Places I'd Like To Sit And Write One Day:

This looks like a great place to squirrel myself away for a week (at least). Known to the world as to Eltz Castle (with Eltz Forest shrouded in mist in the background). It's something like 800 years old and has been owned and maintained by the same family since day one. It doesn't appear to take overnight reservations so maybe this is as close as I'm likely to get to writing here. Still - the sentiment is there.

This photo was taken by one of my favourite landscape photographers, Hannes Becker. Go see what he does.

Anyway, I had all kinds of things lined up for posting here this week and then somehow, I got to today, Thursday, without posting a damn thing mostly because I've been writing - a lot - and got caught up in a world that isn't this one. Well, it is this one, but it's looked at through different eyes...

I picked The Sick Bag Song (Nick Cave) up at some point along the way this week and it's a beautiful beast...

If you're a fan of Mr Cave, you'll already have dug into this, but if not, there's more than enough here to fall in love with. Here's a video sampler from the man himself:

The book even has a website of its own that you can find right here and order yourself one of the clamshell versions. Why you wan't the paperback when you could have that, I have no idea. If you like that video, there's another four posted on that site.

And that ladies and gentlemen, is how to work a book release properly.

Note to self: remember you said that.

There was a time not so long ago when I decided not to contribute any further pieces to any purely online 'magazines', Sometimes you have to take a stand and if your stand was wrong, then at least you stood. All of which meant I needed to start scouting out great hard copy magazines to see if they would like to play. I'm building quite a stash here as the weeks go by - some of them are great and if lit mags are your kind of thing, you should get your hands dirty with them.

Popshot Magazine is one of the great ones. They have a great ethos and their production values are up near the roof. Editorially, they're bang on the nose too. There's not an issue that's dropped through the box (I'm a subscriber) that I've been disappointed with or not found a writer that could be a contender out in the real world. They also use illustrators to give it extra props and in 2016, the outlets for great illustrators to work within a context are few and far between. Bonus.

They don't pay for your work - which is something that would set them apart nicely if they could figure it out. Even £10 by way of some kind of thanks would be fine. A packet of cigarettes to assist with the creation of your next story would be more than welcome to most - and if it breaks the bank to do that, then make the issue £7 instead of £6 to cover it. I wouldn't throw all my toys out of the window over that.

I'll try and keep up with the good ones here. There are a couple more on the shelf behind me that are worth mentioning but I won't fire all of the guns at once. There's a whole world out there happening under your nose if you choose to look - and even after all these years, it still makes a difference on paper as opposed to a screen.

Fact. Whether you like it or not.

More tomorrow... back to the pen. I have important shit to take care of.

I was looking up at the sky yesterday evening and it occurred to me that everything that's ever happened on this planet has happened beneath that sky - and with the exception of a few things that have caused humans to clash with each other on a grand scale, you'll never know about any of it. The more I thought about this, the more I considered exactly how much we don't know about it. History has been, gone and remained largely uncatalogued because millions of people didn't die. That's all we've left behind? A legacy of death? I guess we could throw in sporadic moments of inspired engineering, painting and adventuring but you could more or less stuff all of that in a single large volume if you tried hard enough. That's pretty sad don't you think?

And right at that moment, I really wanted to write a spiritual book. I've read enough of them in my time to know what makes a great one. From Coelho to Castaneda to books by people that don't even have names - there's some great material out there. But there's also a lot of wisdom that slips through the cracks because it doesn't come from a 'good enough' source. Take this quote for instance, which is from Michael Connolly's detective, Harry Bosch:

"Either everybody counts or nobody counts"

Maybe I'll work on the idea. Then again, as Denis Leary pointed out: "Fuck it, it was like this when I found it."

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Comic book project approaching completion here... this week I've wrapped up five more interviews with some great people, including one that has come barreling straight out of my teenage days which has been pretty cool to be honest. I'm really appreciative of exactly how much time some of these guys have handed over to me but I'll save the thanks column for somewhere a little more permanent than here.

Anyway - I can see the end from here - of the written part anyway. A couple more things to wrap up and then I'll need to switch to production mode on the design front. This one is going to be very much an all hands on deck (all four of them) if we're going to get it finished in time. Funny how much I still like that 'making' part of the process - I hope it never leaves. It's like having a hand in laying the foundations of a house you're having built.

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A while back, Penguin released some classic books with the covers redesigned by tattoo artists and now they have done the same again with street artists. Here's a couple from the run that I thought stood head and shoulders above the others - which can all be seen here.

Maybe I'm biased, but these two are also the best written amongst the collection. I really like the cover art for What A Carve Up too, but I haven't read that - so will simply have to judge the book by its cover and say it looks great. Will add to list.

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Back to work... accompanied today by Mick Ronson. Good choice Sir...