Paul Hawkins : A Writing Day

03.30 - wake, try to get back to sleep, doze with the radio on. insomnia is a thing.

04.30 - get up, make coffee, drink coffee, go back to bed, mentally start making lists of things to be done

06.30 - wake and get up, make coffee and tea for Sarer

07.00 - unload dishwasher, rouse the three stepsons, well, those who haven’t woken yet, or made noises to suggest they’re awake.

08.00 - Drop boys at school, return home for breakfast and more coffee. Make sandwich for lunch.

08.45 - Head out, walk to the bus stop, wait for the number 70, travel into town and walk from the town centre to Spike Island. Go upstairs into Associates Space and empty rucksack of laptops and their chargers, a portable hard drive, my diary, my phone, phone charger, vape, vape charger. Plug-in everything. Think about plans for a new text/art project, and when to begin work on it.

09.30 - switch on new-ish laptop, check emails. Reply to Catherine Vidler re: her book we’re publishing via Hesterglock Press thru our Prote(s)xt imprint, reply to James Knight regarding the same issues re: typesetting etc his book, Void Voices we’re publishing.

10.00 - buy coffee in Spike Island cafe, peer into gallery space at Bristol-based artist Harriet Bowman's exhibition 'All Round-er (sad sale)’. Remind myself to plan a new text/art project, and to begin work on it. Having recently stopped smoking hand-rolled cigarretes, I sit outside in the sun, vaping.

10.15 - Contact Ellie (eldest daughter) about meeting later this week.

10.18 - Fire up the old MacBook which has Photoshop installed on it. Figure out how to re-size 78 visual poems of Catherine’s from lo-res png’s to hi-res jpg’s for publishing.

10.40 - Find a way to re-size the poems. Re-size them, and then rename in separate folder. Upload images to Blurb software, and begin laying out the images (having to refer to original png’s for the correct order). Remind myself to plan a new text/art project, and to begin work on it. Typeset pages for Catherine’s book. Wonder when I’ll start writing / working on my own work. Research and then download pdf’s of media interviews with Donald Trump and Subcomandante Marcos.

12.47 - Save Catherine’s book. Re-hydrate. Eat my home-made sandwich (hummus), an apple and drink plenty of water. Look in awe at a huge book on the work of US artist Nancy Spero, from the well-stocked reference library in the Associates work space.

13.15 - Check emails. Read and delete various emails relating to other poets readings and new books. Send proofs to Catherine. On old Macbook, re-design/re-size Catherine’s book cover, as Blurb seem to be the best print-on-demand service for her book. This take a while.  Upload covers and send proof to Catherine. Check James’s cover (having moved this from Createspace to Lulu for printing) - it needs re-sizing/re-designing so I get on with this. Make a mental note to email poet & compadre Miggy Angel over at Burning House Press to find out which month he’d pencilled me in to be guest-editor.

14.30 - Do some updates on the website re: Hesterglock Press, Prote(s)xt imprint books.

14.57 - Text Sarer to remind her I’m meeting James Knight at 16.00 today. Think about what/how to read/perform in London with fellow Dostoyevsky Wannabe authors on 27th.

15.05 - Go through my own archives of text art / Poem Brut

15.50 - Go downstairs to cafe. Drink water. While waiting for James, I carry on reading Shane Jesse Christmass’s Police Force as a Corrupt Breeze (Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2016).

16.04 - James arrives, buys us both coffee. We chat about Shane’s books (James is a big fan), and chat about this and that . . . it’s the first time we’ve met face-to-face. We look at proofs. We agree on some things; as Hesterglock don’t have a corporate marketing strategy to comply with we decide to bring forward to publication date of Void Voices to October 15th, and maybe a reading in London around that time.

16.30 - We say goodbye’s. I pack my rucksack, and walk back along the docks to catch the 70 bus home.

17.35 - Arrive home. Make early dinner for everybody (Sarer teaches martial arts 3 evenings a week and needs to prepare). Eat dinner.

18.30 - Sarer leaves for work. Tidy kitchen, load dishwasher etc etc.

19.00 - Make adjustments to James’s manuscript, get email from compadre-poet Miggy Angel and so start to think about themes for guest-editing Burning House Press for the month of November. Confirm with Andrew Wells a joint Haverthorn Press / Hesterglock Press reading event with Haverthorn Press in October. Contact recently published poets Katy Wareham Morris, Matti Spence and James K. to check their availability for reading at the event. Haverthorn Press have a new book out by David Spittle called B O X, so we’ll do a double book launch for David & James.

20.00 - Update website(s), do some Twitter/Instagram stuff.

21.00 - Continue reading Miggy’s new book, Extreme Violets (Hi-Vis Press).

22.00 - Bed.

Paul Hawkins is a poet & text artist, sometimes known as Bob Modem &/or haul pawkins. He has had a number of books published, most recently Lou Ham: Racing Anthropocene Statements (Dostoevsky Wannabe 2018). Paul co-runs Hesterglock Press (including the Prote(s)xt imprint) with partner-in-crime Sarer Scotthorne, publishing mainly innovative/experimental poetry & Poem Brut. More details at www.hesterglock.net