Ghosts & Shadows – She Makes War Music, ramblings and recommendations

new live pics & novelling slowly :::

[photo by Gary Keenan]

What a weekend - first singing in Trafalgar Square with The Young Punx then playing my second solo set of the winter, at The Marlborough in Camberwell. I had a marvellous time doing both (very different) shows, and more media will be coming soon - a video blog post and hopefully a TV clip from the first and a live recording or two from the second.

And how nice to get a promoter/soundman/musician-in-his-own-right running things, recording the bands for a radio show, getting the best acoustic guitar sound I've ever had and encouraging talented photographers along to document it all! All hail Matt Daly, and big thanks to Gary Keenan for the lovely photos - see more here. I played on a bill with HJ Allen, Ben Cakebread and The Soundcasters and there was much laughter and merriment and even a raucous singalong to the special secret cover I've started playing.

I'll be back at The Marlborough this Friday, opening up for a night of bands - fancy coming along? I'll be on from 8.30 testing out new songs before I finally start making some decisions about what's going to be on the album. Hell, I might even let you help me...

In other news, NaNoWriMo is underway, and after a brilliant first day where I clattered out 1837 words in just over an hour it's been slow going. It's Day 4 now and my word count stands at a relatively measly 2860, most of which is complete and utter twaddle. Not that that's important in this challenge, but it's still an uncomfortable feeling, knowing as I do that my outline idea for the book is potentially really strong and trying to match that with some pretty rusty, dusty fiction writing skills. Hmph.

The last couple of days have been spent travelling on trains and in my sister's car around the North West and the Midlands visiting family and desperately trying to avoid canine car sickness, a new affliction of poor Benji's. Success has been limited, but he's been in good spirits throughout and had fun today making friends with two American Cocker Spaniels and a 17 year old Jack Russell Cross who played with him as if he too were just a pup. Tonight I was hoping to get serious and get my word count up, up, up but I seem to have underestimated my exhaustion and started writing some really random and confusing sentences as my eyelids drooped. Time to call it a night, I suppose.