Come and hear me read from my new novel - published this month.

I shall be reading from my about to be published novel, Blue Notes, Still Frames,  (Ward Wood Publishing -  http://wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-blue-notes-still-frames.htm ) on Thursday the 12th January here in Lewes UK.  If you can make it, it would be great to see you there.

I'm waiting neurotically for the printed copies to arrive and also for the Kindle edition to be published. Exciting times.  This will be my second Brighton novel. My first, Stephen Dearsley's Summer of Love, was set in 1967,  but, this time, it's in the year 1994. Here's the blurb that will appear on the back cover:

'Colin Bell transports us back to Brighton in 1994 for his second novel Blue Notes, Still Frames, with a full cast of characters drawn together through the music and photography of the title.

Busker Joe lives on the beach with his flute and his troubled Goth girlfriend, Victoria, who’s a singer. He borrows a bath towel for her from Rachel and Alan, a prosperous young couple from the rapidly growing world of computers. The meeting will change all their lives…and other lives too.

There’s Harry, a beach bum drummer; Nico, a transient American who takes revealing photographs of passers-by; Kanti and Diep, mysterious artist twins from Nepal; Lionel and John who reveal more than their bodies on the nudist beach; and pub landladies Jacqueline and Rosemary who top up their income by dabbling in the sex trade.

Joe is always there weaving more than melodies with his flute.'

The reading will take place at the Needlemakers in Lewes, the splendid quarterly literary event where I was invited to read from my first novel too. I'm lucky to be sharing the billing with a friend, the novelist and poet, Kay Syrad and science fiction author Matthew De Abaitua. It should be an entertaining evening.

Matthew De Abaitua is an Arthur C Clarke Award shortlisted author of science fiction. His second novel If Then is set in Lewes in the near-future and was written in the flat above the Needlemakers. Locus described it as 'full of magisterial weirdness, melancholy joy and hopeful terror. If I begin to toss out names like Adam Roberts, Brian Aldiss, and J. G. Ballard, I will not be lavishing undue praise.'

Kay Syrad's publications include a poetry collection, Double Edge (2012), two novels, The Milliner and the Phrenologist (2009) and Send (2015), which investigates pre-verbal experience; and Exchange, an art-text work with Chris Drury (2015). Her artist’s book work of the lightship men: 1000 tasks (2013) was bought by the National Maritime Museum. She is Poetry Editor of Envoi and co-founder of the VERT Institute for art events & writing in Laughton.

Before becoming a writer, Colin Bell worked as a TV producer-director and executive producer making arts programmes for ITV, Channel Four, the BBC and also for American, Japanese and German broadcasters. His first novel, Stephen Dearsley's Summer of Love (Ward Wood Publishing, 2013) was long-listed for the Polari Prize. His second novel, Blue Notes, Still Frames is due out in January. His poetry has been published in the UK and the USA where it has been nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize.

Numbers count in Fibonacci Poetry - and for The Fib Review's anniversary issue.

I'm celebrating today and it's not all about numbers. They figure strongly in writing the usually short poetry form the Fibonacci poem which is based on the so-called Fibonacci Sequence of numbers.

The latest issue of  the world's leading Fibonacci poetry journal, The Fib Review, is published today in its 25th issue on its 10th anniversary and, yes, my four new Fibs  bring my total 66 of poems published by the Fib Review. All these numbers are worth celebrating I think.

It may all look a bit dusty and arithmetical in the diagram but these numbers form a beautiful sequence that can be found in nature, in science,  in engineering and, yes, in art. The sequence consists of numbers where each  is the sum of the previous two, rising in numerical order and which can be seen in natural shapes  made from this ratio of numbers. It is the beauty of the sequence that has tempted poets to use the sequence as a way of ordering words and lines in poetry.

