Making room

So it turns out that it's really difficult to do everything in life. Who knew?! Shake the Dust, full time job, sleeping, cooking, growing veg, watching Game of Thrones/Grey's Anatomy/Dexter/Holby City/Casualty/Homeland, playing with rats and reading the Guardian seems to be taking up all of my time, leaving notmuchroom for writing. This needs rectifying, obviously.

I am considering taking part in NaPoWriMo to kick start the creative habit again. Doing a creative post every day for a year was a wonderful thing to get the juices flowing, but it was a huge undertaking that I wouldn't recreate lightly, so a month seems a good place to start. I am having wonderings about posting online, though. Many more places specify that poems sent for consideration in competitions/publications shouldn't be freely available on websites, and although anything I post in these furious periods of creation are in a very rough, unedited state, my revisions don't often amount to a complete rehashing of a poem beyond recognition. But really, if you're doing a poem a day for a month, there should be some public declaration or proof that you have completed this task, even if no-one reads it. Or should there? I'll have a think and let you know.

They've arrived!

Comma getting a scritch

It's been a long wait (since Christmas, and the wonderful gift of a rat-mansion from the OH) but Comma and Em-dash are now here. The pale one (officially buff) is Comma, and she's already a snuggler who has a tendency towards funny-five-minutes's, and Em-dash is the darker one (officially agouti). She is the adventurer, and always likes to know what's going on.

They are brilliant, and all of my thanks and delight is aimed in the direction of Lloyd at Eximius Rats for breeding and raising such terrific little girlie rats.

Em-dash having a look

Just a note on the names: I've always wanted to call some animals after punctuation, as it's such a prevalent and useful thing in my life as a poet and wordsmith, and by strange coincidence the litter that these lovely ones are from was nicknamed 'The Brackets', after mum Katy and dad Bracken. It was meant to be!

If you're interested in rats and you'd like to see my ratty Pinterest board, then go ahead and take a look. I will warn you, though. I love double rex and hairless rats too... so they're not always the prettiest cutest looking creatures. Also, it's quite hard to find a lot of positive rat imagery. People seem to hate them. Even with faces like these!