THE PEN IS MORE PORTABLE THAN THE SWORD
Jimmy Page, Satan, Leona Lewis, God, sisters and brothers
The alien virus continues. It feels like there's something big growing inside me. Not quite so bad as when the Alien bursts out of Hurt's stomach, but close. I suppose people used to watch TV in bed when they were ill. Somehow, blogging seems more constructive. My book is too heavy... poor me.
There doesn't appear to be any footage at all of Jimmy Page and Leona Lewis at the closing Olympic ceremony but there are plenty of stills with the accompanying soundtrack. The best of these is probably this one at youtube. For what it's worth, as far as this sort of thing goes, it's not too bad. As Mick Wall pointed out in his own blog this is more the domain of Brian May than Page, but hey... it's over now. I like Leona. At least she can sing and appears to be handling it well. You can't begrudge success when it's backed by that much talent. With two young girls living in the same house, you learn to like a lot of stuff otherwise you end up saying things like "What kind of man desecrates a defenceless text book!" and "What is that! A Twisted Sister pin on your uniform... you're worthless and weak - you do nothing, you are nothing... you sit in here all day and play that sick repulsive electric twanger..."
Stop now. It brings back too many memories, but for those of you who have no idea what I'm going about - here - and if you're really interested the evening I saw this one day after school, my life changed forever and ever. (If you're already an SMF - this is quite cool, if not you should probably move along the bus).
The Doctor is in (again)
It's probably wrong to be excited about something so small, but in the light of not much else happening today due to some weird alien virus infiltrating my system:
News services are reporting that this year's Children in Need will feature a special to include all seven living Doctor Who lead actors.
The below report is from the Telegraph. The story also appears in the News of the World and the Sunday Mirror.
[Remember: treat all such news as rumour until confirmed officially by the BBC]
The actors are getting together for the BBC charity Children in Need in a programme to be broadcast on November 14.
An insider at the BBC said: "It's a pretty ambitious idea and it's still being finalised. Everything is being kept under wraps but Doctor Who fans are in for a big treat."
The first of the 10 actors to take the role was William Hartnell in 1963, followed three years later by Patrick Troughton and then by Jon Pertwee but all three have since died.
The seven survivors include Tom Baker, now best known as the voice of the comedy series Little Britain, who played the role for seven years from 1974.
He was followed by Peter Davidson [sic] from 1981 to 1984, whose daughter Georgia Moffett has also featured in the programme and who is now dating the current doctor, David Tennant.
The others are Colin Baker, from 1984 to 1986, Sylvester McCoy who had two stints from 1987 to 1989 and re-appeared in the role in 1996, Paul McGann, who took over the role in 1996 and Christopher Eccleston who reprised the series in 2005.
Get your head around this Mr Smith...
What began as a seemingly normal Saturday - for most of the day actually - culminated in an hour of weirdness around 8pm. First of all, a link to a review of Too Hot For Dogs issue one came in from Evil Genius Comics Blog - you can read the review here. Am most please with that and I take my hat off to Charlotte - I didn't think anybody stayed up later than me to get things done, but apparently I was wrong.
My estimate of finishing Russell T Davies' Doctor Who - The Writer's Tale in a single day was the worst estimate in the history of things being estimated. It will take me at least a week to get through it and at least another week to digest it all. Suffice to say, the damn thing is brilliant. So, I'm standing in the kitchen and the devil sitting on my shoulder - the one that keeps whispering 'fake it til you make it' - shouts louder than normal. So I figure I'll text Mike.
Verbatim, here is a transcript of my text:
"I've just been asked to write an episode of Doctor Who by Moffat. Am very excited"
A thousandth of a second later, Mike's calling me up. I decide to ignore it and send another one just behind it that says:
"Thanks. Just wanted to know what that would feel like. Sorry, but it felt great all the same x"
To which Mike replied: "Did you bump your head?" I spoke to him just after this and the odd bit was that he believed that it was the sort of thing that could happen to me, which I thought was very nice - as in, some people could text you that and you'd just delete it and know it wasn't true, but he wasn't entirely sure. To be honest - Mike is probably the only person that I'd believe it of too. So now he'll have to find a better gag to play... let the game begin! (If we sit really still and wait quietly, we might see a Mike saunter past and leave a comment tomorrow...)
