How Long Is Forever?

I finally decided on a better title for the previously titled Scarecrow short story - it shall hereafter be known as Eternity Ring, which is something of a shift in suggesting what it might be about but it suits it a lot better. All will become clear. Currently running edits on it and doing layout stuff. The cover might look something like this - file under pending - I'll see how I feel after I've lived with it for a few days:

Estimated time of arrival? Mid December.

•••

Now and then, you can stumble across something so far out there and so jaw-droppingly up there on the scale of ‘thumbs up’ that you want to show/tell everybody you meet. Apologies for the incredibly bad English there but that’s how it came out.

The first port of call is this video clip that Rhiannon pimped at me after school today. She showed it to me because it was freaky but it’s so much more than that. See for yourself.

If you ever thought the world was going to hell in a sea of averageness, that should restore some of your faith. Simply wonderful.

Similarly eye stretching are these pics of frozen light-houses.

Frozen lighthouses? Not something you hear about everyday but here they are - larger than life. If I had shot these, I suspect I would spend the rest of my life wondering exactly what the hell I was going to do next that meant anything.

Nature.

No matter how far out on the edge of life you think you can get, Nature laughs in your face every second of every day. You can find more of this lighthouse magic right here.

All of which leads me to this:

Last week, I bought a book that changed the way I think about many things. It took me so far down to the bottom that I pushed everything that was in front of me to the far side of the table and considered never looking at any of it ever again because there was - quite frankly - no point in even trying.

A few days passed and that very same book took me from the place it had squashed me under a rock and raised me to the far side of the universe from where I could look down on everything and think that maybe it was way too early to be throwing in the towel. Which is a good thing because I rather think that Guillermo Del Toro would be pretty sad if he thought his book had that kind of effect on somebody.

This is the book.

It’s a monster in every way. It’s the Led Zeppelin of books. You look in at what’s going on behind the curtain and you absolutely have to say to yourself “I will never be this good” - and for a while there, I believed it in a bad way. Then I came down from the bad trip and figured, “what the hell, this is something to rise to”. That sounds wrong… what I'm trying to say is it's like you’ve been wandering around the bottom of a mountain for far too long and somebody yells down at you from the top “You wouldn’t believe what I can see from up here” - and the guy is right. You can’t believe what he can see because first you have to climb the mountain and by the time you get to the top, everything will have changed anyway.

Or something like that. It’s good to be put in your place every now and again. I could live without it happening too often though.

On the plus side, all of this is much better than looking at a bunch of stuff that’s nothing more than average and thinking it was a high enough bench-mark to set yourself.

Harsh but fair.

•••

I started compiling my 101 x 1001 list a couple of days ago. I’ve decided to publish ‘most’ of it here aside from a few personal items on it (and that’s things that I want to do with the kids mostly - I haven’t told them about it yet so I guess I might meet some resistance on that front). I was telling somebody about it and he suggested I document it all. Video what was worth videoing, record what’s worth recording, photograph what was… you get the picture.

There’s a part of me that could get excited about the prospect of doing that and another part of me that’s a bit reluctant to start heading down a path that I can’t keep rolling once it’s in motion. On one hand, I like the idea of running something up that might be similar in spirit to The Roth Show - which if you’re not keeping up with regularly, what the hell’s wrong with you? On the other hand, I’ve never been super comfortable in front of a camera - maybe it’s time I started fluffing those pillows to make it comfortable and see what happens. It’s not 1973 anymore. I don’t think being mysterious in a ‘Led Zepp/media blackout’ kind of way is going to help much when you’re trying to make a name for yourself without any outside assistance. Maybe the Diamond Dave approach is the way to go.

Who am I kidding? Without the backing of a big publishing house, of course it’s the way to go.

Big gulp.

•••

To wrap this up today, I thought I might cut all my hair off and buy a Hugo Boss suit - maybe reinvent myself for the new age. Why that would make a difference I have not a clue, but it might be fun for a little while… I think I will wait just a few more months until Hector gets tired of hanging from my trousers though.

