Ali

7: mum can you put on Bye Bye Bye?

Me: … you mean the one by Nsync?

7: no, I think it’s by Deadpool

Weekend boost!

Oh yeah, it’s not like the old days when they went round open mics slipping the young ones absinthe and then rolled them into the ice box to come start a new life writing poetry for the crown

Screenshot of a LinkedIn recommended jobs email suggesting the recipient has a high skills match for the role of ‘volunteer poet’

Is the LinkedIn recommendations algo a POS, or do I need to do some profile maintenance? This isn’t even the most unhinged one I’ve had lately. Anyway brb, setting up a ‘fair museum jobs’ style account for poets. (P.S. am not a poet)

One day our youngest will stop calling the popular hazelnut spread ‘buttella’ and I will weep like one of the professional mourners the Romans used to have

Pale white woman with long straight fringe died a deep red. She's wearing red-framed glasses and a cream lace top, and she's smiling as she's holding a book up: the Who Will Be Remembered Here anthology with contributions by Ali Smith, Amanda Thomson, Ashley Douglas, CJ Mahony, Damian Barr, Ever Dundas, Ink Asher Hemp, Jeff Meek, Johnny McKnight, Lewis Hetherington, Louise Welsh, Mae Diansangu, MJ Deans, and Rona Munro.

It’s publication day! 🎉

'Who Will Be Remembered Here: Queer Spaces In Scotland' is out now. I contributed a piece on 90s goth club Earth Inferno 🔥

you can order it from Historic Environment Scotland:

stor.scot/collections/...

Me: please make my hair look like it did in this picture of me

Hairdresser: thanks but no I will not be doing that

Me: oh ok then great have my money

Small piece of polystyrene with eyes and nose drawn on to represent a ghost

“Robert the Bruce, woooo. King James II is there too.”

Plastic tub lying on its side with those polystyrene packing nugget things scattered around it

School hols day 1: “Mum, I’m just going to release the ghost kings of Scotland from their jar.”

Eldest asked me to read one of my own stories at bedtime, listened patiently and responded “well. OK.” before asking for Looshkin. Humbling

the braag opens for poetry and prose subs june 15th - july 31st

MY PRESS IS OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS. WE PAY YOU. WE'RE WEIRD. thebraag.co/the-press/

Where’s the nanny, chef, cleaner, chauffeur and generational wealth when you need them eh

Said child proceeded to steal my notebook and pen; and put a duvet over her dad’s laptop

Screenshot of a timer paused at 7 minutes 8 seconds

Two weeks later I found space to do start the second exercise in module 1, a ten minute free writing one.

I managed 2 minutes and 52 seconds before a child came and sat on me.

I’ve been doing a short course about picture book writing. One of the first things the tutor said in the first class was that she’d strongly advise carving out 4-5 hours a week to do the course and ‘nourish myself creatively’.

“We can’t let the kids look at screens all day” I type in a message to my husband as we both Homer Simpson backwards into another room to look at screens all day

Anyone on here know the secret extra verse of the Skye Boat Song about the mermaid? I have it on good authority from a 3 year old mermaid correspondent that it definitely exists and I’ve got the distinct impression there’s going to be trouble if I don’t learn it

a man in a tuxedo is holding a piece of paper in front of a woman in a dress . Alt: Woman moves her head from side to side looking utterly confused as various equations pop up in front of her

On the Edinburgh Leisure website trying to find information like

New Sparks! New Skunk Anansie! New Garbage! New Self Esteem! What a time for music! Except I have a 6 year old and will be listening to Steve’s Lava Chicken and (for reasons we’ve yet to uncover) Flower of Scotland on a loop for the next three years

YouTube video by Eleanor Morton Literally every company now

Duolingo right now:

youtube.com/shorts/hL9pl...

The whole 'Grok is a boer now' thing is very funny, but it also really exposes how every 'AI tool' isn't just passively biased from training data, but actively designed to shape your worldview according to the interests of the billionaires who made them.

Cartoon ginger cat with big beseeching eyes.

In the days of lovely Twitter I often put out a call for help with research in writing my books. So here goes, Bluskiers.

I'm looking for a social worker (adoption/fostering preferably) and a probation officer who worked between 2008 and 2012, the more senior the better.

Please share :)

Re getting to the stage of managing gentle movement as others rec, I find deep heat patches can help relieve it enough to do the back pain stretches on the NHS website..

Hollow chocolate egg with the top bitten off, if you look very closely you can see the tiny marks of mouse teeth

Related - mouse ate my Easter Egg the other day

Act 1: cat fails to catch mouse in the house this afternoon

Act 2: cat goes off out and finds a smaller, presumably slower mouse to bring in

Act 3: youngest child emotionally devastated by dad suggesting they not sit and watch the cat munch the new mouse

Child’s drawing of a person. They have done an oval-ish shape for the head, two lines for legs, dot eyes and a spiky blue and green Mohawk situation for the hair.

“Mum that’s you and in it you are a silly billy”

Boxes of fruit under a sign that reads ‘mangoes’ - there are melons, papayas, coconuts, pomegranates and kiwi fruit but not a single mango

Broken Britain

Me: I shall get up at 6 and do a yoga with Jessamyn video before everyone else gets up, let’s get ahead of that lower back pain woo yeah alright

My children: 5.30 call for a 2 hour Peppa Pig compilation vid? Got it, thx mum

Label on a basket in a branch of B&M that reads “Tough Starfish Summer”

You’ve heard of hot girl summer, now get ready for

Published Doesn’t Mean Paid. I want to talk about money. (Ugh, I know. How crass.) Specifically, how much money authors make, or more accurately, don’t. I signed my publishing deal in 2023. My advance was £2,500. That’s it. I w...

Publishing looks glossy from the outside. Inside? It’s built on unpaid labour.

My first book is out this year.
Here’s what I actually got paid, what my contract says, & why most authors can’t afford to do this twice.

kristie-de-garis.ghost.io/published-do...

#Publishing #Books #Author #Writer