I have just (Oct 29) sent off the manuscript to Environmental Home Refurbishment: The Earhscan Expert Guide to Retrofitting Homes for Efficiency, which will be published by Earthscan in June 2010. It will be published in hardback and is expected to cost £34.95. The draft cover design is right. Thanks to everyone who helped put it together!
I'm now preparing to go to Sao Paulo to deliver creative writing workshops in two schools, meet my Brazilian editor, Otacilia, for the first time, and Felipe, the comics artist I've been working with for over a year! Otacilia has promised parties, good food, fascinating peopple and a trip to talk and sign at the Porto Alegre bookfair on November 13. I feel very lucky!
I've also been working in October with Film 15 and animator Mikey Ford on the Animation Tank, with local primary school kids. They now know how important stories are - and have some great ones to turn into films in the next few months!
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Friday, October 02, 2009
Take the time
Take the time
How often are you able to take the time
Take
The time
Take
The time
How often are you able to notice
The blinking first star of the inking evening
The criss-crossery of branches cracking the sky
The blown sand twisting like long blond hair
Take the time
To be there
Intelligent witness
Unpressured I.
Take
The time
Take
Your time
Don't fill it
Let it fill itself
Take hold of moments
Mark them off
How often can you abscond
With minimum cost
And watch
The pink pregnancy of cumulus at dusk
The pheasant ducking under the bent hawthorn
The dug dykes draining the golfing green
It forces you to realise
Your tiredness
Why you need to
Take the time
Instead of it taking you.
How often are you able to take the time
Take
The time
Take
The time
How often are you able to notice
The blinking first star of the inking evening
The criss-crossery of branches cracking the sky
The blown sand twisting like long blond hair
Take the time
To be there
Intelligent witness
Unpressured I.
Take
The time
Take
Your time
Don't fill it
Let it fill itself
Take hold of moments
Mark them off
How often can you abscond
With minimum cost
And watch
The pink pregnancy of cumulus at dusk
The pheasant ducking under the bent hawthorn
The dug dykes draining the golfing green
It forces you to realise
Your tiredness
Why you need to
Take the time
Instead of it taking you.
Update
I've been so busy I haven't blogged in a long time.
I have spent the last few months writing a book on sustainable refurbishment of domestic properties for the publisher Earthscan. I am blowing away a few misconceptions about what works and what doesn't work - things like roof-mounted wind power and air source heat pumps.
I am desperate to involve myself again with creative work. I have to finish that book by mid October, then I am doing some teaching work with kids to do with scriptwriting.
In November I am so lucky to be invited to Brazil where for two weeks I am doing some writing workshops and appearing at a bookfair in Santo Alegre. Then off to Curitiba and back to São Paulo.
I still haven't started on the fiction book for kids, The Drowning, that I got the grant to do, and that's what I really itching to get down to, and hope to start work on while I'm away. It's becoming less and less worthily about global warming, although it does figure, and more about mystery, intrigue and Welsh mythology coming alive in the future.
When I come back however, Earthscan want me to start work on a book about solar technology, but I am currently holding out for a better contract and because I want to do the Drowning.
I am taking the - gulp - daring and risky leap of selling my web design company in order to concentrate full-time on writing. If anyone wants a job let me know!
This all sounds like I am raking it in. In reality this writing business barely pays the bills. But it sure beats working for the man.
I have spent the last few months writing a book on sustainable refurbishment of domestic properties for the publisher Earthscan. I am blowing away a few misconceptions about what works and what doesn't work - things like roof-mounted wind power and air source heat pumps.
I am desperate to involve myself again with creative work. I have to finish that book by mid October, then I am doing some teaching work with kids to do with scriptwriting.
In November I am so lucky to be invited to Brazil where for two weeks I am doing some writing workshops and appearing at a bookfair in Santo Alegre. Then off to Curitiba and back to São Paulo.
I still haven't started on the fiction book for kids, The Drowning, that I got the grant to do, and that's what I really itching to get down to, and hope to start work on while I'm away. It's becoming less and less worthily about global warming, although it does figure, and more about mystery, intrigue and Welsh mythology coming alive in the future.
When I come back however, Earthscan want me to start work on a book about solar technology, but I am currently holding out for a better contract and because I want to do the Drowning.
I am taking the - gulp - daring and risky leap of selling my web design company in order to concentrate full-time on writing. If anyone wants a job let me know!
This all sounds like I am raking it in. In reality this writing business barely pays the bills. But it sure beats working for the man.
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