Tuesday, November 09, 2010

The Commitments

Less of a post and more of an excuse, I'm afraid.

Too busy to blog?  How can this be...?

In the tradition of 'show, don't tell' beloved injunction by creative writing teachers everywhere, here are a few of the things coming up soon.

25th November - Glasshouse Books gig at Bookseller Crow on the Hill in Crystal Palace.  Emma Darwin and some woman called Debi Alper will be reading from 33, the anthology with a story set in each of London's boroughs.  Karen McLeod and Paul Burston will be reading from Boys and Girls.

26th November - members of the East Dulwich Writers' Group will be appearing as part of the Peckham Literary Festival at Review Bookshop in Bellenden Road.

9th December - the writers' group will be launching Hoovering the Roof 2, their second anthology of short stories, poems and novel extracts by writers both published and yet-to-be and a couple of winners of some very prestigious competitions. Initial launch event at Bookseller Crow on the Hill in Crystal Palace.Other events to be arranged.

Various dates - running workshops and (new for 2011) online courses for Writers' Workshop.

25-27 March - the 2nd Festival of Writing in York.  I'm down to run a mini course on Developing Your Voice with Emma Darwin, a workshop on Breaking the Rules and 5 Book Doctor sessions.  Can it possibly be as good as last year?  All the signs are that it will be even better.

All the time - critiquing, mentoring, school stuff, parenting, daughtering (?), arranging Little Guy's bar mitzvah in January ...

Oh, yes.  We're here again.
And once again, there are 200+ people on the invitation list.
And once again, I'm going to be doing all the catering myself.
When it was First Born's turn in 2008, regular readers here may remember the high drama when FB went down with measles the week before.
Dare I hope this one will be less traumatic?  Please?

Oh - and meanwhile my own poor WIP lies abandoned and whimpering in the corner, pleading for attention.
Hang on in there, baby.  I'll be back soon as ...

6 comments:

Sue Guiney said...

Oh my God -- the dreaded Bar Mitzvah measles. I remember now. How awful! It is hard to explain how much band width preparing a bar mitzvah takes up in your life, even if you're not doing all the catering yourself (you mad woman!).To be honest, there was no morning quite so joyous as the one after my youngest's b.m., waking up and knowing I'll never have to throw one of these again! (God bless them all). Oh, and then there's all that other writing stuff, too. It's a busy year, to be sure.

Miriam said...

I just read the measles bar mitzvah post and have nothing but admiration for you and, especially, FB (who is not facebook as I'd originally assumed). Our bar and bat mitzvahs, while stressful, were nothing like that.
Wishing you a calm and stressless second.

Debi said...

Sue - doing the catering myself is not a matter of choice but necessity. You have no idea how much I'd love to be able to pay someone I could hand over that responsibility to.

Miriam - if you're interested, the posts immediately before and after that link show the trauma as it unfolded. Yes, we certainly hope we don't have to go anything like that this time.

Unknown said...

I can't believe it's Little Guy's turn already - where did the last few years go? Don't answer that! I remember the kerfuffle only too well. Fingers crossed for you that things will run smoothly this time

I'm over in London for a reading myself on the 1st Dec, (part of a stellar international line-up that includes Jen Hadfield, former winner of the TS Eliot prize!) but I don't think the flight times allow me to get out to you to visit, unfortunately! I've got to be back in work the next day pronto. You mind yourself, now, in the meantime!

mgibs17 said...

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Larry said...

Terrific blog! Will be back soon.