The Global Village

It's the day after my birthday and I officially start the first day of my 2012 holidays. I took a few days in the summer but not since this time last year have I had an extended period of being able to not have to pay constant attention to the day job. I need it, Eleanor and the kids need it - even the house needs it. On one hand, it seems like a mighty long time to wait, on the other, what better time than Christmas to be able to kick back and chew things over. After dropping the kids off at school this morning, on the drive home I decided that I would change a few things - the biggest one being to spend less time online. It crossed my mind that I probably spend far too much time attached to wifi. I might even be a hotspot for others I spend so much of my time there. It strikes me that I need to rejoin the human race at least for a little while but the real reason is that I need to write more without distractions. Sure - there's tools you can use to cock-block the web while you're working on your machine but I am not to be trusted. There's iTunes to mess with and all kinds of garbage that I can be distracted by on here... I'm going to see how it pans out without kicking myself in the head if I fail. It is, at least, a plan.

Slightly related to that subject, but not really, yesterday I ran through the blog of Neil Strauss. It's good fun but somehow I found myself clicking through to a site where some dude had detailed his 'digital nomad' gear kit. A digital nomad is, apparently, somebody who works out in the world without a permanent base. This can be a traveller of the world or even somebody that works from home or a cafe etc. I fall somewhere in between these two things. If you check in here often, you'll know that I hate travelling heavy. The lighter I can travel, the better I feel about a trip, so I did the pointy clicky thing and went to see what the kit lit looked like. And here it is with an update of the older list for this year here.

And while that was all very interesting, I thought to myself that aside from my books and vinyl collection, that's actually more stuff than I own. So I thought I might make a better list - along with some thoughts. I guess if you're going on an extended trip, you might need to add some bits, but for short break - even for periods up to a month, I think my list is far superior. Here we go.

When I went to Colorado a little while back - which is something like 7000 miles and therefore classed as 'far away', here's what I had on my original list:

 

And that was pretty much it apart from the clothes I was wearing. I considered taking the iPad but what does it do that this doesn't. Sure it's a bit smaller but I've trained myself to work small for a long time now for these very reasons. Is watching episodes of Grimm going to be less enjoyable on a small screen? Nope. Hell, at one time, I used to watch movies on my iPod - the one that looks like an After Eight mint (was that the original nano?) and that's tiny. I can read a book perfectly happily on the phone too - with iBooks and the kindle app on there, I sure didn't need anything else. I pre-loaded with a few audiobooks just to make sure. Loaded a couple of thousand songs and well, that was me pretty ready to roll out of the door.

I set the phone up to sweep photos and video into dropbox when I hit wifi spots, that was pretty flawless. The camera and video utilities are more than good enough for what I use them for and anything I really needed could be pulled down from there or any of the other spaces I have online for digital storage. I have an external hard drive, but that's for disaster recovery not playing with and at no point did it ever cross my mind to take the MacBook. Those things are heavy. Before I went, I also tested out the voice memo facility for interviews - and again, flawless. What the hell is that kit list from hell about? I dropped it in my jacket pocket and I was ready to roll - and yeah, in the other pocket was the charger. I've also got one of these that negates the need for a wallet too:

Now, my plan was to go in the clothes I was wearing and buy things like socks, pants, toothpaste, shampoo - you know all that stuff that's essential - when I got there because something that a lot of people seem to forget is that... wait for it... there are stores all over the world where the people that live there shop! It's amazing. The idea then is to dump it all before you come home so you don't have to carry it back. Wasteful? Not really. Not if you shop smartly and it's not like there are no people not in need of this stuff everywhere around the world.

This great plan was thrown into turmoil however when more than one person suggested that it might look suspicious getting on a plane to the States with no luggage. I'm not sure how true this is but I ended up taking a bag. This bag from Scaramanga. I put some shirts in, some underwear, a book (but only because I was taking a damn bag) and that was about it. The good thing about a bag like that is that you don't need to check it in and therefore don't have to wait for the luggage carousel - well, technically. My travel partner James had a case, so I ended up waiting for him waiting for his case, but the theory is solid.