I have been writing Fibonacci poetry for eight years now by counting the syllables in each line so that the lines correspond to the sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34.  Until now, I've never dared to go any higher in the numerical order but in two of my new poems I have added 55 syllable lines. I'm delighted that they are to be included in the new publication of The Fib Review. Take a look, not just for my new poems but for the fascinating variations on the form achieved by all the other poets, from all over the world,  published there:

http://www.musepiepress.com/fibreview/index.html

Leonardo Bonacci, known as Fibonacci (c1170 - c1250)

The Fibonacci Sequence is credited to the Italian mathematician Leonardo Bonacci who was also known as Fibonacci. He introduced this ancient Asian sequence into Western Europe in the 13th Century and it has fascinated mathematicians, scientists, artists, engineers and poets ever since.

Photography - at first it was just taking pictures, then I went digital and now I discover Instagram.

I have lived long enough now to have seen a transformation in the art of photography. Not that I'd call myself a photographer, but I been taking photographs since I was a child and I've always been entranced by the possibilities of even the simplest of cameras. As a schoolboy, I won a photographic competition once but that was a long time ago. Since then, I've just been using my various cameras for my own pleasure, mostly as a record of my family and friends but when that amazing digital revolution got to me, in 2007,  I found new excitement with a great digital camera, the Cannon EOS 400D, bought in Hong Kong and loved ever since.  Since living in Lewes, UK, I've been friends with a real photographer, David Stacey http://www.davidstaceyphoto.com/ who has not only inspired me with his own work but encouraged me to experiment more with my own camera.

David Stacey - I dared to take this photograph of the photographer, last year.

Dave even turned his camera on me a few times and this portrait  now hangs on a wall at home - like it or not, I think it captures the spirit of my life here in Lewes.

Me by David Stacey

David Stacey at work in my study.

I spent a day with Dave recently when we went to an exhibition as the excellent Pallant House Gallery in Chichester and, over a boys' pub lunch, we discussed cameras and photography as we often do. It was there that Dave inspired me to give Instagram a go. He said he thought I'd really like this the most  creatively challenging and excitingly instant of all of today's social networking sites. I said I'd have a go and, a month later, I'm still doing it and, yes, loving it too. I've been taking at least one photograph a day for the site and I'm gradually learning how to master the various editing options. You can see how I've been getting on by following the link below.

https://www.instagram.com/colinbellwolfiewolfgang/

The other revolution in my on-line world is that those photographs taken for Instagram can be linked to various other sites - so I'm now an enthusiastic member of the photography site Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/16199705@N05/

I'm also linking these shots with that other photography site Tumblr:  https://www.tumblr.com/blog/wolfie-wolfgang

I'm enjoying the way my photographs can be sent round the internet with just a couple of clicks and love the way my Instagram photos are also automatically linked to  that other photography site Pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/colinbell/photographs-by-colin-bell-wolfiewolfgang/

Needless to say, these pictures also go directly to my Facebook and Twitter pages so after a relative silence here on my website, I'm suddenly all over the wonderful world-wide web and having lots of fun all of which I owe to my good friend David Stacey. Thanks Dave.

I haven't posted many blogs on here this year. Forgive me, regular readers, I've been busy finishing a novel for publication later this year  and now I'm getting on with a new one so I've been heads down all year but plan to get back to blogging again very soon.

In the meanwhile you can follow me on all of the above sites as well as on Facebook and Twitter - I hope to see you around in cyberspace and, of course, here on this site.

My Facebook page.

My Twitter page.

The publication of a Fibonacci poem and another poetry anthology brighten my Lewes weekend.

I've had a mini-run on poetry publication over the weekend. I've just received a copy of a new poetry anthology, Tic Toc,  published by the American company Kind Of Hurricane Press and including my poem Over Time. All the poems are, in different ways, "time tunnels" and I'm proud to be included. It was a good weekend because I also heard that I have a new Fibonacci poem, The Kiss,  in #18 of the specialist Fibonacci poetry journal, The Fib Review published by another American publisher, Musepie Press. I'm especially proud of being there because it continues my relationship with this pioneering venture, the World's premier Fibonacci publisher. I have had my Fib poems included in every issue since #5 so this is my lucky thirteenth appearance.   It's great when I'm so involved in my novel writing that poetry keeps encouraging me to keep the poems coming too. Here's the link:

http://www.musepiepress.com/fibreview/colin_bell1.html

The new anthology is also good news as it adds to the growing number of poetry anthologies to include my work.