Not ten minutes later, JJ calls me up. This one didn't so much surprise me as punch me really hard in the mouth. When I finally got to bed last night, I wasn't really tired, so I dropped my pod on and lay there with a pen in my hand scribbling notes about whatever came into my head. On one page, I wrote the following:
"Wonder where the hell that Baby Dynamite tape is with Paperhouse on it. It must be somewhere in the house."
To give you a little bit of background on this, I've discovered that I write best creatively when I'm doing something else that hasn't been planned (natch), so about a week ago, I picked up my guitar to start writing again. Paperhouse and another song called Naked with Jezebel where the last two songs I ever recorded in a proper studio back in 1995 - and probably two of the best and definitely most commercial I've ever written but the last time I heard them or even thought about them was at least ten years ago. I thought it might be nice to revisit those songs and relearn them as a place to start again from - did I have a copy of it. No. Nowhere to be seen. Not since sometime in 1995.
Like I said, J called - and he says (this is pretty much word for word): "Got a second? I was looking in this box of old radio tapes just now and found this tape with a sticker on the front that says ' wrote you a song'. You'll never guess what was on it..."
With a god standing on either side of me, my response was "Paperhouse?"
"Yeah - how'd you know that?" So I tell him the story and we fell into an odd silence in which we both stood in our respective kitchens 300 miles apart with frowns on our brows. Not sure what to make of that really.. good story though.
Focus
Yes - must focus. Seem insistent on blogging items here that are duplicated in other blogs. Will rectify from here on out.
Finally got around to picking up undelivered parcel from Post Office this morning. How could I have forgotten about the Doctor Who book I ordered? At a first glance, it's very, very good. On all levels. I'll post a review of it later this week - though I think I'll read it all today if I can find the time. It's one of those that you pick up and don't put down unless something 'very important' comes along.
Think I need to take the rest of the day to restructure what's going on here. With so many projects on the boil, I've lost track and certainly lost focus. That'll happen on just a few hours sleep a night.
Man, I need a holiday. More later...
A commitment
I got sidetracked somewhat with that last t-shirt picture blog. I was going to go shopping tomorrow to get some new jeans, but with ebay to the rescue, I no longer have to bother. Bonus.
What I really meant to post was this iconic symbol of gonzo journalism. Today, I have discovered that if I must function in a category, then this is where I well and truly belong. I think Wikipedia sum it up best with their article here.
You know when you belong somewhere when you can find no fault in your surroundings. Hey - that's a t-shirt in itself.
It's a good day on the planet when you find out something good about yourself. In fact, fuck it. I'm gonna get a tattoo...
Hack Attack
In between constructing a Shepherd's Pie that Satan himself would be proud of, synching up my ipod with ical and other Sunday type household chores, I've been doing some research on great writers. No, that's not right - great journalists would be closer to the truth. I've been trying to figure out what allowed guys like Lester Bangs, Cameron Crowe and Nick Kent to sit at the top of the tree like the untouchables. I've still not put my finger on it but I'm getting closer to the bottom line. Anyway. there's a cool article from the Wired archive that begins as follows:
ISSUE 153, November 1996
Editor: Tony Herrington
Reading through Meaty Beauty Big & Bouncy!, a recent collection of "Classic Rock & Pop Writing from Elvis to Oasis", I sense my heart sink, the sky cloud over, radar going haywire with dull and familiar sightings. Despite that sub-title, the book isn't a celebration of music journalism per se, but rather a homage to certain breeds of music journalist. On one level, the selections of Editor Dylan Jones bolster the notion of the latter-day music critic as a pop-celebrity mortician, laptop wielded like a coroner's scalpel, eviscerating the bloated organs of one wrecked pop-life after another.
