Welcome to justthoughtsnstuff

I started posting to jtns on 20 February 2010 with just one word, 'Mosaic'. This seemed an appropriate introduction to a blog that would juxtapose fragments of memoir and life-writing. Since 1996, I'd been coming to terms with the consequences of emotional and economic abuse that had begun in childhood, and which, amongst other things, had sought to stifle self-expression. While I'd explored some aspects of my life through fiction and, to a lesser extent, journalism, it was only in 2010 that I felt confident enough to write openly about myself. I believed this was an important part of the healing process. Yet within weeks, the final scenes of my family's fifty-year nightmare started to play themselves out and the purpose of the blog became one of survival through writing. Although some posts are about my family's suffering - most explicitly, Life-Writing Talk, with Reference to Trust: A family story - the majority are about happier subjects (including, Bampton in rural west Oxfordshire, where I live, Oxford, where I work, the seasons and the countryside, walking and cycling) and I hope that these, together with their accompanying photos, are enjoyable and positive. Note: In February 2020, on jtns' tenth birthday, I stopped posting to this blog. It is now a contained work of life-writing about ten years of my life. Frank, 21 February 2020.

New blog: morethoughtsnstuff.com.

Sunday 13 April 2014

canal-side blacksmith, william morris, allotment drying out, novella, a conscious englishman




















Saw this wonderful canal-side blacksmith when I was walking during my lunch break on Friday afternoon and thinking through something. The blacksmith was moored opposite Jericho, just up from St Barnabas church (see photo of 22nd February 2014).

I liked the William Morris quotation - as indicated in several jtns posts, Morris is a hero of mine (see posts on 21st April and 22nd April 2010, for example).

Beautiful sunshine for much of this week, though a cold wind remains, just waiting for a cloud to hide the sun so it can lower the temperature. But it has to be said that both sun and wind are playing their part in drying out the allotment and making forking through easier by the day.

I've been working on the novella and the corrected reprint of Margaret Keeping's A Conscious Englishman.

Yesterday, on the bus into work, I finished the major rewrite of the novella's first chapter. This used to be about 4,500 words but is now 3,200 and is itself divided into four chapters. The novella's working title is Icarus.

The text of A Conscious Englishman is almost finished and it and the updated cover - designed by Andrew Chapman - will soon be off to the printers.
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