If you want to read them, you can find on them using the following links:


Tic Toc published by Kind Of A Hurricane Press:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tic-Toc-Various-Authors/dp/149950196X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404121393&sr=1-1&keywords=Tic+Toc

Reaching Out published by Cinnamon Press:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Reaching-Out-Other-Stories-Poems/dp/1907090886/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404121482&sr=1-1&keywords=Reaching+Out+Rowan+B.+Fortune

Night walking: a good way to come down after a poetry reading.

Wolfie Wolfgang reading last night

Last night in Lewes, UK, there was a chill in the air and, or so I'm told,  snow on the outskirts, but it was warm enough in the Lewes Arms, my local pub, when it hosted the 7th anniversary of Lewes Poetry and showcased some of the poets who have read there over the years. I was glad to be invited back as I have happy memories of the first time I read there as, six years go,  it was the venue for my very first poetry reading as I described in yesterday's blog.

Lewes Arms Pub, Lewes.

There was a good turnout considering we, the South-East English, are known to make an unnecessary fuss if the January temperatures sink anywhere lower than warm. The success of Lewes Poetry, and the reason why so many people risked less than mild temperatures, belongs to its host and creator, the wonderfully chaotic Ollie Wilson, poet and compere at these suitably anarchic events where 'stage' poets share the stage with 'page' poets and everyone gets along just fine. I read some of my recent re-writes of my first poems which all dated from 2009 and this seemed a suitable anniversary for their first public reading. I had been nervous about tinkering with poems that had already been published and, possibly, set in stone, but they seemed to go down well, people clapped, laughed and were silent in all the right places,  and I left feeling that those rewrites of early poems still had something to say, but now had much stronger legs, considering that they written when I didn't really know what I was doing.

Ollie Wilson

Outside, as you can see in the photos below, if they weren't at the Lewes Arms,  or some other local hostelry, Lewesians were all snuggled up at home. Well, you don't want to catch cold on a chilly January night.

When Lewes is busy, it is very, very busy, but when it is quiet, it's deserted.

It is a real pleasure wandering outside on a night like this when the streets, or so it seems, belong to me.

I always feel a bit stranger than usual after performing my poetry - it's an exposing experience where hidden parts of myself have a brief public airing, and, afterwards, I need to take time to return to what, I guess, is 'normal'.

On nights such as these, there's nothing better than a solitary walk in the middle of town, especially when it is as pretty as Lewes.

If you're interested in Lewes Poetry, here's the link:
http://lewespoetry.blogspot.co.uk/

Why the 19th of January is the beginning of 2015 for this particular writer.

I know it isn't January the First today - let me look, ah yes, it's the 19th, well that'll do.  It feels like the beginning of the new year so give me some slack here, OK. It's 2015 which, for me, is worth celebrating mainly because it's not 2014. If I'm to remain optimistic about 2015, I've decided it should begin today rather than on the more mathematically correct date.

On New Year's Eve 2014, I was perfectly prepared to celebrate until a fever over-took me and sent me to bed shivering, my teeth chattering, in a relapse from an unpleasant condition that had begun in November and that has only really left me, I hope, in the last couple of days. I don't see why we can't invent our own diaries, calendars and schedules and, even if I can't persuade you all to see today as the beginning of the new year, then I intend to go ahead anyway.

It's not just a health thing. Last Monday I finished and sent off to Ward Wood Publishing, the fifth draft of my second novel, Still Notes, Still Frames, which will be published later this year. I'm sure there will be more tweaks and adjustments but it is, in reality, finished until the ever vigilant Adele Ward of Ward Wood comes up with her usual insightful comments. As far as my brain is concerned though, the bulk of the work is done and it can relax into other duties like mostly concentrating on my new novel that is now a quarter through its first draft. Thinking two novels at the same time has been a hazardous occupation so my brain and I are celebrating 2015 in the spirit of ring out the old and ring in the new.

