In somewhat of an epiphany, over the last week I've noticed that my writing has become, shall we say, underpar. This is not because I have suddenly become not very good at writing but because of the amount of time available to actually formulate a thought before committing pen to paper. The fact that I have nobody to blame but myself was realised on Thursday, so Thursday evening and last night I spent revisiting some of the Smith classics by checking back in with Lester Bangs, Gaiman and co to see how far away from the goalpost I have actually come. (I realise those are two wildly differing styles but that's kind of the point).

The end. It just needs fixing. I need to review the new Cure album across today and tomorrow, so that will be the fixing territory and it will be matched against the Black Stone Cherry review from some weeks ago to see. Buggered if I'm going back and changing anything though.

I've also discovered that Charlie has nearly finished the second issue of Too Hot For Dogs. Not only has she brought out the big guns, she has also come armed with tanks, a jeep and other tactical military equipment that makes me gape with wonder. I thought the story was strong before but now I come to layout the pictures, I see how much more it could be.

This happened with the first one as well and the final copy turned out so much stronger than the first draft we toyed with. This issue starts the story proper rather than being an introduction to the characters and I want to rewrite most of it. There's an internal voice telling me that the story shouldn't be dictated to by the art that comes with it, but if that's a hard and fast rule amongst comic book writers I'm going to throw it out of the window knowing that the finished product will be so much stronger from doing so.

So with all that on the plate I think I shall repeatedly listen to this Cure album and get the hell on with it...