Paris post-attacks

I still haven’t written a travelogue for this! I can’t NOT write a travelogue! So here it is, short and sweet. More »

New York, New York

Did I say “Paris, forever Paris” down there? As predictably as ever, I have (temporarily?) switched my allegiance to New York after spending the two most amazing weeks there. Here is a kinda short travelogue. No, it really will be short. Ish. More »

Paaaris, forever Paris

Hello, quick travelogue instead of working… *lol* More »

Time flies when you’re having fun

… which is why we’re now nearly a third of the way through this year and there hasn’t been a single blog entry yet. Life’s great though, and I just wanted to note that here for posterity.

But, having just had a look through my 2015 plans from the year end survey, I’ve actually not achieved very much:

Eliminator Race in February (Achilles trouble)
✓ Placebo twice in Feb / March.
Paris Marathon in April. (Achilles trouble)
– Work on swimming (on and off, long break due to 1. shoulder trouble 2. hating it)
– buy road bike (about to!)
– do first triathlon (well, we’ll see…)
Finish novel first draft, hopefully soonish. Then second draft? I hope so! (I have no excuse for this except I… had other stuff to do?)

What I did do tho was:
✓ adopt the best cat in the world (and build him a ladder and shelves and and and…)
✓ do a mindfulness course
✓ work a lot in March
✓ not work very much since
✓ think about moving to a ground floor / bigger flat (due to cat & bike)

And of course it’s not so long until New York (and Paris before that!)

Next update in August! *lmao* (no, there will be travelogues before that of course)

End of Year survey 2014

Yay, time for end of year survey! More »

Why writing is like running

Speak for yourself, you may say at this point. Okay, I am! This is how writing has been like running for me, or more specifically, how NaNoWriMo has been like Couch25K.  More »

Paris quickie

Just realised I never wrote a travelog for my most recent Paris trip. This is unacceptable. The records must be complete!!!! More »

Once an addict… ?

So here’s an interesting article: Most People With Addiction Simply Grow Out of It: Why Is This Widely Denied? The author, Maia Szalavitz, is “one of the [America’s] leading neuroscience and addiction journalists” (and also a respected Mefite). More »

Blighters in Brighton

Okay. Here’s a piece – a few pieces actually – I wrote for Geo-Writing, which was part of the Brighton Digital Festival. It’s a great idea – you get a prompt based on your location (most are in Brighton, but there are world-wide ones too), then write up to 300 words around it. I ended up grabbing a bunch of prompts, going west to east from West Street to the hospital, and writing a continuous story with them. Some prompts worked better than others, but I managed to get them all in. More »

Flipping the switch, or: On Beauty

So I had an interesting experience today, an epiphany of sorts. I was on a run along Castle Hill, one of my favourite part of the Downs, and I was listening to the latest episode of This American Life, specifically Act 3 about a young woman’s rather unusual life plans. If you want to listen to the episode, I recommend you don’t read on just yet but get yourself somewhere pretty and natury. Or somewhere urban if you prefer. But don’t listen to it at home, sitting at your computer. Nor in a coffee shop. Go outside. Then come back and tell me about it! More »