Feeling less cluttered mentally, and much better physically,  has encouraged me to establish new working practices and a new rhythm to my daily life here in Lewes, UK.  I know you've all done your New Year stuff - made and already broken your resolutions, got over your hangovers, decided to give up that diet or that frail attempt at spending January on the wagon but, yes, give me some slack here everyone.

My resolutions centre around finding more space in my life, seeing a bit more blue sky, settling into a fitness regime that suits my schedule, getting this daily blog back up and running now that it is entering its 7th year and, a difficult one this, staying healthy.

Wish me luck because I'll need it. It might be registering very cold here today on the poncey South-East England thermometer but the sun is shining and I can't detect any physical ailment so far this morning, so optimism reigns, Happy New 2015.

My Haiku poem becomes a film - a little one - and I'm delighted.

I was very happy to see a fine new animated film, Haiku, by my friend, the talented American composer and film-maker, Tim Risher (aka Joseph Nussbaum).  It was exciting that it was based on one of my poems, Haiku. It's terrific when poetry, music and film come together like this. This is the second of my poems to be made into a film but, in the nature of Haiku, this one's only short so give me a moment of your time and take a look - it's wonderful:




See the other poem film, Sortie, also with music by Tim Risher, directed by Boris Twist - there's a link in the left column on this page.

I'm feeling great! Now when was the last time you heard me say that?

I'm feeling good today. I know that's not headline news stuff but, actually, for me, it is. Some of you may know that I have been ill with Pulmonary Embolism, blood clots in my lungs, since about this time last year. It hasn't been fun feeling ill most of the time, having difficulties breathing and, at times, even walking. Well, after some rough months of illness, I got diagnosed in March this year and then the medication began.

First of all a few weeks of self-injecting with a drug called Tinzapanin sodium - this was a great way of getting over any squeamishness I might have had about sticking needles into myself. Soon I was doing it as if I was merely putting a pin into a pin cushion. This was the emergency treatment which was designed to stop the clots from growing any larger.

Then I was moved on to Warfarin tablets, the stuff often used as rat poison, yes, I know, charming,  I thought so too. I had to take these tablets for six months, the plan being that they would lower my blood's coagulation rate so that the blood clots could begin the long job of dissolving without the danger of new clots forming. This, of course,  increased the danger of haemorrhaging so I had to carry an emergency card just in case I had an accident because the scene would have been rather bloody. I was told I couldn't have a tooth extracted or any surgical procedures while I was on Warfarin.  I was also told that the doctors didn't want me to take it for more than six months because, six years ago, I had had a brain haemorrhage. So you can see, this has been a difficult year.

These daily doses of Warfarin where regulated by regular blood tests to see the level of coagulation in my system.

This ritual was performed twice a week, then once a week, then eventually once a month, unless the level of anti-coagulant dropped. I was often recognised as the man with the bandage on his arm.

After all those scans and x-rays, I wasn't too worried about this blood-test regime and, gradually, I started to feel better - less breathless as the fluid on my lungs dispersed, and, eventually, I felt almost energetic again. The consultant decided after regular visits to the hospital, that six months of Warfarin should do the trick as they could find no underlying cause of those blood clots and decided that they were probably caused by the severe lung infection I suffered last winter.

Pulmonary Embolism is a serious, in fact a life-threatening condition so it is with relief that I can now consider myself out of danger. There's a 1 in 5 chance of developing another clot once you have had the condition but, I'm told,  that this is unlikely in my case and I certainly hope that the doctors are right. I have to repeat  something I have said on these pages many times before: yet again, in my experience, the British National Health Service, in spite of its difficulties, has been fantastic. Without its care, I might not have been here writing this. So, as I said at the top of this blog, the fact that I'm feeling good today is news-worthy - well for me anyway.

