6th January, 2026 - It's a new dawn, it's a new desk for me.

My partner Duncan was having a rearrange of his gaming room and we ended up with a spare desk. Turns out it fits perfectly on the edge of my bookcases so I now have a desk set up in my library room, transmogrifying it into a library/writing room.

I've wanted a separate desk for a while to create a physical distinction between my regular job and writing. Writing surrounded by books I'm inspired by feels much nicer than attempting to write surrounded by bits of paper filled with scrawled and crossed out to do lists.

I've now got my Mac, my journal, my exercise books, my reading record book, and all my writing guide books on my desk.

Speaking of guide books, I feel like I have a good collection now. I'm currently working through Ursula K. Le Guin's 'Steering the Craft' - I've given myself a deadline of end of January to finish the exercises in that one. And my current plan is to move onto a real chonky book I got for Christmas this year: The Creative Writing Coursebook. Who needs to pay £10k a year for a masters in Creative Writing when you can just steal the reading list online and work through material yourself (A general summary of how I found this book)

I've also updated my calendar to put writing time in for 16:00 everyday which is when I usually finish work. If I do it before then great, if not then I have the time blocked out once I finish work. I'm going to try and show up everyday to "get the reps in" as Arnold talks about in his 'Be Useful' book (a surprisingly good self help book actually)

I've got a new desk space, a plan, and the voice of Arnold in my head telling me to fu**ing get on with it. What more can I need.

28th October, 2025 - I swear I'm not always ill...

The seasons are turning - which means I have a cold. Only pointing that out because i've logged on and seen I was also ill when I wrote my last post. I think it was A L Kennedy's book that talked about the writers life where she spent 80% of the time talking about being in a constant state of mild illness. I'm not sure if thats me grabbing onto whatever i can to validate calling myself a writer when I've done very little else to qualify as one recently.

I've been absent since the start of Spring and there has been no writing since then. I've more recently started wanting to come back to it. I've been taking the approach I mentioned a few posts back of going topic by topic and focusing on craft. I'm currently focused on something that feels very basic, but I honestly cannot remember ever being taught it despite having a degree in English: basic grammar.

I can tell you about how theories of masculinity intersect with the works of modern writers like Ian McEwan, but ask me what the difference between an adverb and an adjective is, what a subordinate clause requires to work, or what rule is used to determine whether we pair an or a with a noun - I'm lost. A serious gap in my education that I'm working to correct. There are a lot of foundational components I think I'm missing which feels like a nice thing to actually focus on. It gives an obvious sense of progression which can often be lacking when just writing fiction without an objective beyond creation.

Ramping back up to action with a focus on craft. Gonna get myself some flash cards.

31st March, 2025 - coughs, copy work and April challenges

That 1 extra story I mentioned has taken the best part of a month to finish copying out. First because its longer than all the others I copied. Second because I've been annoyingly, mildly ill which has caused all routine to be thrown out.

I've not even been properly ill. Instead I've felt mildly feeble with occasional coughs and stuffy nose. Symptoms I'm still not rid of.

Regardless though, I'm setting myself a new challenge. I like a monthly challenge. For the month of April I'm going to do my usual habit of reading a poem each day, but I'm going to add to that and read a short story and an essay each day too.

1 poem.

1 short story.

1 essay.

I think Ray Bradbury may have recommended that somewhere. I think he suggested 1000 days. I'll start with, how many days are in April... 30.