What better way to start the day than seeing a copy of your book 'on holiday' - in this case, The Day The Sky Fell Down chilling out on the rocks in Lanzarote. Major league thanks to Roy Cole (for it is he) for shipping this in.
You don't get that with a wedge of plastic whether it has an anti-glare screen and e-ink or not. I love seeing the things that fall out of my head onto paper actually being read and running free in the wild where they belong. Trying to stop a story once it's out there will only give you rope burns.
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Today also brings the day brightening news that Clive Barker is finally set to release The Scarlet Gospels - for some of us, this has been a close on twenty year wait and to be honest, I'd banished all thought of it ever actually appearing to the back of the cupboard. On Barker's site, the release date is given as 19th May which is good enough for me with a limited edition variant also available through Earthling - though if you happen to drift off to that page, the book hasn't got a page redirect yet. It will come.
I haven't been this excited by a book from somebody else for years. It looks like this:
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Talking of things that other people are up to, Foxcatcher and Birdman (two separate films if you haven't been paying attention to the world revolving - it's not a weird superhero movie, though I would pay to see it if it was) both look like they're more than worth getting out for.
Here's the trailer for Foxcatcher:
and here's Birdman:
As for me... work continues to finish up Raised On Radio, work has begun on Almost Human - which is the next collection of Dirty Realism, I have four more chapters to go before The Family Of Noise is complete (you'd think four chapters would be easy to kill off wouldn't you), and aside from some scrappy bits and pieces lying around vying for my attention, as I was pushing Turn The Lamp Down Low into a shape it wanted to be in, a story that wants to be called Dragonfly turned up in my head. Great. Just when you thought you had a handle on things, something else turns up with legs attached.
Dear Mr Barker: I see now how quickly a good idea for a book can turn into twenty years of trying to figure out where something would like to go.
Dear Readers: I will try my very best not to take that long over it. What you should do while you're waiting is read this neat little feature on Lee Child as some guy from The Independent shadows him as he starts work on his next Jack Reacher novel. It will only take a couple of minutes so maybe you could find something else to do as well, like start a secret project that will help save the world in its own little way...
Le Fin.