Before my diagnosis, I did a number of public readings of my novel, Stephen Dearsley's Summer Of Love, without realising that I was seriously ill. I'm glad I didn't realise the danger I was in when I took part in the Polari Literary Salon readings at at the Royal Festival Hall in February but, looking at the short video that someone took, I can hear that my breathing was anything but normal. Phew. No such problems next week then when I'm reading at Needlewriters Lewes with the poets Sian Thomas and Liz Bahs.

I plan to read from  my first novel Stephen Dearsley's Summer Of Love (published by Ward Wood Publishing) but also from my new one, Blue Notes, Still Frames, to be published by Ward Wood in 2015. If you are anywhere near Lewes, UK, it would be great to see you there - no wheezing or breathlessness and definitely no blood this time, I promise.

Stephen Dearsley's Summer Of Love on the 'Long List" for the Polari First Book Prize.

I heard this week that my novel, Stephen Dearsley's Summer Of Love has been longlisted for the Polari First book Prize. It's a real thrill to have got down to the last twelve and now  I'm scared to even think about making it onto the short list of five that will be announced on 8th September.

For the moment I shall just glow with pleasure to have made it this far.

For more details about the Polari Prize, here's the link:

http://www.polariliterarysalon.co.uk/Polari/

On the road with Shauna Gilligan and The Writing Process Blog Tour

Shauna Gilligan

My fellow Ward Wood novelist, Shauna Gilligan has asked me to join The Writing Process Blog Tour where each writer answers four questions about the writing process and then passes the baton on to another set of writer-bloggers. Thanks Shauna, like any other relay race, the current runner is scared of dropping the baton and ruining the race. Anyway, here goes.

Firstly though, here's some information about Shauna whose novel, Happiness Comes From Nowhere, is simply terrific. Inventive and unconventionally structured, it's a gripping multi-dimensional tour de force.  

Shauna Gilligan was born in Dublin, Ireland and has worked and lived in Mexico, Spain, India and the UK. She currently lives in County Kildare, Ireland with her family. Her fiction has been published widely and she has read from her work and presented on writing at conferences in Europe and the USA. She holds a PhD (Writing) from the University of South Wales (formally University of Glamorgan). Happiness Comes from Nowhere (London: Ward Wood, 2012) is her first novel.

To read Shauna's answers to these questions go to:

http://shaunaswriting.com/wordpress/2014/02/my-writing-process-blog-tour/


Right, my turn:

What are you working on now?

Now that my first novel, Stephen Dearsley's Summer Of Love has been published (Ward Wood Publishing, 2013 - see below), I can put my mind to other things. I've just finished the third draft of my second novel, Blue Notes, Still Frames, like my first, it's based in Brighton but it's set in the 1990s with a completely new cast of characters. I am also writing a lot of new poetry and revising many of my older ones. This year, I hope, is going to be the time when I raise my game with poetry so I shall be concentrating on that and on a number of short stories that have been languishing on my desk looking for a little love. I'd like to clear my desk before settling on a number of ideas for the next novel but I'm already itching to get on with it.

Why is your work different from other work in the same genre?

This question scares me! I don't know if my work is different from others' work but I hope it is - otherwise, why bother. So much of writing is about finding confidence in your own voice so this question sends me scurrying away to my inner world of insecurity. I came to writing after a long career in the television industry, working for Granada Television, where serious and often complicated ideas had to be expressed in clear, direct and entertaining ways that were intelligible to every viewer. I believe that spirit of directness is important in my fiction too, as is humour, and I hope that I achieve at least some of this without sacrificing any of the passion and respect I feel for the great canon of Western literature. If my work is different from others', it might be that it is a mix of the old and the new expressed from what I'm told is a rather quirky worldview. God, I hated that question!

Why do you write like you do?

I love words whether it's in conversation or on the printed page. I was thrilled, as a child, by the impact and power of words. The years between childhood and my actually becoming a writer, were about honing down and refining what had always, I suspect, been my individual voice, an impulse that has been with me ever since I can remember. If it doesn't sound too weird, I think I have always listened to that observational voice in my head. It grew up much earlier than I did! I think I'm only just catching up with it now realizing that I don't really have any other choice but to write in the way the distinct voice dictates. Discovering this has also lead to my relatively new enthusiasm for writing poetry which often comes quickly in its first draft form.


