Was talking to a friend I haven't seen for ages earlier this week who is a Doctor Who fan and we got to talking about some other shows. He mentioned Carnivale to me to which I replied it was one of those shows I had always meant to watch but had never gotten around to.
He said: "Dude - you have to watch it. It's the sort of show that you should have written!" That's the second time in my life somebody has said that to me about it. What else was there to do but get in the car and go track it down. I haven't started watching it yet because if it's everything I think it will be, I'll be hooked and I have way to much to do this weekend. Apparently they canned the show after just two seasons of the planned six, so I guess there'll be lots of unanswered questions come the end of the run. Still - I'm up for the journey. Screw the destination. Lost got to the end and that was disappointing. Maybe some things are better left mid-season after all...
Also picked up volume two of Locke & Key while I was at it. Still not rating Joe Hill as an author despite his heritage but he's a damn fine graphic novelist.
Back at the kitchen table, I'm just finishing off The Ballad of the Goat Faced Boy. Once I'm done with my part of it, I think Mark is going to need a fair old whack of time to finish up his parts, but that's cool. No rush and it looks great. It's kind of shaping up to be like Dr Seuss on bad drugs. I'll start posting some extracts shortly - we have a few pages rolling already.
Next totally exciting project is a 'proper' book called The Black Wood. I've been toying with this one for a while now and my buddy Henrik Gallon has come on board to make it a joint project which is always cooler than working on something by yourself. Right now we're thrashing out the finer points of time-scales and plot lines but it's coming together just fine. I've got an initial sketch of one of the characters from Henrik - I'll see what he thinks about posting it here this weekend. I think the book might be quite some time in the making but that's OK. We're going to be doing this one 'properly'...
At which point, I actually sat down this morning and said to myself "how many projects!" and counted them up. They are legion. Some are very close to completion so that's my first priority while I get the others started off but I've made a promise to myself that I won't start any others until the end of the year now. That's not to say I won't start filling notebooks with dozens of ideas that will never hit the ground but some will - they always do. The rest of 2011 looks something like this:
Tattoo Bible II, Black Dye White Noise, The Language of Thieves & Vagabonds, Tattoo Vixens II, Junk Machine... and then I have changed my mind about the release dates of the rest, but if I can get through that lot by the end of the Summer, I'll be good shape for the Autumn season.
I'm also toying with something a little drastic. Getting old now and my knees are shot away but I'm quite missing ju-jitsu. I've been invited to enter into a competition in July by my club and I'm seriously tempted to go for it despite not having been training for well over a year (might even be getting on for two). I'm also tempted to enquire about getting involved with Lucha Britannia in some form but that's a whole other story that I'll reveal in the next few weeks. Either way, I need to lose about 20 pounds over the next couple of months and start looking ten years younger instead of ten years older.
Far too much danish pastry eating going on whilst writing at the moment.
