I like this picture. I don't usually like pictures of myself at all but this one is kinda neat because I don't take up too much space in it. If you're wondering what's going on here, me and Hector are on a research trip for a 'future project'. That's all you need to know for at least a year...

Proof number one of The Family of Noise arrived this morning, so that's the rest of the week pretty much figured out on the writing front. I've sat with it for an hour already with The Unholy Stick (aka: a red pen) to put a few things right and it's looking good. Looking sharp even.

Even the greatest copy editor in the universe cannot concentrate on such a thing for 24 hours a day - not would I want to. Lucky then that in the gaps, I need to work on both the softback and the hardback covers. The softback is more or less wrapped up bar a few nudges but I'm still not sure where to take the hardback cover - if anywhere. There's a part of me that would like to make it different but that might be the part of me that just likes to make things awkward for myself. Why would you want to confuse a product by making it look like two different things...

I probably answered my own question there didn't I.

Anyway, I'm excited that we have come to this point. It will be good to get it out there. Onwards!

Meanwhile, I have two magazines on the table along with a 'moving along' copy of Almost Human - which keeps staring up at me from the corner of the room. To escape, I have unwittingly submerged myself in a TV show. I didn't mean to get quite so consumed by it, but it is after all, excellent, so that's OK.

It's not Super Essential like say, GoT but it's more than good enough to keep me company into the night. Welcome to SALEM. And they sure do have a good line in promotional posters:

I say it's not Super Essential but I appear to be barrelling through it at quite a rate so maybe it's more essential than I thought...

...and so, back to work.

April 1st will see the release of my second collection of short stories. It goes by the title of Almost Human and will be available as a 300-ish page softback (6" x 9" - all of them with writing on) and also for whatever digital device you may possess.

I am officially stoked. Here's what it looks like:

There's some sharp edges to take off it at the moment, a running order to decide on (because things like that are important) along with a sackful of boring stuff you don't want to hear about but it's coming together just fine and I'm really happy with it.

Really freaking happy.

Most of it was written at home or in close vicinity, but some crept up on me in the U.S. and Italy which if nothing else, makes me feel like a writer who is doing exactly what he set out to do - which is to wander around the planet and make things up.

Or not make things up as the case may be.

For those of you who picked up The Day The Sky Fell Down, it's kind of similar but I'd be doing something wrong if I didn't think I was improving on what had gone before so you'll also find it, stylistically speaking, a little different. If you were too busy washing your hair to grab a copy of that, there will likely be a bundle available that contains both books but more details on all of that later.