Today’s been a lovely Friday despite the tiredness (it has been incredibly difficult to get my night owl sleep rhythm adjusted to my 9-to-5 job after my holiday). Some of the loveliness:

My poem ‘Boat-husk’ will be published in the fourth issue of Through the Gate. I’m very happy about this! Through the Gate is such a beautiful magazine.

I had my writers’ group meeting today and read part of a story that I’ve been working on for the past couple of months, more intensely during the past couple of weeks. It’s part of the forest world that I think I’ve mentioned here – with this world, I’m attempting the initial worldbuilding process through shorter stories and poems. Incidentally, ‘Boat-husk’ is also an echo of the same world.

I’m really enjoying this kind of secondary world exploration. I hope all the stories I write for it don’t expand on me like this one, though – once more, I’m looking at a 10,000-word story rather than a 2,000-word one as per my original concept. Oooops.

What can I say? I’m a babbly person, and I like drawn-out character development and lush language. Mmm. Tasty, tasty words.