If you think hard about what it is you'll be doing when you get there, how you want to entertain yourself and what kind of business you need to do (if any), you too will probably find that any old smartphone will be enough. Just don't lose your phone!

As part of an ongoing purge of garbage in my life, I've also thrown out at least 30 apps from the phone that seemed like a good idea at the time. There were maybe only 40 on there anyway. I've tried every kind of 'word processor' out there on the phone and the pad from Pages right down to well, you name it, I've tried it. Nothing comes close to Evernote. Nothing. Do yourself a favour and sign up to a premium account with them. If you need to work on the road, this is all you'll ever need. Then do yourself another favour and believe that you really can write a novel using only an iPhone.

•••

..and now, I am going to find a coffee shop with no wifi. Me and my notebook have things to do. I'll leave you with Dave:

The Global Village

It's the day after my birthday and I officially start the first day of my 2012 holidays. I took a few days in the summer but not since this time last year have I had an extended period of being able to not have to pay constant attention to the day job. I need it, Eleanor and the kids need it - even the house needs it. On one hand, it seems like a mighty long time to wait, on the other, what better time than Christmas to be able to kick back and chew things over. After dropping the kids off at school this morning, on the drive home I decided that I would change a few things - the biggest one being to spend less time online. It crossed my mind that I probably spend far too much time attached to wifi. I might even be a hotspot for others I spend so much of my time there. It strikes me that I need to rejoin the human race at least for a little while but the real reason is that I need to write more without distractions. Sure - there's tools you can use to cock-block the web while you're working on your machine but I am not to be trusted. There's iTunes to mess with and all kinds of garbage that I can be distracted by on here... I'm going to see how it pans out without kicking myself in the head if I fail. It is, at least, a plan.

Slightly related to that subject, but not really, yesterday I ran through the blog of Neil Strauss. It's good fun but somehow I found myself clicking through to a site where some dude had detailed his 'digital nomad' gear kit. A digital nomad is, apparently, somebody who works out in the world without a permanent base. This can be a traveller of the world or even somebody that works from home or a cafe etc. I fall somewhere in between these two things. If you check in here often, you'll know that I hate travelling heavy. The lighter I can travel, the better I feel about a trip, so I did the pointy clicky thing and went to see what the kit lit looked like. And here it is with an update of the older list for this year here.

And while that was all very interesting, I thought to myself that aside from my books and vinyl collection, that's actually more stuff than I own. So I thought I might make a better list - along with some thoughts. I guess if you're going on an extended trip, you might need to add some bits, but for short break - even for periods up to a month, I think my list is far superior. Here we go.

When I went to Colorado a little while back - which is something like 7000 miles and therefore classed as 'far away', here's what I had on my original list:

And that was pretty much it apart from the clothes I was wearing. I considered taking the iPad but what does it do that this doesn't. Sure it's a bit smaller but I've trained myself to work small for a long time now for these very reasons. Is watching episodes of Grimm going to be less enjoyable on a small screen? Nope. Hell, at one time, I used to watch movies on my iPod - the one that looks like an After Eight mint (was that the original nano?) and that's tiny. I can read a book perfectly happily on the phone too - with iBooks and the kindle app on there, I sure didn't need anything else. I pre-loaded with a few audiobooks just to make sure. Loaded a couple of thousand songs and well, that was me pretty ready to roll out of the door.

I set the phone up to sweep photos and video into dropbox when I hit wifi spots, that was pretty flawless. The camera and video utilities are more than good enough for what I use them for and anything I really needed could be pulled down from there or any of the other spaces I have online for digital storage. I have an external hard drive, but that's for disaster recovery not playing with and at no point did it ever cross my mind to take the MacBook. Those things are heavy. Before I went, I also tested out the voice memo facility for interviews - and again, flawless. What the hell is that kit list from hell about? I dropped it in my jacket pocket and I was ready to roll - and yeah, in the other pocket was the charger. I've also got one of these that negates the need for a wallet too:

Now, my plan was to go in the clothes I was wearing and buy things like socks, pants, toothpaste, shampoo - you know all that stuff that's essential - when I got there because something that a lot of people seem to forget is that... wait for it... there are stores all over the world where the people that live there shop! It's amazing. The idea then is to dump it all before you come home so you don't have to carry it back. Wasteful? Not really. Not if you shop smartly and it's not like there are no people not in need of this stuff everywhere around the world.