You can read the full article here, it makes for interesting reading. Being a magazine whore of the highest order, sometimes I sit here and wonder how some of these 'writers' get a gig at these - oftentimes - very high profile publications. I picked up the new edition of Q this week. I haven't picked up a copy in years and maybe like some of you, I simply assume that their writing is the best the UK has to offer. I'll post later about my findings (like you give a shit) but the one thing I do know is that given how small the world is these days, nobody's name is dripping off my tongue as one I recognise let alone respect.
The one thing I do know though, is that there's a small part of me somewhere poking me with a stick to start that bloody list. More later...
Life 2.0
It's a gloriously chilly October morning and another week has gone by in which time has obliterated regular blog opportunities. To begin with superficial items or items of great importance? The choice is all mine - or I could just lump it all in together.
Mere seconds ago I ordered Russel T Davies' Doctor Who book - A Writer's Tale. Apparently for fans of Doctor Who and those interested in the writing process, this is a bit of a no brainer for me and I'm wondering why it took so long for me to get around to it. This week have also been chewing away at a book I thought would be, shall we say, shit. However, Dean Koontz's Frankenstein is rather excellent. Great back story and impeccably delivered, it's restored a little faith from me in a man I long ago thought had lost it. Nice. This week I also picked up a book called A Good & Happy Child which looks like it might be one of those things that I tell people about in hushed voices...
On the music front, I have thoroughly tried to avoid the Metallica album until the hype/backlash has died down. Instead, I buried myself in the Pussycat Dolls album. It's OK y'know... a bit vapid but there's a place for vapid in every life if you look hard enough. Also on the music front, I have some big n juicy news to announce soon that I'm really fired up about but it would be foolish to name it just yet... this is followed by potentially even bigger excellent news and a trip to a lil' exhibition thing called the Rock Archive. Maybe not so little huh.
On the non music front, but something that still involves going outside is the second appearance of the LuchaFest at the RoundHouse. Much excited about this one.
So - this writing thing. Charlotte has give me at least half of the illustrations for issue two so I need to get my head around that pretty fast as that now leaves just four pages to finish up before we move on to issue three. This weekend was the BICS event which I really was going to go up to and launch the first issue, but Charlie picked up a copy that was a little less than perfect from LuLu, so that needs fixing behind the scenes before we go any further. Actually, it's been one of those weeks in which I've just been laying down words instead of anything more than that. Quite important for a writer I think... combine that with some extreme developments in the Dark Hollow/Burn camp and it's just been one of those weeks.
The Idiots by White Subway
http://youtube.com/v/F2fSmvoDpAM
It's just a matter of time before the rest of you can smell the coffee...
Death and the art of dying
Normal service will resume after this short sensible interlude:
It's always good to learn something new about those closest to you. Sarah and I were talking about dead people this evening (prompted by something on TV) and she told me that she talks to them. At which point I should probably point out that she's a nurse and not a psychic hotline operator. It sort of generated out of a train of thought that involved 'what are people aware of after they die'.
She was saying that when people die, she talks to them because she if they are still aware of what is going on when the heart has stopped breathing, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that we don't just switch off all at once. For instance, after you die, your hair and nails keep growing. Various other functions carry on too, even if they're in a negative connotation. The biology of a dead body is that things are still happening even if those things are decay.
So, I wanted to know what sort of things she said to them and it was simple things like "I'm going to shut your eyes now" and "I'm just going to put this pillow under your chin so that your mouth doesn't gape open" - I think that's kind of sweet. I find it peculiar that she can spend this amount of intimate time with a dead body but we never even made it to the opening credits of Scream when we went to see it.
