby, and witnessing another demolition of the Scotland international squad. This time it was Wales, the current Six Nations champions who came to Murrayfield and humped us, threatening at one point to over-run us completely. Thankfully, they took their foot of the pedal on the last twenty minutes and we managed to pull the score back slightly.

After the rugby it was into Blood Ties. The writing is coming out slower in this period, but I’m not letting it put me off. I’m just going with it and pushing it, but not forcing it. There’s so much going on in the story it’s so hard to keep up, I’m making full use of my large notepad and the whiteboard on my wall.

I entered a competition; an especially written poem for the We’re 15! Competition at Writer’s Relief, and I got my newsletter out – late, but better than never. I also update my website – Stella has its own page already – check Stella out here.

When I finished doing all my work it was around half past ten; a full and solid day’s work writing, and it felt great. I stood up at my desk to stretch and couldn’t believe my eyes: in front of me, two inches of snow had landed silently outside my window and was still falling; the garden and surrounding area a complete blanket of white with a low mist hanging over it. It was quite beautiful, but tomorrow could be a slippery day!

The Scruffy Dog Review – Winter Issue OUT NOW!!

Turn Up The Noise

Colin — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:12:22 +0000

Image: Elward Photography

The British Government is considering making it a legal requirement in the new tax year to introduce a law that forces anyone applying or re-applying for an entertainment license to have a noise control device fitted to the venue. For live music venues, this will be the final nail in the coffin because these devices are ridiculously low. It’ll also affect theatres, pubs, comedy venues, schools, universities – you name it.

I urge anyone who has had enough of the Labour government’s OTT bureaucracy and nanny attitude to sign the following petition at: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/NoNoiseControl.

Message ends.

Later start today; an early morning appointment with my fortune teller meant I never got into work until 10am, and boy did that feel weird. Getting up at 8am felt like sleeping in until the middle of the afternoon – just plain weird.

Worked with Lennox over lunch – got some good work done and we’re flowing again. There are some major edits I’m going to have to make after this first draft is complete; scenes that belong much later in the book. I’m putting those to one side for the moment and just getting on with it now.

Spent some time with a web client – my wife; quite a lot of minor updates to her site making it a largish job. She also wants a client login section, which will be a real test of my skills to get that going.

Started putting together next month’s newsletter; struggled to find much to put in it, though.

Read some more of Day by AL Kennedy. I’m beginning to lose focus with it, which is disappointing. It grabbed me from the outset but it seems to be losing something. It’s beautifully written, I’m just not getting more of it as I get into it. Hopefully it will turn round.

The Scruffy Dog Review – Winter Issue OUT NOW!!

November GDR Review

Colin — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 22:09:44 +0000

Fiction
* NANOWRIMO – Blood Ties – 50,000 words required by end of month (G1,G2,G3,D1,D2) – never completed; 37,073 words (74%) of Blood Ties
* Decide on short story possibilities from Muse output; edit and write (G1,G2,D1,D2) – complete; competition possibility for “Big Taff” story
* Submit Stella to selected markets (G1,G2,D1,D2) – complete
* Re-submit rejected/recalled short stories (G1,G2,D1,D2) – followed all up; A Point of View in final decision pile for winter issue

Freelance/Non-Fiction
Writing:
* Query freelance gigs 25/mth (3/25 pitched – Total=89) (G7,G9) – 3 queries this month
* Complete Scotland’s Treasure column for SDR Winter edition (Jan) (G5,G7,G9) – no work done; events pending to cover
* Remain flexible for any TLB assignments that come through – new batch of articles in and IP; marketing widget pulled

Web:
* Updates to photography site pending – nothing through from client
* Updates to B&B site pending – 1st batch of changes done; 2nd pending

Business:
* Keep company accounts up to date – complete
* Amalgamate web design and freelance writing sites to compassfreelance.co.uk – template chosen; work started; ongoing

Poetry
* Nothing planned – nothing done.

Editing
* Stay on top of RR submissions (G6) – complete
* Write up interview/feature for Issue 5 (Dec) (G6) – complete
* Complete layout of RR issue 5 (Dec) (G6) – complete
* Complete website for launch of issue 5 (Dec) (G6) – complete
* Start laying out RR issue 6 (Dec) (G6) – no work done

Marketing and Promotion
* Publish November newsletter (G5) – complete
* Prepare December newsletter (G5) – not done
* Publish November GDR Plan – complete
* Publish November GDR Review – complete
* Prepare December GDR Plan – complete
* Launch revamped main site (G5,G8,G9) – complete
* Keep website(s) up to date (G5,G8,G9) – complete
* Offer special ‘Credit Crunch’ promotions (G5,G8,G9) – never thought this through; scrap

Reading & Learning
* On-the-job research and reading for writing of Blood Ties – several research points outlined for after NaNo
* Black & Blue by Ian Rankin – complete
* Closed Doors by Ian Rankin – IP

Non-Writing
* Continue diet (15/28lbs lost as at 15/9/08) (R1) – stalling; need to get back on the horse and up to a gallop

Things That Turned Up
* Call from new client about some editing work

Submissions Made
Stella – 16/11

Successes
* Got through some good work on new Lennox novel.

Failures
Canongate rejected Slick – 12/11
Jenny Brown rejected Slick – 14/11
Failed to completed NaNoWriMo (74%)

Statistics
Fiction – 37,000
Non-Fiction – 13,500
Poetry – 0

Outstanding Submissions
Novels
Hunting Jack with 1 publisher
Slick with 3 agents/publishers

Novellas
Stella with 1 publisher

Fiction
Wheelhouse 1
Saint Ann’s Review 1
Trespass 1
East of the Web 1

GDR Monthly Health Summary

How did I move outside my comfort zone this month?
Not sure I did, although tackling NaNo alongside other work that came through made me feel that way but in a negative sense.

How did I think big/challenge myself?
I never.

Do I feel this was a good month towards meeting my 2008 GDR Plan?
Yes, because I had a busy freelance work and wrote one third of new and ongoing novel. Can’t to afford to beat myself up over not completing NaNo because it wasn’t a waste.