I meant to wrap up 2009 in a previous post but didn't appear to have kept up with my train of thought. Figured I should really do it now before we get too far into January.
Apart from three pets, everybody I know/care about managed to stay alive, though it was a close run thing with that fire. I can re-live every moment. Moving house three times was a bit of a drag but we couldn't have settled on a better place to be, even if it -756 degrees at the moment. It's even colder inside the house.
Firstly, I know it doesn't seem like it sometimes (at least I hope it does) but I am always aware that I am fighting for position here. As with my band and magazines, the endgame is always to be the absolute best - or at least the most entertaining - regardless of the outcome. On that front, I doff my hat to those of you who bought and/or downloaded my scraps of imagination and spend time being around the stuff that spills out of my head.
The Fire Sermon has been enormously well received on all fronts considering it was an experiment in what the web was capable of after losing out in the Jonathan Cape graphic competition. Over the coming year, there will be much more of this. To pull in over 8,000 readers of a short graphic (albeit for free) in little over three months is quite something. There's no way I could have propelled that in print without some seriously big cannons behind me. On which note, watch out for the compilation Salon Des Refuses which will be released sometime in the next couple of months which will hold all of the rejected entries from said competition.
Too Hot For Dogs has taken so much of a backseat this year that it's been in the boot. To get it back on track and make sure that Charlotte doesn't seize up entirely, I'm going to re-release Issue One - An Immaculate Misconception - next week (or maybe this weekend - as a free download much as The Fire Sermon was and let it do its thing while we get back on the horse and finish her off. It's turned into the Chinese Democracy of mini-series' and that's not good for business!
Just as exciting for me here is the sudden flurry of activity with The Ballad Of The Goat Faced Boy. This is storming away and whereas I had originally planned it as a one-off, I kind of see it panning out into something bigger. However, I know myself well enough after all these years to pull in the reins. Let's get the original idea finished first! There will be no free download of this though. This will be the first true experiment in self publishing and we (Mr Downes and I) shall be holding nothing back.
On the big book front, if you're paying attention to my recent "Dan Brown" posts, you'll know that this is quite a big project and in the gaps there's Blackout in the Red Room, Almost Human and The Wasteland headed out as fast as I can possibly work.
That's a lot of projects - but I can't do just one. It would kill me. For some reason, my subconcious works on the things that I'm not currently working on while I'm working. The end result is a lot of things that all take a long time to finish but I figure that's got to be better than working very hard on just one idea and then struggling to follow it up. This is how great bands go down fast. One great album that took you four years to write and when asked to follow it up six months later, they find themselves sailing down the river without a paddle because they didn't keep writing songs... getting better... always working...
Well it makes sense to me anyway.
AND SO: armed with two very large bags of logs, a huge net of kindling and a 59p lighter, I shall retire shortly to the side of the wood burner and write some more.
Finally, Monday 11th January. D-Day. The Day That Should Never Have To Happen. The Day Nobody Will Want To Be Near Me. The Day Mr Smith Gives Up Smoking (providing at least one of the six "Quit Today" kits comes in the mail... sigh. Expect rather a lot of blogging about the loss of an old friend.
Currently reading: Company of Liars (still) - Karen Maitland. Taking my time with this one...
Currently listening to: This Is War - 30 Seconds to Mars (still, again).
Currently: smoking my ass off.