Anyway, this continued and I found out that she also catalogues out loud the items that she has to remove from them, such as rings and watches, which get bagged and sent with the body to the undertaker - the bit she doesn't like though is the final part where the face gets covered with the sheet. Almost as if she was personally responsible for saying "The End" to these people.
It's a job I couldn't do. I've never actually seen a dead body. Sarah is not religious but I think sometimes she wonders... when she knows somebody is dying, she'll stay with them and watch them go - to which she always says that it's the weirdest thing. One minute you have an animated body, no matter how frail and immobile and the next moment, a very obvious empty husk that looks the same but is nonetheless, empty. What left and where did it go to? When you're faced with that on a daily basis, you have to wonder comes afterwards, but she doesn't. I think it would drive her insane.
But where do we go? It's obviously the consciousness/personality/character/soul that leaves but where does it go? Does it just go out? After millenia upon millenia of people dying, it's hardly surprising that the possibilities the human race has come up with for what comes next are so disparate and clung on to so dearly. As nice as some kind of afterlife appears to be, it's just as plausible that the series just ends. No commissions for a second season. No repeats. Dusted.
I needed to get that out of my head. Back to thinking about Doctor Who memorabilia now.
Solid Gold Easy Action
First of all, am very excited. I've just seen the double pilot episode of Fringe and it's simply stunning. Some have said it's slow but it's really not. First impressions are that it mixes up elements of Lost, X Files, Heroes and 4400. I guess it will change and settle into something else but it's enough to say, I loved every moment.
With Heroes S3 around the corner and all of our other favourites about to lift off into space for the Autumn season, maybe the nights won't be so empty after all. How geeky of me.
Also, in the mail today, the new copy of SFX landed along with volume 10 of the utterly supreme CrimeWave. CrimeWave probably slips under your radar but it comes from TTA press (who have even higher production values than me) and features some of the best in new crime writing. If you're into the genre at all then you best hightail your ass over to www.ttapress.com - the site is a bit confusing but it's all there... somewhere... and the good news keeps on coming as I see that season two of Californication is out on the loose. Can things get any better?
Possibly. Too Hot For Dogs issue one is now finished. I've had an idea about what to do with it. For some reason, I seem to think it would be a good idea to give it away, a page at a time, here at zodiaclung. Going to chew on it until the end of the month though... there's some other irons in some fires as well, so it's a waiting game. NOT REALLY! I've just seen the "self imposed schedule" and it appears I'd best be getting on with finishing up issue two for Charlotte to get on with and push ahead with issue three as well.
If there's a fly in the ointment at all, it's over how strong a story Seven Days of the Gargoyle is and having nobody to illustrate the damn thing. Maybe the weekend will turn up some talent - Rhiannon has talked me into squeezing back into our wetsuits and going crabbing (aka 'eating candy floss').
Too much to read, too much to do, too much to watch.
Excellent.
A mug is a mug is a mug?
No. A mug is not just a mug. As a bit of a tea drinker, let me walk you through some of my favourite mugs...
This is my favourite mug of all time. It's kind of square on the outside and round on the inside - which is most fitting. It's my morning mug and my writing mug and is in constant heavy rotation. Complete with Scarecrow, Judoon Captain and obligatory Dalek, it's damn classy.
Next, we have the Dalek bowl. In times of great stress, this holds the maximum amount of tea I can possibly make. It's not my favourite but it is highly functional... everybody must have a functional mug. It's only right.
This is my second favourite - the other side has a Cyberman on it (that's the drinking side). Often in use when the square one is hidden underneath much washing up. This one came free with an easter egg... nice.
...and so we move on to the visitors mugs. The kids loved last easter because I went a bit overboard on the eggs that had mugs with them. Both the 24, WWE and the LOST mug came this way - there was also a Desperate Housewives mug and I'm a bit disappointed that I never picked it up as well. So there you have it.
I would however like to point out that I'm really sad... I was actually testing out this Sony Ericsson CyberShot to see what it was capable of.
Experiment over.
