This week I feel like the Grand Old Duke of York - always marching up and down and never time to stop in the middle!

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It's not just the fact that there's always something I should be doing - scrubbing the kitchen floor, getting on with my writers' bureau course and assignments, catching up on emails, calling my parents, brain training, shopping, speaking to my sister in the US, getting my son's clothes sorted for school...the list is, of course, endless. It is also on the emotional front.

I had an appointment at the hospital on Tuesday to sort my wisdom teeth. The two I have left are to be taken out. Obviously, this is better than to keep on suffering with bacterial infections. But the propsect of a forthcoming extraction is still very, very, nightmarishly daunting. I can have a local, which is good news, as I've never had a general and am scared stiff it might make me epileptic (because of what happened to a friend of mine). On the other hand though, I have fairly low blood pressure and last time I had my other two wisdom teeth out, I almost fainted in the dentist's chair...

It was initially uplifting to find out today that my poem Shrine had been highly commended in this year's writelink Battle of the Bards and also to read the judge's lovely comments about it. But on the other hand, it was disappointing not to quite make it into the top three. A miss is, as they say, as good as a mile!

I also keep wondering about my ending to the poem as I had two versions and wasn't quite sure which one to go with. My mind, which likes to torture me, keeps whispering that maybe I should have gone with my first version and then I might have done better. Of course, common sense says, "Yes, but you could have done worse!" However, I still can't shake that question mark!

I was reading on the Guardian online that more people dream about becoming an author than any other job. Okay, so I am one of those people. But I can't help wondering what the attraction is, even for me. I seem to spend so much of my time as a writer in limboland, waiting. I still haven't heard back about my latest submissions to Mslexia on the theme of mirrors, the Guardian's poetry workshop on drama or this month's writelink poetry resources submission, and I know that in these cases not having heard by now is not a good sign!

Still it has been a good week on the reading front. I have been re-enjoying Jennifer Copley's beautiful collection The Feather Tree which won second prize in the poetry collection section of last year's the new writer annual awards. I also found a great poem by Margaret Atwood called Heart at the Guardian online.

On top of this, I finally found time yesterday to sit down and read Magdalena Ball's Sleep before Evening, which I won as a runner up in the writelink wet, wet, wet flash fiction contest. I have to say that I was really worried I might not like it. The novel having been written by not only a fellow writelinker but someone who had judged my own writing so highly, I was concerned about what would I say if I disliked it but was asked what I thought? Of course, as it turns out, I needn't have fussed, as the novel is fantastic.

As a general rule, I tend to read novels in one of two ways. If I don't like it, I stop after about 30 minutes and don't touch it again. If I like it, I can't stop until I've finished. Sleep Before Evening definitely fell into the latter category for me. So what more can I say about it? Well, it is a moving, gripping and gritty story of many different kinds of love, loss and addiction. The sordid world of heroin addiction is set against a background of chess, poetry, music and art to create a strong storyline. But the use of language and imagery in this novel are also stunning.

Despite the other distractions, I have also managed to get a little new work done this week. Ideas which have spilling around in my brain since our visit to Chester Zoo finally crystallized into a poem, with the help of my blog pictures of the lion. I'm particularly pleased with this as I feel I have been a little more adventurous than usual with it. Of course, only time will tell if I'll still feel the same in a few weeks or months time!

In the meantime, here's a little poetic silliness in the form of a few more of my entries from the writelink cinquain game:

Re: Leaf
fall. Last year's show
was golden, but I fear
this autumn's shed may place us in
the red.