Tour T-Shirts

 

It’s been one of those weeks (months) where day names have been replaced with cities I’m in or schools or libraries or academies I’m working in. So there’s no Monday or Tuesday and certainly no day of rest. This week it was:

Leeds

South Manchester

Sheffield

Bradford

Darnall

Wedding

Might actually get some sleep.

I half wish someone’d do me a tour t-shirt, to be honest.

And it’s been fun (well, all the ones I’ve done – Darnall and the wedding, I’m still, very much looking forward to).

And, as such, and along with a fair amount of editing work,  I don’t actually have the time to write anything here on the blog about what I’ve been doing and how much I’ve enjoyed it. I will. It’ll come. Be patient.

I was reminded of this the other day though (while deleting photos from my phone) and it always makes me chuckle. It’s Not So Perfect on The Poke (more here) and, yes, it made me chuckle.

 

 

 

Because we all need to smile. Oh, and here’s me, on a train, being pretty fed up with the absolute shower that is the referendum and its result. I don’t care what your politics are – you have a right to an informed opinion – but mine don’t agree with what’s happened one bit.

TrainSTripes

More soon. Just make sure you’re kind to each other while I’m gone. Kindness isn’t quite everything, but it’s an awfully big and important thing.

Finally, Something New

It’s been a while since I published a short story. I think the last one was Carmine’s Fruit, my re-telling of Little Red Riding Hood, which won the Artificium competition last year (and is available here).

So I’m very pleased to be able to tell you all that a BRAND NEW STORY OF MINE is inside the latest National Flash Fiction Day anthology, A Box of Stars Beneath the Bed, which is out today in paperback, and will be out as an Ebook very soon.

 

And, as ever with these National Flash Fiction Day anthologies, there is a whole book’s worth of other great stories by marvellous writers. It’s something I’d be reading even if I wasn’t a writer. Go on, folks. You know what you need to do.

Hello

So, I’m sitting here at silly o’clock in the morning and I have been doing emails (there is a mountain of them and, if you’re waiting for something from me – and I know many are – it won’t be long). To be fair, I’ve been doing them most of today – that and phone calls and arranging and rearranging meetings and getting June and July confused. And making sure I’m good to go for the first workshop for children I’m running at Darnall library on Friday. It proved instantly very popular (I’ve been very lucky with that of late) and sold out almost within a week I think (but I am told that, if you’re quick, there might possibly one more place up for grabs…).

 

And then, in the midst of it all, Google alerts gave me this. A story I may or may not have written from Freaks! read, wonderfully, by the great Asher Black a few years ago. Click here to listen. It made me happy.

There is more I could talk about and I will do soon. But I have, as always, things to do tomorrow and so I shall sign off and go to bed and at least try to be half sensible.

leaf

 

 

 

Weddings and Lightsabers

So I’ve not been on here, or online, all that much, mostly, because I’ve been being busy. Writing has happened and teaching has happened and all’s been good on that side of things.

A couple of weeks ago I went to a wedding and it was all the things weddings should be. A celebration and fun and filled with good people.

(This is a tired me after it – it took a good while to get there but it was definitely worth it.)

NikWeddingbw

I helped out with the photography which meant that I was just on the outside of things and that suited me perfectly. It’s probably my favourite place.

party

And then it was my nephew’s birthday and that was good too. I bought him a lightsaber. We duelled. For over an hour and a half, and then I played football with my eldest niece and I held and made faces at my youngest niece who’s still a baby and it reminded me that, really, that’s what life’s about. It’s about sharing and it’s about joy. And lightsabers. Life should always be about lightsabers.

saber