Hotter Than Hell
This train will be jumping off the tracks if it goes any faster. Too Hot For Dogs Issue One (or should I call it Issue Zero?) is complete! Has gone to Charlotte to make any last minute art changes that she wishes and then it will be rather ceremoniously dumped in the lap of the gods. The PR and marketing end of the stick I don't even want to look at too closely because it means I will have to walk away from the creative process for a while and tend to what is - in simple terms - glorified admin. I guess when you pick up a stick, you pick up both ends.
Let's empty the head - and then I must tend to humanoid functions before a big bad wolf comes and blows my house down.
If any of you are looking for albums worthy of shelling out on, I have an advance copy here of the debut from Attack! Attack! which is a contender for a place in the top five of the year with ease. To say I have also rediscovered Slaves to Gravity when Scatter the Crow didn't come out that long ago would be foolish... maybe it would be better to say that I have rekindled my affair with it. Yes, that works for me. On the book front, I've just finished some serial killer/CSI type affair called The Secret Friend... was OK. It's a plane/train book but that's all. I might not read anything at all for the rest of the week and just take stock of everything that's on, under and spread across the table. Takes it toll on the eyes does all this reading and writing.
For those of you wondering where the short stories are, they're still out there doing their thing. Apparently, it takes a long time for the editors of small presses to decide what they are going to use - so for once, it's not my fault! They are finished and they have been pitched.
All quiet on the literary agent front too. This is because I have stopped looking. I think it's more pertinent to lay down the work. I'll take stock of the output in the Christmas period and re-evaluate. It's a plan at least.
Finally - I think I'm right in saying it's the last day of voting at the Orange Music thing that 50ft Woman has gotten herself involved in. Take some time out, click a few buttons. Go ahead - make her day.
Is that it for today? Possibly... possibly...
Shocker... and looking out for some pals.
One down. Seven to go. Shocking the Monkey is now available to buy online. Sales and comments more than welcome. Next, Too Hot For Dogs Issue One. Long overdue now. Let's get it on.
Talking of things being long overdue and being as I'm busy 'getting it on', I'm sure there are more things than this that I've said I'd give an airing to, but these are the ones that fall out of my mouth when it opens:
The delectable Miss Minki has thrown herself on the mercy of Orange Unsigned 2008. Check out 50ft Woman right here and vote, vote, vote! She said she would go topless on TV if she won, but I reckon a Twix and a Bacardi might get the same result. Voting is cheaper though, so get on with it...
Well, that's one... what the hell were the others?
Carnival of Souls: An Extract
As promised all those weeks ago, there now follows an extract from Carnival of Souls.
CARNIVAL OF SOULS
Book One: The Stairway to Heaven | Part One: The Waiting Game
Lupin, so named not because he looked like a wolf but because he liked to masturbate in their ears, sat in his tree playing with a box of Sticklebricks he had stolen from a small child. So far, he had made fourteen different designs for his dream car and had wrecked nearly every brick from chewing the aerodynamics into them. There weren’t many left now and the cars were becoming smaller. Lupin was Mavericks right hand 'man'. With ten of the maps sprawled over his fleshy body and one more to come for bravery in the field, (he had single-handedly taken on an entire platoon of renegade scarecrows earlier in the year), he saw himself soon being able to question Mavericks authority and looked forward to the battle that would come with him because of it.
He stretched his legs out from the top of the tree and stood up. He could see for miles at eighteen feet tall, but still felt a little conspicuous with his height. He used to stoop as he had seen the crows do in a Kia Ora advert until one day, Maverick took the piss out of him so much, his sides had split and four of his ribs had fallen out. Not wanting to upset Maverick before the day of reckoning came, he now made a conscious effort to shrink his legs to a more appropriate length. Mass was still a problem though. Twelve feet of legs shrunk down into two and a half, made for a bad cellulite problem and Lupin could hardly wait for the day he could truly be himself again.
