I just discovered a great site all about DIY Publishing. Yesterday, I reminded Rory Motion how to blog again.

I went to the Aesthetica Speaker's Corner night, in the little Yorkshire Brewery pub on Stonegate . There was some great stuff read out and I read ten or twenty short poems and they went down better than I could have hoped, managing to get a gasps and laughs.

So I've got to grips with Lulu... and the minute I'd finished publishing I sold one... seconds had gone by and one had sold... how fantastic is that?

So now it's your turn...

GO GET YOURS

I've created a new site for 180 degrees of separation.

I will publish (somehow) soon... no really... I like the look of lulu simply because it may reduce the hassle of sending (and then waiting) on publishers.

... and that's because it is.

I'm just in a time of my life when getting other things started seems more fun than finishing old stuff. Still writing though more about anything that catches my eye than stuff stuck in it... and trying to get enough to "go back" and knock out the duff uns.

Getting my head around the idea of having to cut some of the poems... ones which mean a lot to me but nothing to anyone else... very difficult... it's a "thanks but not thanks" feeling...

OK. So I've found around 10 publishers, listed at the right hand side... some laughably big and the others charmingly small but local. Tomorrow I'll write my cover letter and stick a few in jiffy bags. I know 10 is a very small amount but you never know do you...

I don't know why but I've been working on my ukulele songbook and put an order in for one of these.

I'm on atkins... very cheesy...

I discovered a hard disk full of songs kris and I recorded a few years ago and not been able to stomach listening to. Apart from my awful singing, they're all about love going wrong really... kind of a prequel to the poems. Anyway, listening to them again got me really excited about playing again.

This one called Underground Mountain was written and recorded in less than an hour and was our first play with Garageband... It's also a poem that appears mid way through book... bad times really, listen to it, you'll see what I mean, but now this makes me smile at myself.

Had a session with Sophie being my editor. You kind of trust someone telling you something is any good when they have the balls to tell you which bits are really shit. And I guess I will probably have to cut at least 20 or so of the bad ones and rethink them slightly, not sure if I can, the subject matter is becoming increasingly abstract, fading like uninteresting dreams do. We met in VJ's, a very nice bar in York... and met a guy who must have rented the same house as me as students in balsall heath...

I was introduced to ideas about line form and narrative, which made sense and a number of trendy bars round york. We went to an usual arts/dance/intsallation thing and I felt all nostalgic about lighting. I met a guy who recognised me from playing ukulele in the shop he works in in Copmanthorpe. Embarrassingly cool don't you think? We caught the last bus home more than slightly the worse for wear, both wondering how the bus managed to stay on the road .. it was spinning so bad.

To do list for this week. Find some publishers who may be interested and send off the current versions. What the hell. Rework the crap ones. Start a new positive collection so that working on this (or the old one) doesn't feel like wallowing and drag me down and back into a past I'm trying to forget.