Is it really over two months since my last blog? Really? Truly? Has time devoured my mind and our southern winter huddled my thoughts?
That’s nuts.
Collected and squirreled, not to share.

I have been writing in that time, of a sort, but it’s been back with my first love, fiction. More precisely: speculative fiction*. One set in the distant past amongst pre-lingual humans, the other in the near future in a post-relationship society. My journal writing has been cracking along, too, at a rate not seen since the turn of the century (when I did my first proper writing course).

As it is with a lot of writing, I have little to show for it. Nothing put away to sustain me through the dark days, or to lure a lover to my hoard. What a frigid beast is the desire to scribble.

Last night I received another rejection, for a story of ‘science and the erotic’. Like all rejections, it hurts, but there’s nothing to be gained by not barring up and putting your nuts on the line once more.

I’m doing just that at the moment, taking an online poetry course through the University of Iowa. As you can see from the purple prose and tortured imagery above, I’m no great shakes as a poet, but as a lover of knowledge, and a constant writer of prose, I’m keen to engage in the unknown and learn, fail, learn.

There’s over 7,000 poets around the world doing this free course, so while I feel rather naked posting my exercises/poems online for others to sniff, prod and nibble, I’m able not to attract too many eyes.

That said there’s nothing worse than getting up on stage to dance around and show off your goods to the sound of a deafening silence.

Which is the bind of plucking up the courage to reveal yourself. It hurts when you attempt allure and grace, and fall flat on your face.

It stings just as bad when the tip tucked into your g-string is unearned, unthinking sympathy.

I’ve always written verse. For better or worse (stop it!) Throughout childhood and my teen years, when I played in bands, never has it ceased. It slowed for a time, when I abandoned rhyme (oi! what did I say?)

Ah. Ok, now I’m extracting the Michael (as the saying goes). Time to stop. View the next lecture. Nut out some words (grrr…)

* I have two first loves, but they never meet, so they cannot get jealous of one other. The other love is literary fiction, but please don’t tell, you’ll ruin everything.