He had been sitting in the tree waiting for the door to come back. While Maverick and Karly had been out collecting, it had been up to Lupin and Shack to keep watch. Lupin felt completely and utterly duped. Maverick and Karly were expert shapeshifters, and although Lupin was a master of war (and wanking in wolves ears), Shacks’ skills lay in shifting time. Lupin felt like he had been on his shift for more than six days now and all he had seen Shack do was sleep and sometimes scratch his armpits.
"Shack, wake up - it’s your turn in the tree."
Shack raised all three of his eyebrows, and looked at him with two of his eyes while the other took in the surroundings.
"Already? You’ve only just gone up the fucking thing Lupe. The shifts are six hours apiece, you turning into a girly?"
"Aww, come on Shack, it’s got to be your turn now. I haven’t seen you up there once yet - I know you’re pulling time on me."
Shack gave a wily grin underneath his excessively hairy face and submitted.
"Okay, I’ll do my stint. You try and get some sleep it’ll be night again soon. Contain yourself if you can."
"Huh?"
"Come on Lupe - you know what I’m talking about. There is no way on the face of this planet that you’re ever going to perform the immaculate conception on a fucking wolf man."
Lupin went suddenly quiet. He hadn’t expected the whole race to accept his explanation for his uncontrollable habit, but they had. It eased the embarrassment so Lupin kept quiet and hoped that one day they would forget about it. Shack climbed the watching tree not without his own problems. He was way out of shape. His weight had ballooned to fifty four stone over the last two years. He couldn’t understand why, it wasn’t that he ate more than anybody else but he did rather suspect that it was something to do with his love of chocolate. He was always the first to volunteer for an overworld trip. None of the other worlds he had been to came quite close to producing the same quality Snickers bars that he could get here. One hundred and seventy seven bars a day had indeed, done wonders for his figure. Still it was better than being a sad sack like Lupin. Shack had a feeling that the door wasn’t going to come for quite some time. In fact he was almost certain it wouldn’t.
He had sped his mind forward in time and had a look.
He knew roughly when it would come and it was still three weeks away. He had told nobody and volunteered for the door watch to catch up on some sleep and eat some more chocolate. With Karly still one map behind Lupin, but a far better choice for entrance into the human world, that made Lupin the other watchman for the duration. That was cool with Shack. Lupin was a bit slow of mind and could be easily fooled. He would never have dared with Maverick or Karly for fear of his life. So in his tree he sat, with his chocolate - watching Lupins’ ears twitch instead of watching for the door.
***
Lupin slept with his back against the gnarly trunk of the watching tree. His eyes were closed and he was in some kind of sleep mode, but his ears swivelled around to every sound that came drifting through the woods. Shack watched him from up in the tree, almost asleep himself. As he lay with his head on a branch, his eyes began to close and a long string of drool started to sneak it’s way out of his mouth. The lace of animated elastic didn’t take long to reach a point where it was too heavy to be attached to Shacks’ mouth anymore. It snapped at around four foot long and helicoptered its’ way down to Lupins face, where it splashed and drooled with a life of its own into Lupins mouth. A huge grin split Shacks face in half as he wondered what Lupin thought it was - maybe he was dreaming of giving a wolf a blow job. The thought raised Shacks eyes just one last time before his own eyes gave up the ghost and he too fell asleep.
A little deeper into the forest, the wolves were stirring. There were four adults in the pack and six cubs. The adults consisted of two males and two females. It was a homely pack. They each watched out for the cubs in turn and spent the majority of their time hunting food for the little ones. The two adult males had drawn straws for which one of them would have to venture into the night to chase rabbits. Xana, the bigger of the two female wolves had gotten so fed up with their arguing that she eventually volunteered to go herself. Samantha, on the other hand, was quite content with letting the three of them get on with it. She had found herself and the cubs a warm corner in the cave and was more than happy with her lot. The two males, Halo and Lament, sat in different corners, sulking and casting penetrative looks at each other. They had become very protective over the females, and although Samantha and Xana could take care of themselves, the dogs came from the old wolf school, where it was the males job to do those sorts of things. Hence, after two years of living together in this way, an inevitable love square had been formed. Lament and Xana had paired off initially, with Samantha and Halo resigning themselves to each other on the basis that there were no other wolves in the forest.
