A short one tonight - I am so tired. My health caught up with me a bit today and I had a few seizures in the night, which have left me utterly wiped.

But anyway, this morning we had a great workshop on seaweed, where two seaweed experts took us through local samples, their uses, and their history. Then we got to taste some of them. It was really, really fascinating, and it sparked some great stuff - I did some writing on my dissertation for next year, which I won't share because of scary university plagiarism rules.

At the peer to peer critique I managed to stumble out some of my Big Secret Novel, which is an unbelievably huge deal for me. For those who might not know, I've been writing this fantasy series for around twenty years, and only my partner has seen any of it so far, and only tiny fragments. Anyway, I read out a chunk (hands shaking, voice wobbling) and people seemed to really like it and really...get it?

There were lots of comments about the poetry of the writing, and the power dynamics - and just, yeah, it felt really good to share. So that was wonderful, and made me decide that I need to work harder at sharing this project I love so much, and feel so passionate about. In fact...here's a bit I wrote earlier.

[Content warnings for physical violence from a parent.]
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Nevus fell hard, and his wrist shattered underneath him like pottery. He heard the snap of bone before he felt it. Then he felt it. He turned his head against the floor, swallowing his cries, which would only make his father worse. He lay still, as pain began to bubble under the skin, terrible, biting pain.
           He had fallen on the broken rabbit. Small shards crunched under his hand as he lifted himself to kneeling. Darkness crawled up his eyes and nearly floored him. Blood hissed in his ears.
           ‘Nafe,’ his father said, soft-voiced now, and hunched on his hands and knees as though praying. ‘I didn’t mean to.’
            He was crying, sobbing like a baby who has broken his favourite toy. He always got like this afterwards; pressing the weight of his guilt onto Nevus, pawing at him, and kissing his hands, and blubbering apologies.
            ‘It’s all right,’ Nevus said, through lips pulled back over gritted teeth, said it because he had to, because as bad as his father’s anger was, it was nothing to his sorrow.
            Graede’s eyes clouded with relief at the lie. ‘You’re not really hurt, then?’
            ‘Not really,’ Nevus said, white-knuckled with pain. ‘It’s just my arm.’
             Graede took his arm with rough tenderness, and pressed kisses to the bruises already flowering on milky skin. ‘Your mother bruised so easily too,’ he said, his tears falling freely.
            ‘I remember,’ Nevus said, longing to pull free.
            ‘I think your arm is broken, Nafe.’ His face twisted into an almost comical grimace, and he wailed again, with grief and guilt, clinging to Nevus as though he could not bear to let go. ‘My dear son, how could I hurt you so?’
             ‘It’s all right,’ Nevus said, running the fingers of his good hand through his father’s short, spiked hair, with its soft, baby-pink bald patch. ‘It’s all right, Papa.’
              ‘You shouldn’t cross me,’ Graede said, mournfully. ‘You do know how I get.’
              I know all right, thought Nevus, grinding his teeth to dust. 
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Some of the other writers have been teaching me to play pool. I am hilariously bad at it, but it's been a lot of fun. The pool table here is a somewhat dangerous set-up, being laid out a foot away from the ledge that drops down onto the stone living room floor, and surrounded by sharp things, and - no, honestly - it has a grill of spikes hanging over it.

Another magnificent dinner followed by another open mic, where we had some truly fabulous readings.

And now I am sitting at the dining table in this house that has so quickly become like home, with people whom I have so quickly grown to love and appreciate. Feeling so grateful and warm.