How does your writing process work?

I always wanted to be a writer and always got a real kick out of the act of writing - The Joy Of Writing I suppose you could say,  like The Joy Of Sex. That feeling has never left me but has been fueled by great writers and artists from other genres, who have regularly turned me on throughout my life. I internalise what I love and let it mix with all those insubstantial and subconscious impulses and memories that rush around in the brain. I suppose my interest in the world around me and my fascination for our own oddly contradictory species is fed into that almost abstract thing, the mind. In some ways, I'm a passive witness to my own writing but when I start,  I write in a great flow of enthusiasm even if the subject matter is dark. The difficult bit is before that, sitting in an armchair quietly waiting while these thoughts are formed. It's a matter of opening portals in the brain. When it's a novel, this requires a lot of discipline, a daily ritual that begins meditating in a leather armchair and then moving on to some frantic typing at the computer. The real "work" comes with the second draft and beyond.  I'm always trying to improve and experiment with style and I anguish over these later drafts but, deep-down, I have to obey an internal force and, as humbly as I can, write down the words as they are formed in that place in my brain that is often quite dictatorial. It's an exhilarating ride whether it's a short poem or the extended writing of a novel even if I'm always left with the wish to have done it all better.

Now, with my thanks, I'll introduce the authors who will be continuing the writing process blog tour a week from now.  Their answers to these questions will be on their websites next Monday, 17th. February:

Adele Ward

Adele Ward is a publisher, Ward Wood Publishing, a novelist, Everything is Free (2011) and a poet, Never-Never Land (2009). She lives in North London with her sons Stefano and Danny. She worked as a journalist and author of nonfiction before spending four years in Italy where her children were born. She was one of the first students on Andrew Motion's postgraduate creative writing programme at the Royal Holloway, University of London. Her poetry has been anthologised and broadcast on national and local radio, and other publications include a selection in the first Bedford Square anthology published by John Murray. In summer 2010 she set up Ward Wood Publishing with Mike Fortune-Wood, and in 2011 she started the regular Friday Night Writers event in London.

http://adeleward.blogspot.co.uk/

Peter Daniels

Peter Daniels published his first full collection Counting Eggs with Mulfran Press in 2012, following pamphlets including three from Smith/Doorstop, Mr Luczinski Makes a Move (HappenStance, 2011) and the historically obscene Ballad of Captain Rigby (Pronoun, 2013) based on court records at London Metropolitan Archives. He has won first prize in a number of competitions including the Ledbury (2002), Arvon (2008) and TLS (2010), and twice been a winner of the Poetry Business pamphlet competition. His book of translations from the Russian of Vladislav Khodasevich (1886-1939), published by Angel Classics, was the Poetry Book Society’s recommended translation for Autumn 2013.

http://eggcounter.wordpress.com/

http://www.peterdaniels.org.uk/index.html

Finding poetic inspiration in Mortlake

I spent last weekend in the peaceful environment of Mortlake in the London Borough of Richmond  upon Thames where the occasional low flying planes reminds us that we are on the edge of the great metropolitan sprawl that is London.  I wasn't plane spotting though, I was taking part in a two day poetry workshop with the impressive Ruth O' Callaghan, the poet, who also run the Camden-

Ruth O' Callaghan

Lumen poetry events where I try to go to once a month for the poetry readings. These workshops are now a regular part of my calendar and they are both inspirational, intense and mentally demanding. Luckily there is time for a strict one hour for lunch and, just down the road, there's the excellent Corner Cafe & Deli where I usually succumb to their 'posh nosh', scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and a large cup of black coffee.

I have the first drafts of six new poems after my trip and feel that I've upped my game a bit with Ruth's encouragement. Mortlake has become a place of inspiration for me but, I'm far from alone there,  J.M.W. Turner appreciated it too.

Mortlake Terrace, 1827, by J.M.W. Turner (1775 - 1851)