Xana shook herself down, readying herself for the trip into the night. Outside the cave, she rubbed her shoulders against the rock were the males had been pissing. There may not have been any other wolves in the forest, but these were strange days one never knew what was lurking behind a tree.
Lupin stirred from his sleep wondering how he had managed to drool on his own eyebrows. He was about to turn over and go back to sleep, when his nose began to twitch. Wolves! He stood up and was about to call up to Shack but a sly grin beat his mouth to it. So excited was he about the smell of wolves, he forgot to be angry that Shack was asleep when he should have been watching out for the door. They would have words later.
Scratching his balls, he stood up and stuck his nose into the air. Making his nostrils twice as big as they needed to be, he picked up the scent and went in search of his hearts desire. Xana too had picked up on Lupins scent. Not recognising it as being anything like she had smelt before, she frowned a wolfs frown and cocked her head to one side. To investigate or not. A part of her said it could be something they could all feed on for the next couple of days, a bigger part of her told her to get on with what she was doing. Warily she opted for both and went searching for rabbits in the general direction of the strange new smell. The moon shone full from behind it’s disguise of clouds. It cast a shadow through the forest like the sun never could. Xana liked the night for this reason alone. It was so quiet and peaceful. Something she could never get enough of in the cave, what with all that squabbling all the time. She sat down in a small clearing. How long had she been gone now? An hour? Maybe longer. There had not been so much as a sniff of rabbit all night. Something peculiar was going on and the female in her demanded to know exactly what it was and why. Picking the strange scent up out of the air, she followed it down a track and into a muddy square of land. The scent led to a tree, but didn’t stop there – the scent had become all consuming and was all around her at any one time. As far as she could tell, the mud around the tree had been caused by too much tooing and froing. Somebody had been feeling restless.
From a hedge not six feet away from Xana, Lupin sat downwind of her and hoped for the best. With a little stealth, it was quite conceivable that he could sneak up behind her and get the job done without too much fuss. It was a little too much to hope that she wouldn’t notice, but Lupin figured he’s give it a try anyway...
That's all folks. Picked entirely at random from chapter two and squared off for continuity purposes. Unedited with only the briefest of spell-checking, I shall apologise now for typos made in my haste to lay the words on the page. I'll post another in a few weeks - let me know what you think.
...and yes, the other two books in the series are indeed called Book Two: The Highway to Hell and Book Three: Knocking on Heavens Door. I'm just a pop culture whore damn it.
Did I get hit by a truck?
Certainly feels like it. Went back to JuJitsu on Sunday after taking months off to heal up the shoulder/knee/back/wrist combo thing I had going on. Seem to be OK but you never know up there... also a little shocked to find oneself entered into International competition again but the head and heart are willing, so let's get it on. Seven weeks is absolutely ages to get in shape.
Isn't it?
Monkey Shines
No blog for almost a whole week? Where did the time go?
Have finally completed the reproofing and redesign of Shocking the Monkey. So if anybody happens to be paying attention, it will probably be available a little earlier than the 10th, but by the time I get round to editing the button in the sidebar, the 1oth is likely to be a good estimate. This means I also have to spend some time designing the storefront at LuLu.. which I am trying to avoid due to their crappy interface. If they could get that sorted I'm sure everybody would have much better storefronts over there and - gasp - sell more stuff!
Just the PR and marketing to sort out then... sheesh.
So with that past project dusted, time to move onto the next one. I should be focusing on the big books (Almost Human and Carnival of Souls) but these "machine gun" books are a vital tool for emptying my head. The next one will be Black Dye, White Noise - another collection of musings, along with my entire lyric books from both bands, more scraps of paper that wouldn't fit in Monkey and some new material.
