The RikHead

Scary, huh?



... and look Mum: I have got a brain!

And the most visited poem on Rikweb ...

... since I started collating figures about a month ago is, umm, Summersex - which makes me wonder what sort of person is checking out the poetry on my website. Especially as three other poems from the Poems to quote to your lover (before and after you fuck) chapbook also make it into the top 10.

Thankfully, three far more wholesome poems from my 22 facets of my father installation (Fool, Death and Strength, for those of a questioning tone of mind) also make it into the top 10, as do the the front pages of two other projects: one very old and not yet finished (A walk in the park) and one not quite so old and very much still in its incomplete first draft stage (Snowdrop). The popularity of the park poems can be easily explained: it's the first page listed in my archive (I really ought to do something about finishing off that series - let's see what I can conjour up in this year's NaPoWriMo extravaganza). But as for the others ... Google must love people with smutty fingers, is all I can say.

What, you mean you haven't visited my poetry pages yet? Shame on you! Go visit them now! There's no excuse not to!

NaNoFiPoMo

I've given myself until the end of the month to finish the first draft of my novel and to revise/polish it. This is not as difficult as it may seem as I've already revised the existing text as part of an exercise to work out what sort of ending I ought to be writing. And writing another 5-10,000 words in 10 days shouldn't be a problem to a NaNoWriMo veteran such as me.

As an incentive, I've been researching UK literary agents. I now have a little list of 12 agencies divided into A, B and C groups who will be receiving my representation submissions (begging letters? Nah! I have confidence in my writting skillz) in the week after Easter, mid-June and mid-September respectively. No plans to send to publishers - that can come in December

But before sending the novel out into the wild, I ought to get me some of them beta readers, just to check that the manuscript is really as brilliant as I currently think it is. Volunteers may apply for the post in the comments below.

(oh, yeah: National Novel Finish and Polish Month)

Is it Bluebells time yet?

I've no idea, though it would be nice to have a bit of colour to go with the grey skies.

What I do know is that I've been cigarette-free for 136 hours now, which deserves a bit of a celebration, yes?

Say hello to the Bluebells:

For Valentine's Day

... I give up smoking. Hopefully for good this time.

I have eight cigarettes left in my packet. Already my body is telling my brain that I need to go out and buy at least another 200 - it panicks when it thinks I'm running low on fags. Already my brain is saying: 'Hey, it won't harm to go out and buy another pack - you can always give up on Friday ...'

I have nicotine chewing gum ready for gnawing, and nicotine inhalators for the sucking. I'm not giving up smoking, I tell my body and my brain, I'm just replacing one source of nicotine for another source. Remember the good things you enjoyed when you didn't smoke - like clean hair and solid gums and working taste buds and stuff. You'll be fine, I'm murmuring to my muscles and my lungs. It'll be an adventure!

I think it's time to diminish my dwindling supply of cancer sticks by one. Happy Valentine's Day, everybody!

Maps

Well, if you treat yourself to a new 'puter with enough memory to play with maps, maps is what you've got to spend your time playing with:



I love Google Earth, especially now I've worked out how to slap my maps on the spinny globe thingy. This is a view of the Koese Archipilago at 1,000km altitude:



And this view, from a similar elevation, shows the remnants of one of the epicontinental seas before the Disaster struck - the loss of the seas is one of the key reasons why human habitation of Falah, the largest continent on the planet, failed - with the population crashing from over 300 million to a few tens of thousands within 200 orbits of the falls in ocean levels:



Yes, I know, it's not writing my book; I promise I shall finish the first draft of my book before the end of the month. Promise!

All revisionised out

Well, seven poems revised over one frustrating weekend isn't bad going, in my book. Below are links to each of the revisions, now being workshopped on the poetry newsgroups, and also links to their pages on the superbly crafted rikweb.co.uk website where the final versions of these little tykes will end up. Enjoy!

Crime of Passion - rap thread, rikweb page
Gossip - rap thread, rikweb page
In Dark Places - rap thread, rikweb page
Little Arthur - rap thread, rikweb page
Monkey Knows All - rap thread, rikweb page
Slap Stick - rap thread, rikweb page
Woman and Man in Traffic, Imagined - rap thread, rikweb page

(I'm posting the links mainly for my benefit - the usenet splorger has been busy over crimbotide, making it difficult to find relevant threads via the Google newsreader website.)

Little Arthur

This one first found the light of day (as part of the NaPo 06 debacle) as the poem then entitled "Something Maurice Learned from a Book". It's not just the title that has undergone radical change in the past hour or so:

Little Arthur

Now the spore has touched the ant
it must sprout and down its steed:

white threads needle over barding;
sharp tips lance the pauldron gaps.

Once in, it knits itself a new flesh
between the silks of muscle and fat.

A ring of barbs crowns the head
beneath the bascinet, to rule the beast.

Come dawn, an ant clambers the length
of a long stalk to view its domain;

it lifts the belly to salute the crowds
scurrying below, servicing the realm.

When the grail erupts from the armour
spores shower down: Camelot blooms.

Monkey Knows All

This one's been screaming out for revision ever since it was drafted for NaPo 06. It used to go under the snazzy title of "A Man Once Grew a Universe", but this title is much, much better:

Monkey Knows All

Somewhere light-less he shakes a page
from a periodical, licks the husks
of bookworms from penny-a-word ads.

Shelves squeak like storm-drain rats
as knowledge settles in un-indexed heaps:
he scavenges their racks for glue.

He posits an exit from the stacks -
he saw it, once, wood-framed with steps
when he was sniffing for fresh inks.

He is lost|found, scraping his beard
with knuckles, its snail-whorl strands
stitched in place by threads from spines.

Normally, I think gimmicks like 'lost|found' are a waste of time, but it seems to work here - just my opinion, of course ...

NaPo revision: Gossip

... formerly called "John". By the way, that delivery I was waiting for? Never arrived! I was so pissed off with the delivery firm - what sort of outfit sends its drivers out without mobile phones nowadays? - that I had to take my anger out on the carpets with a vacuum cleaner!

Gossip

I heard your news. A quarrel of tits
clamp claws around the sprung twigs
of the sycamore - huffs of warm air
have cracked its buds; so pale,
these new leaves, as they stretch.
The sun plays catch-me with the clouds,
a roil of damp shadows battling
across a pitch of sky. Your news,
it grows like a lump in my chest -
I can probe it like a tongue tip
in the creeping cracks of my teeth.
Why do you break us?' creak the buds
to the wind; 'why do you rip us?'
bluster the clouds. Around the twigs
claws dig in, beaks bicker, wings flap.