Jeez - writing is hard work sometimes. I'm currently going through the literary equivalent of standing in a tumbleweed shower. It's gone very quiet in my head, all the good ideas are counting to one hundred and hiding behind the bad ones. I've taken an official day off from work today to get my shit together but it stillisn't happening. In fact, it's not happening so much that I'm tempted to get on with some magazine work just to be writing something... anything at all. I've actually got some cool things on the table at the moment - most notably, I'm working on an interview/feature with Chet Zar which means we get to talk about things like Clive Barker, del Toro and MAD magazine which is a big one in the win column in my book.
Let's see if I can work through what's going on in public and clear my head a little - who knows, it might even provide some entertainment. Later this week, I've got an interview scheduled in on Thursday with Laura Checkoway, the director of a documentary about a woman struggling to survive on the streets of New York City under less than glamorous circumstances - that should be fun to sink the teeth into. The movie is called Lucky and you can check out the trailer here and if it shakes your tree until fruit falls to the ground, you can book tickets for the screening right here. Being as I'll be in London, I'm going to book in another session for some laser removal of an old tattoo that's in the way of progress. If you find yourself in a similar situation, I can whole-heartedly recommend my buddy Wayne at The Circle who knows exactly what the hell he's doing.
Also on the table this week is a spin-off project going on in the shape of podcasting. While I've got the equipment set-up, I figured I may as well do a few of them at the same time, so one will be for the Great British Tattoo Show that we're hosting at Alexandra Palace at the back-end of May and the other will be for my book Raised On Radio which could quite possibly come out around the same time. Both of these are for broadcasting at Liverpool's Sound City which means with an FM broadcast, copyright royalties are someone else's problem and I can play some fine and relevant stuff. Looking at the notes I've written up for this, they will be very, very different. Here's what Raised On Radio looks like:
See how Raised on Radio exists in the real world - as a working proof copy anyway.
Talking of podcasts - I believe that my buddy Wayne Simmons has posted up the episode where we talk about the mechanics of writing in the lobby of some deadbeat hotel in Cardiff. It is only polite for me to point you here first but you can also download it directly from here. Much Dairy Milk and Pepsi was consumed. You know where you are with things that come in wrappers and sealed lids.
Finally - if you're out in the streets and find this on the shelves - you should pick it up. It's damn fine even if you're not a tattooed freak on a leash:
Having written all of that, I feel like a writer again instead of somebody standing in the kitchen making coffee. Time to press on. Winter Is Coming.