The prologue of Too Hot For Dogs also gets finished tomorrow. I'm torn now between releasing it and keeping it for the BICS event. Will chew on that.
Later that same day:
Working on the Mac in the kitchen, I thought I would strip some junk out as she's getting bit slow. I found an old app of Entourage that I was using for mail back in 2004 with loads of mail on it from when we kick started Burn. Amongst a whole bunch of old adverts and pic attachments stealthily sent from work browsing back home, I found this that Ian sent me for a chuckle. I had forgotten all about it... what are chances of that. I wonder what kind of a guy he was. Probably an incredibly decent bloke, but I'm just guessing.
More later still...
Enter the Sinner: sneak preview. Plus: the Sony Reader Initiative.
I'm a happy man now. After months of emailing backwards and forwards and me rejecting pic after pic and concept after concept, Charlie and I finally agreed upon the look and feel of my character Sinner:619.
Early briefs went from different pictures of me with horns - little ones like a freaking goat, right across to huge stag killers like Tim Curry in Legend. Then Pan and various other satyrs got involved but that just wasn't dark enough. Thus, my final brief of "I want him to look like Rob Zombie but homeless and with a lion-esque face" seems to have hit all the right buttons on both sides of Watford. If it's good enough for Gaiman with Death and Tori Amos, it's good enough for me.
It had it's downside of course. Now that I know what he looks like and he's also a major player in the Too Hot For Dogs sequence, the plot spiralled from "that's very clever" and me looking quite smug to being devilishly complicated, far too intelligent than I have the right to be writing and all in all, bloody excellent. Just hope everybody else will think so too.
We'll find out soon enough. I have one more proof to pull back from the print shop and then we'll unleash the hounds - promo, PR and marketing first and then it will be off to BICS with a lot of boxes.
Anyway, what you see here is a trial cover for Sinner:619 | Seven Days of the Gargoyle. This has a fantastic story, but judging by my experience with the rewrites of 2H4D, I would be foolish to think it will just drip off the tongue. Next job? Finding an illustrator. I'd love Charlotte to do it but she's kind of got her hands full with 2H4D and some other things we have on the boil. If I suggest it, odds are that I'll get a punch in the mouth - and rightfully so.
On my tour of the online excellentness that is book buying, at the Waterstones site today (and presumably other days) they are hosting a banner for the Sony Reader. Available in the States for quite some time, I believe this is the first big pitch at the UK audience.. I guess it must be if Waterstones are pimping it. The price tag on it is £200. I don't think that's too outragous at all. People keep telling me that people love books and it will never take off. I say, people used to love vinyl as well - in fact it was positively sacred - and look where that ended up.
My belief with the Sony Reader (and maybe also the amazon Kindle, although it will never sell because it looks like a heap of junk from the late sixties), is that it will revolutionise books and the book selling market. It will be hard and it there will be much written about it, but once it starts, just like music, it will be unstoppable.
Let me tell you why - I read a lot. I love books that look great. I have many hundreds. I also love - or at least like very much - books that I just want to read for the sake of the story. The books I love, I will continue to buy and they will live on 'the shelf'. However, some things like Koontz, Patterson, King, Deaver... (it's a long list), I just want to read and this is where the Reader strikes hard. On they go, dive in, dive out. Aeroplane, train, holiday, business, pleasure. I'm a man that loves to travel light. With an ipod nano and a Sony Reader with a backpack for a laptop, I'll soon be kissing those luggage collection points goodbye!
Can I position Dark Hollow comic books and Burn Magazine to be available on the reader? It handles pdf, so I don't see why not. The future is very exciting. First job: get hold of one and see what it can do. I'll host various posts about it here, but if it gets out of control, it might end up requiring a blog of its own!
Watch this: Henry Rollins interviews Marilyn Manson
and also this
