charles barrow's writing

...on shifting sand Photo is the author's own

Is it possible to get Editor's block, as opposed to Writer's block? An anxiety about taking words off of the page as opposed to putting them on? If so then I am suffering from it at the moment. I know what needs to be done (I'm sure I do), I know what needs smoothing out (or think I do), what needs close attention (or maybe not), and slimming down (or leaving well alone).

Went to an Orlando vigil last night. Forty-nine names were read out. Forty-nine. I was enraged and heart broken and attending a vigil scarcely seemed like an adequate response but I wanted to do something, I wanted to stand in solidarity. And maybe thoughts and prayers can cross oceans to reach those who lost a loved one.

I've been reading a lot of American novels recently, or America-set novels is probably more accurate. So I've been tuned in to an American sensibility, and partly daydreaming in one (although not even in my worst dreams do I get any understanding of the Trump fiasco).  What all this inspiration has done is, simultaneously, make me long to visit the States again at some future date, and cast my mind back to a New York trip I made in 1989/90. I visited over New Year and so spent the very last few days of the Eighties and the very first few of the Ninties there. I ticked all the tourist boxes; Empire State, World Trade Centre, Statue of Liberty, Central Park, Broadway, the Guggenheim, Christopher Street, Tribeca, I stayed in Brooklyn, I rode the subway, smoked Marlboro, tipped the coat check, watched cockroaches in the appartment, ate Chinese take away (or was it take out?) from white folding top cartons, and I watched the Big Apple come down at the stroke of New Year in a very