I have an inordinate fondness for stars and beetles I think in Venn and Quadratic equations No man who cannot be trusted with an apostrophe Should be in charge of bombs Or Value Added Tax Or vaginas A radical policy Hear me out When the moon is dark and Our hearts are dark And like […]
I was reading the end of a novel a few weeks ago. As a reward for finishing the first draft of my own book, I’d thrown myself into this new world and my heart was crashing and swelling all at once. The book’s called A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. My daughter went to go […]
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Tensile Bonds and Things
For my mum who has been unlucky enough to break her arm playing catch but who is nonetheless wonderful. I seem to have a problem Not the kind where You go and see a nurse A therapist Or ring a hearse Not a problem with sanity Or even mild depravity I just seem to have […]
Okay, I get it. You want to be a writer, you’ve always dreamed of writing, and you know you have a novel or a story or an epic dystopian fiction set in terza rima just bursting to get out of you like an alien in that terrifying film Alien. So you sit down at the […]
There’s a meta-movement going on at the moment on the internet. My email inbox is a petri dish spawning daily, weekly and crescendoing entreaties to add my voice to the online conversation. To get writing, blogging, sharing my no doubt profound experience with the world. That I, too, will be able to find my niche […]
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Not Quite Myself
I’m not quite myself today I said To my friend on the internet Whom I’ve never met And she said When were you last yourself and I said Let me see I remember that day In two thousand and three When I didn’t have to speak or leave the house But stayed swathed in a […]
Marcus Romer shared a tweet which, in one day, got retweeted over 7000 times. I think it struck a chord. It goes like this: The Creative Process: 1. This is awesome 2. This is tricky 3. This is shit 4. I am shit 5. This might be ok 6. This is awesome. This cycle is so familiar […]
Exams were over. I’d graduated with a first class degree in Nothing Really and I’d a cushy job offer at a tech firm in London. It was all Yellow. At least, it was on the radio at my temp job: I was matching, batching and coding invoices at Virgin Media HQ, where Coldplay held sway. Returning from […]
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I Can Have A Dark Side Too
I have 34 promises of secrets unlocked from that bloke who says video marketing rocks in my inbox I have fifteen plus ones and a whole bunch of pokes I’m not sure what twerking is n’anyway I don’t think it matters I’ll make goals through to christmas and hold the fixed grin I’ll handcuff my muse and […]
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I don’t want you to be invisible
At primary school I was shy. I didn’t exactly fit in. I was. In. The chess club. I had a handful of good friends to hang around and write terrible comedy skits with. Put me in a big group of kids I didn’t know, though, and I became She Who Never Spoke. I mean, I […]