All You Need Is Love: Stephen Dearsley's Summer Of Love is published today.

I was young in 1967, probably a lot younger than I realized. I was moved by the so-called Summer Of Love but I'm sure I can't have understood the half of it. I felt it though and some of those feelings must have made it into my novel, Stephen Dearsley's Summer Of Love. I suspect a small part of me is there, hidden somewhere between those pages hoping not to be discovered now that the book is published and Stephen Dearsley, formerly "my" Stephen Dearsley, is out there with you all or with any of you that decide to read about him and his momentous young man's summer.

I might know Stephen a lot better than I know the moody young man in the photograph at the top of this blog. Who I was then or, maybe, who I was trying to be then in the Summer of 1967 may have to remain a mystery to me as well as to the rest of you. I do remember though that even then I wanted one day to write a novel and to get it published as a paperback. That was very clear to me, as The Beatles sang that summer about love, it was easy. Young ambitions are not the mountains they look like from a distance. Those youthful summer days were for dreaming dreams. It would all be fine, it was easy. Well nothing's quite that easy and a lot of years have passed before that sultry summer dream came true.

I remember the ambition just as I remember a song from that year - both were vivid, thrilling and, yes, I guess, erotic dreams and both, I was sure, would come true. It was easy.

The song, of course, was all You Need Is Love by The Beatles, first performed on the first ever simultaneous live international television relay on the 25th June 1967 to an estimated audience of 400 million people. It was, naturally, the answer. Love really was all you needed if everyone agreed to go along with that thought or so it seemed that day.  I was excited, maybe even more than that,  to be there as a witness to a moment of revelation. Then came the new Beatles album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and, for me at least, life was never to be quite the same again.

The Beatles, 25th June 1967

It wasn't, as we all found out, that easy after all, love or people agreeing that love was all you needed, but it turned enough of us on at that time to make a difference. It wasn't just the music but the whole counter-cultural shift that those records revealed to my innocently voracious eyes and ears. Even though The Beatles split up, became disillusioned, some of them died, were even murdered and the others grew old, I still can't listen to that song of songs without the same thrill of optimism and the spirit of delight that awoke in me then and has never fully died.

When I think of Stephen Dearsley, I often say 'poor Stephen' and hope that he forgives me for all I have done to him. If you do decide to read my novel, be kind to him and try to think well of those idealists and dreamers who once thought achieving the sublime was easy.






It was a sublime moment too this afternoon when I first laid hands on a copy of my book. There's no other feeling like this one.

I have three new Fibonacci poems published today, 30th October - my brain haemorrhage anniversary.

The latest issue of The Fib Review, Issue #16,  is posted online today and, sorry to brag, it includes three of my Fibonacci poems continuing my unbroken run in this poetry journal since I submitted my very first Fibonacci poem four years ago in Issue #5.

It's great to celebrate the new issue today, 30th October, which, otherwise, would be just the fifth anniversary of my brain haemorrhage - better known in this house as Haemorrhage Day. Actually, my recovery has been so complete that I hardly even remember it these days. Now though, I do need to say thanks to whatever powers, including the British National Health Service, allowed me to carry on with my life. Thanks!

The long recovering period from that sudden brain injury, a substantial haemorrhage to my left frontal lobe,  allowed me to develop my poetry writing and, sometimes, I  wonder if the haemorrhage actually inspired me to write poetry in the first place. It was during the early days of recovery that I also caught the Fibonacci bug.

If you don't know about Fibonacci poetry then read the explanation in the photo-shot of the new edition of The Fib Review above. It's all about making syllables or words comply into a strict arithmetical code without losing their poetic purpose. I love the form and I feel honoured to have so many of my poems included in what must be the leading publisher of this unique style of poetry.

If you want to read the poems here's the link:

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

The Fib Review is now downloadable so you can keep them on your computer if you wish and browse all the other poems at your leisure. You can access all of mine in the Writer Archive section.

Those of you who can access the virtual online world, Second Life (it's free and easy to join from anywhere in the world) you can also go to my virtual Fibonacci exhibition, Brief Encounters where forty of my Fibs line the walls along with some of my photography. http://maps.secondlife.com/ - it was in Second Life, while still recovering from brain damage that I first encountered Fibonacci poetry thanks to the editor of The Fib Review who also happens to  run workshops in short form poetry in the virtual world. I loved the idea  from the start but would never have predicted that I would have kept writing them.

How knows, you might even get hooked on the style yourself.

The virtual exhibition continues until January so, if you can, go and take a look. Once you've entered the world head for Book Island, an extraordinary literary community where everything and everyone is dedicated to writing.

Second Life, poetry, the Fib Review, all of these things I celebrate today on my fifth year of borrowed time. Actually my cup overfloweth, as they say, for tomorrow sees the publication of my first novel, Stephen Dearsley's Summer Of Love. I'm a lucky guy.

My novel is off to the printers today - Stephen Dearsley is leaving home.

I think it's only normal for me to feel excited today because my novel is off to the printers ready for its release next week on 31 October. I've enjoyed each stage of writing my book, Stephen Dearsley's Summer Of Love, but there is something special about the feeling today that it is all done and beyond any temptation to rewrite. It is also a strangely emotional moment, the final stage before poor Stephen leaves the safety of his author's and publisher's  protection before facing his fate out there in the world. I hope people will be kind to him, poor guy. It feels like he's leaving home.

I now have the exciting moment to look forward to when my novel is finally there in my hand - completed, printed and giving off that wonderful aroma unique to new books. I first dreamt of that moment as a child.