This great plan was thrown into turmoil however when more than one person suggested that it might look suspicious getting on a plane to the States with no luggage. I'm not sure how true this is but I ended up taking a bag. This bag from Scaramanga. I put some shirts in, some underwear, a book (but only because I was taking a damn bag) and that was about it. The good thing about a bag like that is that you don't need to check it in and therefore don't have to wait for the luggage carousel - well, technically. My travel partner James had a case, so I ended up waiting for him waiting for his case, but the theory is solid.

If you think hard about what it is you'll be doing when you get there, how you want to entertain yourself and what kind of business you need to do (if any), you too will probably find that any old smartphone will be enough. Just don't lose your phone!

As part of an ongoing purge of garbage in my life, I've also thrown out at least 30 apps from the phone that seemed like a good idea at the time. There were maybe only 40 on there anyway. I've tried every kind of 'word processor' out there on the phone and the pad from Pages right down to well, you name it, I've tried it. Nothing comes close to Evernote. Nothing. Do yourself a favour and sign up to a premium account with them. If you need to work on the road, this is all you'll ever need. Then do yourself another favour and believe that you really can write a novel using only an iPhone.

•••

..and now, I am going to find a coffee shop with no wifi. Me and my notebook have things to do. I'll leave you with Dave:

Rock n Roll All Nite...

Two parties to organise and live through, 10,000 words and life general has conspired to leave a hole in the blogging process. I'm looking at this as a good thing because now I have something else to write about. As a writer, this is pretty fundamental. The two parties were a riot. Imagine if you will, Motley Crue at the peak of their debauchery and you'll be half way to imagining what Rhiannon's seventh birthday was like. Eight 7 year old girls didn't seem like such a big deal when I said yes originally but, as I was about to discover, it is a big deal. You have to entertain them ALL the time because once you lose control, you're sunk. I felt like Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop. The only time I had any semblance of order was when I hung the pinata up by its neck and demanded an orderly line - I'm sure they could smell blood.

It was only afterwards that I realised we had stuffed them with the kids equivalent of 10lb bags of crack cocaine (ie: Haribo, Tango etc). We'll learn... eventually... probably.

I discovered a new author (new for me anyway) this weekend which is always good for the soul. David Baldacci's Total Control. Big time thriller, espionage storylines but far from lumbering along like many of his ilk, the pace is hard and fast. Looking forward to chewing up the ten or so already on the shelf over the next few weeks. I've also started re-reading David Lee Roth's autobiog Crazy From The Heat. As you'd expect, it's pretty good fun, but it also goes a lot deeper than you might imagine. Run out and buy it now - or if you're a lazy arse, you could always click this [Crazy from the Heat] and stock up from my store.

Also decided this morning that it was about time I got this tattoo finished off. So far we have the top part, shoulder and upper arm, but have mostly avoided anything to do with the lower chest area - particularly the bit that goes around the nipple... that looks like it might smart a bit. I must be getting old. It's a bit different from this, which is from the movie Le Pacte de Loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf) because I had Martin do it freehand so it would at least be half authentically tribal. With it being so utterly black, it bled so much that we had to do it far too many sessions than we would have liked but he couldn't see what he was doing half the time. Looks good - my mum will beat me with a spoon though. The original trailer for Le Pacte des Loups is here with another neat one here but there's a cool clip up here, which is the original trailer set to Evanessence. The best film ever come to come out of France. Period. I have a chapter that needs finishing, a kettle that needs filling and whole day of blogging available tomorrow. Will finish up then chumps...

Clip of the day: So Far Away | Stabbing Westward Clip of the yesterday: Parilizer | Finger Eleven and finally, clip of the day before yesterday: Is Anybody Home? | Our Lady Peace