Podcast

On the way to the beach yesterday I dropped in to see my friend Debs and she let me try out her Garageband software. I'm going to do a podcast/CD of Peeling Onions.
Anyway it was really good fun, the software allows the import of the equivalent of royalty free stock music, and you can add this as a backing track to your narration.

I laid down the 'first layer" of the poem with this lovely piano nocturne playing, set to "ducking", so when your voice level goes up it fades down.

I played it back to Debs and she had tears streaming down her face, so it must have worked! We scrubbed it, but we're making plans to do a proper version with a couple of my other friends, each taking a layer to vary the voices.

Debs was surprised at my "radio voice". I'm always being told I speak too softly at public reading, although I did all the interweaving bits at the First Aid Kit show that I put together for Cancer Research, and no-one complained at my pitch during that performance.
But I used to do radio years ago as an information officer for a Government department. I did local radio and some national stuff on BBC Radio Scotland and Radio 4. I even did live phone ins with punters, which was truly terrifying as I had to answer their assorted questions on welfare benefits. So I must have retained something from that experience. Anyway I'm looking forward to the project.

I've also made contact with Judi Benson, an American who has just done two years as writer in residence with the Health Board in SW Scotland. They've produced a book based on the work she did with patients and staff there, and I'm ordering a copy from the Health Board. And I think the Scotsman are doing a piece on one of the books she helped a patient write, the woman has sadly since died of ovarian cancer, having already lost both her teenage daughters to a rare genetic condition. I can't imagine dealing with that level of loss.

I'm really interested in writing as a means of helping people deal with illness, so Judy's book should be a huge fund of information. I'll post the name and how to get it etc once I have it.

Judy says I should explore the "one word sonnet", it's a poem with one word on fourteen lines, so I'm looking forward to seeing examples of that. She's buying my book, having read it online, and she's recommending it to Dumfries and Galloway for the young women's breast cancer support group. So once again the web has brought me wonderful links and information.


I'm trying to write some more haiku for Spring. These are the ones I like best so far:

jackpot
three blooming cherries
all in a row

the park's regiment of
daffodils trumpet March

willow wands
work their magic
Spring

gale-force winds
colour wash
the open sky

a blackbird drilling
ochre into mossy grass

Podcast

Our Writers Group is featured on this podcast. I have a couple of poems on it, though I sound about 5 years old.

Yo yo Ma and the Silkroad Ensemble

Put up with the cheesy opening as the rest this worth listening to, a group of western and eastern musicians playing mostly stringed instruments together.
My favourite track is Chi Passa Per'sta Strada. i-tunes has a free podcast explaining the group's ethos and methods.

Celtic Connections

I had really hoped to get through to Glasgow to see some of this year's festival, but my son's accident put pay to my hopes as I didn't want to buy tickets that I couldn't use.

But I've been living it vicariously instead, as I watched the Karine Polwart concert on a BBC podcast, and yesterday's Glasgow Herald had a great CD which has tracks from Dick Gaughan, Eddi Reader, Kate Rusby, Idlewild and Mary Chapin Carpenter (MCC) on it. I must admit I'm really sad I didn't get to see MCC, I really love her song writing, but I'll have to console myself with her new album which is out in early March. Roseanne Cash is also playing at CC, and she's someone else I'd love to have seen. And then there's Seth Lakeman, BTW his EP, Seth Lakeman:Live on i-tunes is great value. I really love the White Hare track. Well the list is endless, but no point in being miserable about it, maybe next year........

(Oh and another great buy on i-tunes is the album Indoor Picnic Vol 2, it's a various artists thing, but it has lots of unusual stuff on it by people I've never heard of and again it's at a good price.)

Yay for Debs!!

My friend Debs has just been appointed to a new writer in residence job. I'm not sure how public it is so I won't say where, but she's really excited about it and it will be a perfect fit with her own novel writing. I'm so happy for her and it comes on the back of her husband getting a new, very high-powered directorship, so they're both celebrating. She is a very talented person, not only is she a great writer, David Gemmell was her mentor, she is also very good with IT and she's said that she might be able to help me put together a podcast of Peeling Onions.

Her new book, Swarmthief's Treason comes out this autumn.

Last night I got invited to dinner by the woman who asked me for the large format leek print. The renovations to her house are finished and the picture has been hung in the new kitchen/garden room, above the splendid new range and mantlepiece. I've inserted a quick snap above. I must admit I'm really pleased with this shot. The leeks are monster ones taken at the local horticulural show last year. They were the size of a kitchen table, and the leaves looked like beautiful seaweed. I cross processed the resulting shot. Somehow it seems appropriate that they now hang in a very swish new kitchen. I'm always terrified of commissions, but I love seeing the final results.