Two nights out and thirty days in!

I've had a couple of very enjoyable nights out in the last week - at a "Dylan Thomas dinner"  organised by the Penallt Art Group in the Wye Valley for what would have been the poet's 103rd birthday, and at Writers in the Brewery in Cirencester with the very much alive and kicking Matthew Caley. Matthew read from "Rake", his fifth collection, which contains - in his own words - many "back handed love poems." Covering everything from time travelling to misery memoirs, his reading was both amusing and thought-provoking. But actually, to use the term "reading" is quite incorrect; the poems were very skillfully performed - not in the flamboyant manner of some performance poets (which I often find quite off-putting), but with great verbal dexterity and precision.

Matthew Caley

And now here we are into November - NaNoWriMo for those brave or foolhardy enough to tackle the first draft of a novel in 30 days! I wish them all well - it's certainly not a challenge for the faint-hearted. But I've decided on a challenge of my own this year to keep them company as they slog through their 50,000 words. I've always been a slow, methodical writer - a practice that has served me well enough in the past, but one that I might take leave of absence from for a month to experiment with some other approaches. A recent article by the writer Jenny Alexander on "Free Range Writing" - essentially breaking out of your box - caught my interest. I've got two projects underway at present (a memoir and the completion of my people-watching collection); I'm aiming to make substantial progress with both by the end of the month, writing at least 1000 words a day of the memoir and having the poetry all set to go out into the world before Christmas. To achieve that, I think the rest of my life goes on hold from here on in!