Journal – Archives

I have written journals for nearly forty years and think the practice has enabled me to write a graceful sentence and live an examined life.

The goal of this journal is to chart my days via heartfelt strands, including yoking myself to nature, shaping a financially sustainable writing life, and guarding my health in a profession sadly renowned for the self-destruction of its practitioners.

  • ADRENALIN JUNKIE - I’m soaking in hot bath water at home, having run an ancient canyon in soft slanting rain. The track picked a tremulous line between arching cliffs and gurgling streams. Gnarled tree roots sprawled as if they possessed all the time, and oddly shaped river boulders… ...CONTINUE READING
  • ROCK CLIMBING - Upper Shipley climbing area: a line called Hot Flyer, amber rock catching the sun. Bolts for protection, chalked grooves marking the route like reassuring breadcrumbs, except the rock is vertical for fifteen metres, then overhanging, and gravity is waiting for a mistake. Mark is on… ...CONTINUE READING
  • LOW SHELVES AND HIGH SHELVES - When this lonely writing life sucks me down, I look to my books for solace. I kneel first by the lower shelves, home to racier friends, legendary abusers of the literary life, and quietly binge. I binge on London and Bishop, Faulkner and Sexton, Fitzgerald… ...CONTINUE READING
  • Prague and New York - I leave the confines of my study soon – the simplicity and profundity of this mountain wilderness, the tracks, cliffs and canyons, the shores of this country for global escapades. Prague first for valuable time with my adult sons. We have roughly a week together… ...CONTINUE READING
  • Writing and Wilderness - I read from Rainer Maria Rilke’s, ‘Letters to a Young Writer.’ The poet is one of my Gods, in that he endorses so much of what I value in my life, and he offers me a blueprint for growing meaningfully as an artist. ‘Go inside yourself,… ...CONTINUE READING
  • 3 MORE ESSENTIAL BOOKS - How Fiction Works by James Wood James Wood has been at the forefront of literary criticism and reviewing for most of this century, and deservedly so. His knowledge of fiction is astounding and his writing brims with energy. Wood also knows intimately, and by association,… ...CONTINUE READING
  • ETFS – BULLS N’ BEARS! - A love affair - JG and ETFs forever. I have here a lively group of funds and while it takes patience to bond with them, to learn their vagaries, the effort will probably be worthwhile. If I treat them with respect surely they'll reciprocate... Hello,… ...CONTINUE READING
  • INAUGURAL WRITING WORKSHOP - The first workshop. I am ready. No more red tape, just a venue designed for 12 students and an audiovisual system prone to moodiness. Back-up plans are in place – my colleague Mike is coming along to help in any way and I have made… ...CONTINUE READING
  • FIRST 3 ESSENTIAL BOOKS - Poetry and fiction are intertwined, and rightly so, because many craft skills required in poetry also serve fiction – take the quest to convey a message with clarity, triggering emotion in the reader or catering for reader involvement in the narrative – they are all… ...CONTINUE READING
  • 15 Essential Books - FIFTEEN  ESSENTIAL BOOKS ON CREATIVE WRITING Introduction  The danger lurks: having studied books on writing, having carted off barrows of advice, trouble confronts you on the page. Here’s the scenario: You lay down a nine-word sentence and then subject it to a checklist of do’s… ...CONTINUE READING