Before I get into this week’s newsletter, a quick reminder that only one full day remains for you to grab a free subscription to my speculative serial INGRESSION, which opens The Consilience Series. On 18th October every subscriber to date will be upgraded to a complementary subscription for the remainder of the series - that’s a further 88 chapters!
If you’re reading this and thinking ‘I already subscribed!’ then a big thank you, it’s very much appreciated. But if you’re also asking: ‘So where are my twice-weekly chapters you promised, Mr Reid?’, it might be you’ve accidentally subscribed to this, my general
For all my other valued readers: remember, only one more day to bag all 100 chapters, plus a bunch of bonus material, without any need for cash or long-term commitment.
Awards & Recognition for INGRESSION
Onto the newsletter:
It’s been almost three months since I last wrote a poem. Stark statistics tell me they’re the least popular form of writing I offer to you, but the drive to write them nevertheless remained strong. Until it didn’t – and I still don’t know why.
I find it difficult to explain where my urge to write comes from. So it’s even harder to analyse why such a hiatus might only affect my poetry. Since the end of July I’ve written several pieces of fictional prose, many of which have been placed in competitions or won awards. These pieces haven’t lacked imagination, even if I often derived the impetus to write them from external prompts. Or perhaps I’m more competitive than I realise…
This might be the more likely cause: poetry makes you dig deeper into your own experiences and surface them in a more direct way, rather than (re)inventing the new or drawing on them indirectly. But what if you don’t want to dig too deep? Even in this paragraph, you might have noticed I’ve subconsciously flipped the first person “I” into the second person “You” to avoid holding up a mirror to my own point of view.
Despite my hesitancy, I have written another poem, even if it is excessively abstract and deliberately obscure. It might yet again be my last one…
…until the next time.
Acronyms Past, Present & Future
Reader’s note:All the acronyms used below are genuine, but their meanings have been distorted to reflect a part of my life at one time or in one form or another. You may wish to ignore the former and read only the latter.
ITA Irritating Teaching Alphabet
ESF Education Spent Far, Far Away
SBS Some Bloody School
CoG Centre of Genius
FLK Frightful Looking Kids
AoA Angle of Attack
WGLL What Good Laughs Like
CDB Could Do Better
FOMO Fear of Moving On
TOP Termination of Possibility
DNA Did Not Attend
BOP Big Organised Parties
HOP Horrible Disorganised Parties
ACID Atomic, Consistent, Isolated, Durable
PRN When Required
SCBU Someone Cares Breakdown Unit
BDS Twice A Day
PR Polite Refusal
CPR Concise, Precise, Relevant
HVLC High Volume, Low Complexity
MBBS May Be Bull Shit
NAD Nothing Abnormal Discovered
TTA To Take Away
DNR Do Not Resuscitate
SLD Severe Life Difficulties
EBD Emotional & Behavioural Dilution
HODL Hold On for Dear Life
DDC Dewey Decimal Consternation
OPAC Other People’s Accurate Content
URI Uninformed Righteous Idiots
PRINCE2 To Protest in Uncontrollable Environment
REST Reprehensible Sleep Trade-off
PDF Pointlessly Deceptive Fudge
NAS Never Accessed Stuff
P2P Pointless-to-Peers
XML Exciting Marketing Language
KYC Know your Customer
SLA Serious Literary Author
TBR To Be Relevant
MFA Means to Fart About
WIP Work Is Progress
DNF Do Not Finish
