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I am still crushing on NaNoWriMo, even after all these years. I have written four terrible, horrible novel drafts and I love every single one. I have learned so many things about the process of fiction and myself as a writer that even if none of the novels end up being finished, I still think it was a useful exercise. This is why I have taken up the NaPoWriMo challenge – that is, to write a poem a day throughout…

A few weeks ago I went to Amsterdam with my girlfriend for my birthday. In Amsterdam it is possible to buy Sarah Palin sex dolls and dildos the size of my arm (the whole arm, not just fist to elbow) and DVDs of sex acts performed on dogs and and enough marijuana to make you hallucinate cartoons for days. It is possible to buy women or men or both, for an hour or two hours or a night. It is…

I’m trying to write a review of Angela Readman’s poetry collection, Strip. It’s all about girls in the porn industry and it’s so fucking amazing that I just don’t know what to say about it. The more I like something, the harder it is to review. I have an opinion piece in the Sunday Herald today. It’s the first bit of newspaper journalism I’ve ever written and I’ll be disappointed if I don’t get any angry hatemail or letter-bombs or…

I blogged at PANK recently about Meanwhile Reads, ie. things to read while doing other things. Here are some more. Action: Hiding in the bathroom at a family party because there are no more words to explain why you’re still single or why you don’t have a proper job or why you’ve styled your hair in that funny way. Do Read: If you like your family then read Bad Science by Ben Goldacre for something interesting to start a debate…

I have spent six years studying literature at university, and sometimes I think all I learned is how to translate. That is, how to read overlong, archaic, olde-worlde language and translate it into words that can filter properly into my little pea-brain. A different Pamela, a different cupboard An example, from Samuel Richardson’s Pamela: Now in this green-room is a closet, with a sash-door and a curtain before it; for there she puts her sweet-meats and such things; and into…

A few weeks ago I was in the university library reading a big dusty stack of Paris Review interviews, which I could fool myself was work although it wasn’t really because I should have been editing my novel, like so: I was there for hours and it was lovely, with the rain tapping the windows and the air conditioning hum. I wish I’d had a cup of coffee, though in the grand scheme of things it could not be classed…