Rollin’, Rollin’, Rollin

Image: TampaBay

While perusing the pages of the electronic version of The Guardian yesterday lunchtime, I was delighted to discover that this very blog was highlighted for its Edinburgh Book Festival coverage in their Edinburgh Today supplement. This isn’t the first time The Guardian has surprised me like this and it’s great to see our relationship going from strength to strength. Bless ‘em!

Step one in my new embracement of technology came on Tuesday evening when I ordered an iPhone 4. I am now awaiting it’s delivery with bated breath and excited trepidation. The future is Apple. The future is… near. I’m going to use it a LOT for some new forms of marketing and networking that came directly from this year’s book festival. I got way more than I bargained for from the live twitter streams and such like.

I’ve been approached to contribute a poem for an anthology to raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Support. Naturally, I was delighted to accept and will send something into them soon.

I’ve also been asked to speak at a book fair as a result of this year’s book festival but this is subject to approval and more detailed information from the organisers. Stay tuned on that one.

The weather goddess has begun to cast her desire over Edinburgh and as a result, our summer is almost over. The mornings have turned cool and bright and we’ve had perfect autumnal weather conditions, perfect for walking through Edinburgh and churning through the myriad of ideas that have filled my head over the past couple of weeks. We’re approaching the best time of year, and not un-coincidentally, it always proves to be my most productive.

I had an awesome idea for a short story while walking through Leith on the way home from work last night. I’m still running through the idea and deciding how best I can make it work – what voice/character to write from, etc., but the title I already have: JOHNSTONE, OR ANYWHERE ELSE.

I read GLASGOW ZEN by Alan Spence last night. It is a wonderful book that captures Glasgow’s many attitudes through simple and beautiful Zen-like poetry. I have to admit of the two books I bought of Alan’s, I preferred MORNING GLORY, but I gave a large portion of my evening over to absorbing this second book and it was well worthwhile. Particularly poignant was the poem, EM, which was dedicated to Edwin Morgan, who died while this year’s festival was running.

I assembled a new section of website links on this blog. On the right you will see a new heading of Ed Book Fest 2010, which lists all those sites and blogs with people who I either interacted with or met up with during the 2010 book fest. They are all worth checking out!

My review of the Limp Bizkit gig is now up at Man in the East – go check it out. Modest Mouse will follow later today once it’s polished. I’m loosely hopeful the latter might get picked up by a national but either way it will be available soon.

Also available soon, this weekend sometime, will be the next issue of the Ranfurly Review. The next three issues are also full so production has eased—except for those blasted front covers, which always trip me up!

Finally, get 20% off ALL my poetry books this weekend only. Buy from this blog or from www.colingalbraith.co.uk and use code ‘school305’ on checkout.

Oh, and here’s September’s GDR Plan, a direct breakdown of the annual one into a monthly chunk of work. Notice the accent on new fiction and poetry as well as getting through the manuscripts.

Fiction
* Polish and complete GREENER IS THE GRASS
* Review suitability of all short stories for submission
* Write and submit to all selected fiction/poetry competitions this month

Poetry
* Review all poems written between Jan 09 and July 10 for themes & trends

Editing
* Publish RR issue 12

Freelance
* Expect site update requests from photography client
* Keep all my websites updated and relevant

Reading & Learning
* MORNING GLORY by Alan Spence – done
* GLASGOW ZEN by Alan Spence – done
* PORTRIAT OF AN ADDICT AS A YOUNG MAN by Bill Clegg

Marketing
* Purchase iPhone
* Setup Podcasting technology
* Map out Podcasting ideas

That’s all for today—peace and out!