Some website updates and third novel update

I have added a new Poetry section where I am posting poems from the past as I uncover them, or decide the previously uncovered ones are worth posting. Your opinions may differ (and you may be right!), but poetry is poetry and it really is one of the greatest forms of expression, and so we use it to express.

These are in no way ground-breaking pieces, but they are moments from my life that I needed to express in words without music, and, in that sudden moment, without narrative.

I have also added a short-story section where you can read my rare attempts at creating a short narrative. Over the years, I have actually found the short-story difficult to finish. Much like songs and poetry that need to be finished immediately before the inspiration and enthusiasm disappears (that's how it is for me, anyway), so too the short-story requires constant attention before letting go. Unfortunately quite a few short-story ideas have been let go of as I focused more on either new songs strumming their way into existence, or novels developing across days of connected thought and ideas.

Which brings me to my third novel. Originally conceived in 2009 on a trip to Auckland for either a Bad Religion concert or the Big Day Out in a moment when I started ruminating on the four day week, I began writing a draft in 2014, taking a break from teaching to do so. The plotting hit some problems and I took a break to work on developing the short-story that began as 'The Future Unfolds' into the novel 'Auralye on a Harp'. Now that I am not teaching at all any more due to needing $4000 to do a 12 week course so I can pick up my lapsed registration (and the bank ain't doing shit for me unless there's a guaranteed job at the end - thanks bank!), I am free to continue work on the third novel to be titled 'Dim Day'. You can read a description on my LinkedIn page.


Chapter 1:

Light slid down through darkness cascading over poplar trees as Jansuell raised a hand and let his fingers caress the hedge to his left; dew-sap clung to his skin, a silvery presence that sweated out from the leaves during mid-dim.
      The ball of light hanging motionless in the sky radiated dimness everywhere: on the ground at his feet, piercing through the occasional gap in branches, tricking the shadows that hid in his neglected garden, settling over the distant hills and placing a glow over their observable sides.
      But darkness dominated.
      Even in the places it couldn’t be seen.
      Jansuell rubbed his eyes wishing tiredness didn’t have to be so chronic. He moved onto the shingle path that led past the study window where a baby olive grew at the side of the house, the end of a branch sneaking in through the open window. He carried on to the back door, trying hard not to look at the brightly lit waelfog that rolled up to the mireline off in the distance like clouds of shiny cotton.
      It was all deception.
      Beautiful, shiny deception.
     The wall of mist beyond smothered the lonely pier that stretched out and into it from the mireline with thoughtless impunity and rose its domineering weight into the brightly lit Dim Day skies.