A brief catch-up on myself as some of this will lose its momentum time-wise if I don't post it. My horror tattoos book continues its journey across the globe this week with copies shipped out to places with oceans between here and there. Some individual copies have arrived already - this one for instance with the mighty Brian Ewing:
I did have that moment that everybody has once a project is finished in which I wondered if it was as good as I thought it was - or even as good as I wanted it to be - but it looks like I hit all the right buttons. It officially launches tomorrow but I see a few have already made it to the shelves. I heard a story earlier this week in which one of the stores put them out because they had been delivered and they sold them all on the same day. Pinch of salt but even if it's close to the truth, I'll put that as a tick in the win column.
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Meanwhile, work continues on "The Book". So much work in fact that I now know that it won't be called A Murder Of One. She is telling me that she wants to be known as something very different now. I'll see how that pans out over the next few days.
In an attempt to make life not all about work when the kids aren't around, Eleanor and self have been looking into adopting some donkeys. One would have been fine but apparently they come in pairs. First of all, you need a field, which we haven't got - but her folks have. A big field at that. Not only is it a great grassy expanse of field but after the fire of a few years back, since the rebuild, there's now also some handy stable type buildings. Actually, not so much 'stable type', it is a bloody stable. Built by a stable company who specialise in stables. You would have thought a suitable place to keep them would be the worst of your worries but there's a spanner in the works.
Seems that her folks aren't so keen on having a couple of donkeys hanging around the house. I don't think I'd be able to say no personally but all is not lost. I'm pretty sure that with enough pestering, they'll cave in eventually. How can anybody resist looking out of the kitchen window and seeing these guys:
Lots of work behind the scenes going on here, but having interviewed Andrew Kaufman yesterday... no, it was the day before wasn't it... I am avoiding the task I like least in life. Transcribing the damn thing - and that's nothing to do with anybody that I've spoken to, I find it a total chore no matter how much I enjoyed doing the actual piece. Couple that with the odd grimace at how often I like to interrupt people to lead them down roads I want to go down and you have yourself a mexican stand-off. Still, got to be done, so I might as well make a start. Maybe I've got better since I realised I did this (interrupting) but I doubt it. Just keep telling yourself, it's the destination that matters and not how erratically you drove to get there.
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One of the only blogs I check in on every single day as I've said before is Gaiman. This is mostly because he's both entertaining and posts almost everyday. I kind of like that in a writer. He's writing regardless of what it is. Today somebody asked him about how he dealt with time frames and being under pressure to write when he maybe thought he didn't 'have time' - this is how the enquirer saw their own lot as somebody who wanted to write a story but was finding it hard. Today, he gave the best answer of his online career and it went like this:
"Nobody else is going to do it for me, and if I don’t write it it won’t get written. I’ve got 12 short stories to write over the next 3 days, I have to make it home 1200 miles despite a record blizzard hitting my destination, and I’m probably going to have to do quite a bit of writing sitting in airports waiting for delayed flights. I’ll probably do it because I don’t have any other choices. Like I say, no-one else is going to do it for me."
And that, is the word on the street.
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<MUSICAL INTERLUDE>
This, is simply beautiful:
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Those who visit often (or even those who don't but scroll around a lot) will know that I'm an art lover. This week, one of my favourites out there, Brian Ewing, posted some great new monster material at his store and some of it looks like this:
...and I think you should invest heavily. Also on my travels (am in the middle of a project which has lots to do with monsters at the moment), I came across the Deviant Moon tarot. I stopped buying tarot decks once I had Dave McKean's Vertigo deck but this one matches - and may even surpass it. Here's some of the insanely cool images from the deck:
You're right. Got my name written all over them huh.
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I wonder of I can twelve short stories in three days.
I've been following the guys at the Mondo Gallery for a while now. Along with my buddy Brian Ewing, I am smitten by the art they produce and may have to work an awful lot harder at getting more of it on the walls here. I wasn't paying attention when these Universal Studio prints went up for sale, so at a vastly inferior level, assuming they are all sold out (but I will check in a second), here I am hanging them on my blog:
First thing I'm going to do when I am in a position to actually have an office is flood the place with art like this. I find it totally inspiring and I think the reason behind that is that I can't draw to save my life. I have no desire to even try - thus, it remains something that I enjoy rather than have a desire to replicate.
On a similar note, it was Rhiannon's first parents evening earlier. I sat down with her art teacher and was blown away by what they're up to there. They're really teaching some great skills and with the wind behind us, so it will continue. I'm kinda hoping that by being honest about art, she'll rise to it and see that there is a solid future in it. It might be hard work, but hey - what isn't! She thinks she might want to be a vet, but I can see otherwise...
For those of you doing the Pinterest thing, you can drop in on my Cool Shit For Its Own Sake pin-board by clicking that very link.
