New Year Poem

A Hint of Promise by Vanessa Woolley

 

The open window lets the new air in

Running like a river through my lungs,

Starting the day, the year, with a hint of promise.

 

Outside the sky is slate grey

And the air damp

Nothing seems different or new

Yet it is somehow

As if all the things we said and did a day ago

Are long gone

Replaced with exact replicas

And just a hint of promise.

 

The rubbish trucks rumble along pot holed lanes

Collecting festive rubbish

Strands of tinsel and party poppers hang from fences

Like party guests who outstayed their welcome.

And, sitting on a window sill in a small porcelain bowl,

A purple flower protrudes upwards

As if it had been waiting for this exact moment and time to arrive

With a hint of promise.

 

Vanessa Woolley, January 2013

Keyboard banging, Christmas,Snow and January Blues, Camel rides in the desert and now I'm back!

Yes - it's true - I am finally back after an absence of a three months or so.  But - the good news is that as promised (and this is a writing blob), I did write a novel in that time.  Well, I am two chapters short of the end, but who's counting?  "Changing Altitude" is a novel about coming to terms with grief and finding friendship in the process.  I am so glad it is finally a piece of finished work and not just ideas floating about in my head.

 

So by the 10th December, I got up to 65,000 words with six or so chapters to go, and then the thing called Christmas kind of got in the way.  And then came the snow...  Sure everyone was back at work and school and I could have holed myself up and finished the book, but sadly the January blues attacked.  This is probably the worst thing for a writer.  So by the end of January, the book was still six chapters short of being finished.  And then, in early February, inspiration struck (or maybe it was the mental kick I gave myself).

 

Anyway, half term was looming so I gave myself the deadline of Valentine's Day to finish the damn book.

 

15,000 words later it was done - well, except for the last three chapters which are planned and ready to write. 

So dear reader - despite my apparent lack of blogging stamina, I was doing something useful.

And as for camels in the desert - well: