THE PEN IS MORE PORTABLE THAN THE SWORD
ALMOST HUMAN (EXTRACT II)
In yet another moment of folly, I thought I'd post another extract from Almost Human today. Why? Why not.If you have some friends who were around and reasonably sober at the time of this, please feel more than free to forward the link on for comments - but it would be helpful if you could hook it back to it's source at www.zodiaclung.blogspot.com rather than any other feed you might have picked up from.
Here we go:
IN WHICH STIV BATORS STOLE MY HEARING
Back in 1985, Kerrang! - then being the only source for rock news of any kind - ran a little news piece on a new show that would air on the fledgling Channel Four. In 1985, this was unheard of. With a little hindsight and maturity under the belt, The Whistle Test was a great show that I should have liked, but man, they broadcast some crap. This new show promised to blow the Whistle off the air...
That legendary show was called E.C.T. - which I think stood for Extra Celestial Transmission. There may be an outside chance of course that it's only legendary in my own head but humour me while I give you a rundown - drawn entirely from memory. If I could be bothered, I'd check my facts as a footnote later but it will be more fun this way.
I sent off for tickets and as promised, got two in the mail for the first show. I believe the line up was Magnum, Torme, Madam X and Motorhead. I don't remember seeing Magnum, but they're really not my sort of thing so if there had been a bar, that's where I would have been. Torme cancelled and while I was uber-disappointed about this, they were replaced with the Lords of the New Church. For the anal information collectors of you out there, the history books still have Torme logged as playing. If anybody feels strongly enough about this to change it, go ahead, knock yourself out.
As is the need in such a young rock fan, I needed to be at the front - it was TV after all. If you check out the YouTube footage of the Lords set (some of which is here), you might be able to see me doing that thing that Dee Snider says one must always do at a rock show - being a fist-throwing motherf****r. Yeah - that's me on the right with the fishnet stocking sleeve and a .22 rifle bullet on a bracelet - seemed like a good idea at the time. They did maybe two or three songs but shortly after they started, I got pushed over in front of the PA speakers and was crushed there with my head in the loudest place in the universe for the remainder of the set - which is when Stiv Bators did me over with a scream that he must have pulled from the Devil's Satchel (TM) during Method to my Madness.
My right ear never truly recovered from this and as luck would have it, Madam X went on to compound this during their set as I went nutso during High in High School and Lemmy put the finishing touches to what was left with no mercy whatsoever. Having become mostly deaf on one side of my head, I became besotted with Maxine Petrucci of Madam X. I was 17. She was a goddess. After the show, she came over and was signing jackets and scraps of paper for fans. All I had was a pound note, so I got her to sign that. I kept it for years until I was utterly desperate one day and had to trade it in for some kind of foodstuff. Maxine - if you're out there… mail me! No other reason other than it would be fun… or weird… or just plain wrong.
The show ran the full length of its allotted schedule which is a miracle. Today, the axe would have fallen after a couple of shows. More importantly than it being funny looking back at this, it served a huge purpose. With very few exceptions, most of these bands would never have been seen outside of London or their home town. For the record - and my sins - I became a huge fan of The Grip, Tarazara and Pet Hate following the show and spent a ruckload of money on most of the other bands (apart from Rogue Male because that would be stupid) that appeared because this is how things got done back then. You can look at the list down below and laugh your ass off all you like, but this was it. This was The Scene - and The Scene Was Good. It was a breeding ground and while very few of these bands have survived the ravages of time, it was great while it lasted. Such a thing does not exist today. I don't want to sound like an old dinosaur here - we've got it good in these times of techno-gratification but it's not on a par with what we used to have. I have great memories of all these shows but it's damn hard to wrap your arms around a digital memory.
If anybody wants to direct me to YouTube links to any of the performances, that would be great. I'd place money that some of you must have all of this on VHS. Anyway, here's the official list of the show's and the dates they aired. As mentioned already, Torme where replaced with the Lords. There may have been others. If you were there and your memory is not so badgered as mine, and know some of this is wrong, please comment away and I shall correct:
motorhead 12.4.85
magnum 12.4.85
madam x 12.4.85
torme 19.4.85
rogue male 19.4.85
girlschool 19.4.85
waysted 19.4.85
shy 26.4.85
tobruk 26.4.85
warrior 26.4.85
tygers of pang tang 3.5.85
mamas boys 3.5.85
robin george 3.5.85
mc coy 3.5.85
marino the band 10.5.85
wildfire 10.5.85
spider 10.5.85
gary moore & phil lynott 10.5.85
pet hate 17.5.85
tarazara 17.5.85
chariot 17.5.85
cannes 24.5.85
lionheart 24.5.85
the grip 24.5.85
persian risk 24.5.85
the torpedo's 31.5.85
venom 31.5.85
lee aaron 31.5.85
dumpy's rusty nuts 7.6.85
rock goddess 7.6.85
heavy pettin 7.6.85
she 14.6.85
trash 14.6.85
magnum 14.6.85
warlock 14.6.85
Honestly, NOTHING is sacred anymore...
a) We all know that I love Kiss
b) Some people know that I love the Doors
c) Hardly anybody will know that Nick Simmons (Gene's son) has been asked to try out as the new lead vocalist of the Doors
Based on what? I have curly hair too - where's my shot?
Shall we have a poll?
a) Val Kilmer
b) Nick Simmons
c) Sion Smith
Jeez...
Death of a Legend
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But at least this one had a fair few years under his belt - 82 to be exact. I have to admit that when I was a kid, I really had to be in the mood for much of the work Frank Frazetta illustrated. While it was hardly his fault as the jacket designer, the Conan books could sometimes be really hard work - though ultimately satisfying if you had the time. They did look great on the shelf though... fuck, I miss Athena.
As an influence, he's in here somewhere. There's something satisfyingly primal about muscle-bound heroes wandering the globe wearing animal skins bringing justice to the world whether it's needed or not.
Anyway - don't all rush at once saying how you will miss him and how great you thought he was. I'll know you're lying and I'll make you take the "name six Conan books that Frazetta illustrated" quiz.
Nice New York Times story here about him though.
Critical Mass
Here's the mark of a good logo. Somebody should make a template of a lear jet avaialbe online. If your logo looks good on the side of it, chances are, it's a great logo. I want one of these one day. I don't actually mind if it's this one - I don't think I would rebrand it. They should give it away in a competition when the tour is over.
There's a lot of chat on my blog feeds right now about how serious writers really shouldn't self publish. Most of this is fuelled by agents and publishers, so I can't quite get hold of the honesty handles that are required to make sense of it all. The numbers aren't stacking up for me. Is it better to sell 20,000 copies of something and take maybe 5% of what's on offer or sell 2,000 copies of something and take 90% (this is based on pretty accurate figures derived from my LuLu p.o.d. model). At the "big deal" end of the spectrum, there's kudos, distribution, profile and help. At the "do it yourself" end, there's hard work, control and er.. more hard work.
What's even more disturbing to me is that most advice tends to say it is far better to have a publishing deal - to have somebody else put your book out for you, but there are levels. HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin... I wouldn't think twice about signing on the line, but there are thousands of layers beneath this. Little publishers all fighting for their corner. Are they any better placed than me to get my product moving? Is there a spreadsheet somewhere with very defined lines of what counts as real and what's little more than a waste of time? Will a big publisher come and rescue you from the arms of a small one? Will you ever get picked up again if you get dropped by a major after your first book?
I bring this up today because I'm getting ever closer to having a product finished that I want to do something with. I'm totally up for doing self-promo. I'm no stranger to it - and yes, it shocks me that some people think just getting your book on a shelf is enough. It's not. Not if you want to quit your day job.
Food for thought and I guess at the end of the day, we all just make the best choice we can at the time.
Finally, I have some sad news. Maybe the worst news I have ever reported here. What's going on with Doctor Who? It does all the right things, it looks great and the writing is second to none. The Doc is fine, Amy is brilliant and there's some fantastic undercurrents on the move in the series as a whole - so why am I unable to invest in it emotionally like I did before?
I must have been brought to tears at least four times in the RTD era, but as much as I like these two, if the Doc left Amy behind, I don't think I would care that much. All the chemistry between the characters is PR bluster. There isn't very much at all. It's simply not connecting with me. I got what I wanted in Moffat - shoot, even Gaiman is writing for the show at some point in the future. Why aren't I happy? What am I missing? Maybe I need to go back in time and see how long it took me to feel that way about Rose and the Doctor first time around...
Word of the day: Beleaguered
Currently listening to: Shinedown - Us and Them
Currently reading: Harlan Coben - Caught
Currently in awe of: the final throes of Supernatural Season 5. Talking of throes, Lost continues to deliver rather smartly too.
Footnote: IronMan 2... it was just OK y'know. Disappointed but not dismayed. Roll on Robin Hood.
A Nightmare on Hope Street?
I find myself in a dilemma.
Nightmare was the first 'proper' horror film I ever saw and it holds a very special place in my heart.
I feel a need to go and see this revamp - I figure they can't cheapen it any more than they already have by churning out uber-rotten sequels year after year... hell, it may even restore some of my faith in the genre!
Has anybody been to check it out yet? I think it opened yesterday. The trailer is hot if nothing else (but aren't they always).
The Pet and Band Sematary
I'm not sure how I feel about Soundgarden being back together? It's kind of become the norm for bands that once were to now become again - and it's a bit dull. I thought Cornell was doing fine by himself - able to do whatever he liked, whenever he liked... in other words, the thing he had been fighting for all this time.
Then again, I guess that's the point. That he can do this if he wants for the summer, then walk away and go do something else. The one thing I know for sure is that I shouldn't be surprised about anything anybody does ever again. There's a review of the show and some video clips if you rummage around here at SPIN.
Actually, the more I sit here and think about this, the more I'm feeling wrong. What would I do if I were Chris Cornell? Hang out with some old friends and make some money playing some old tunes over the summer to thousands of people and then move on again? Sure, why not.
Shit. I think I stand corrected and in my correctedness I realise now what it is that I don't like about bands getting back together many years later.
Imagine you went to see The Doors in 1969 and then some kid comes up to you and says they saw The Doors just last year. Imagine you both stood there telling each other how awesome you thought the show was. We all know this is possible. We also know that The Doors from 1969 are the only Doors you should bother about, but here come the next generation BUYING INTO OUR SHIT! GET YOUR OWN SHIT! WE PAID FOR THIS SHIT, WE CARRIED THIS SHIT HOME FROM THE STORE TO LOVE, NURTURE AND CHERISH IT - ON VINYL! WHEN IT DIED, WE BURIED IT - WE BURIED IT DEEP IN THE GROUND, NOT IN THE PET SEMATARY!
Sometimes, I think rock is only here just to make fools out of us.
A Bunch of Fives
A whole bunch of stuff for you to look at today as I'm doing nothing but powering along with finishing up my short - Shouting and Pointing - for the Alibi Channel/Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival. Would it be foolish to say I was expecting great things to come from it? Probably but I've said it now so it's out there.
In a coincidental chain of events this weekend, I have come across references to the TV show Sapphire and Steel three or four times. A while back I considered writing a script for it but I'm sure more powerful and influential people than I have thought about this since Doctor Who successfully rebranded itself. That said, there is a very cool series of Sapphire and Steel audio books over at Big Finish who also produce the Doctor Who audio along with a bunch of other neat stuff including some new Sherlock Holmes adventures. Take note - this is not cheap shit. Their production values are something else. If you're bored of only having songs on your ipod, load it up with a few of these as well. Good stuff.Jumping the rails, it's awesome to see Adam Ant back on track. Funny how you never thought you missed people until they turned up again. For however long he sticks around, it's great to see him being himself again. Lynne (50ft Woman) went to check out the show a few nights back and reported all the right things. Not only is he back on track, but he's still not afraid of doing whatever it is that needs doing - he's been seen duetting Prime Mover with Zodiac Mindwarp and also Cars with Gary Numan (dressed as V from V for Vendetta).
Much more of this. Now in fact. Superb interview with the AntMan currently available right here.
And just for the hell of it, remember that cool Dalek Poster a few links back? Here's another. There's still a few days left for one of the political parties to get their head around this and come up with some ideas we all might actually be interested in.
Tim Burton? I've had worse comparisons...
Shouting and Pointing - the short story for the Alibi Channel - gets it's last rewrite and edits today and tomorrow and then she will be sent away to the big Alibi house in the sky for reading. They have a pretty good turnaround on this of about three weeks so it's not like I'll have to wait months on end for some feedback.
In a good mental health kind of way, I don't really mind if it doesn't score highly because it's good enough to stand all by itself outside of that - and with a few edits that I've had to take out because of the word count restrictions, will form the lead story in series of similar shorts, all featuring Inspector Kang.
I thought yesterday that I should maybe take on another name to publish my crime stories under - seems to be the way things are these days - and then I threw that idea out of the window at a very high speed. If it was good enough for Conan Doyle to write Sherlock Holmes, The Lost World and When The World Screamed under his own name, then it's good enough for me and anybody that's into the stuff I do. That's the end of that story. Has everybody really got so genre stereotyped that they can't accept a change of pace from an author? I guess it all depends on your marketing. I can't see the hardcore Rankin/Rebus fans running to the bookstore to pick up a copy of Dark Entries, but then, they probably don't know it exists. If it passed you by, it's well worth a read. John Constantine has never looked so good.
More later... or I might just down tools and watch the copy of Velvet Goldmine that I picked up yesterday. I'd forgotten it even existed and I've never seen it...
Pretty soon, the new blogger control dashboard will be kicking serious ass. It's facilities are allowing me to walk away from things I hardly had the time to update before.
Over at one of the Doctor Who RSS feeds, some bright spark has posted this great pic of the new Silurians - they look pretty much nothing like they used to. This is a good thing. It's taken a couple of episodes but Moffat is bedding himself very nicely into the mythos. More please. I'm still convinced that Amy is an alien and she is pregnant and will give birth in some virgin like fashion after her skirmish with the angels...
Anyway, the creatures in this other picture are also branded as Silurians, but they don't look anything like the first one. Explain please, web geeks and fantatics. Eleanor has an art exhibition this afternoon (and for the next three days) and I think we had best put in an appearance otherwise I would do it myself. Just for laughs, I've also uploaded a picture of an old Silurian - thus proving that progress, in the main, is indeed a good thing.
Another fine mess
OK, so the night before you launch into the world's first twitter horror novel isn't the best time to decide to redesign your blog... bear with me!
Goodbye Facebook...
My Dearest Facebook Buddies
This weekend, I'll be closing my facebook account. Nothing personal but I've got my life by the bullhorns at the moment and I'm wrestling it to the ground and tossing it about. Stuff is either falling into the good or bad category and being dealt with accordingly.
To be fair, facebook has lasted a lot longer than the other networking places I was running, but I don't see a point to it going forwards. Much of this is coming from a point of view that as I move along with writing, I can't afford half-assed profiles anywhere. I may come back here sometime but probably not soon.
So, if you want to keep in touch, I would suggest:
a) Sign up to the RSS feeds of my blog. If anything interesting happens, it happens there too - www.zodiaclung.co.uk - all quite welcome to leave comments and notes - in fact, it's encouraged. If you have a gmail account, the new google buzz facility is not bad. Some of us already hang out over there. If you haven't got a google account, get one. Freaking priceless.
b) I would direct you to my site, but I think that might die as well over the weekend.
c) Call me! Mail me! Let me know through facebook while it's still here if you don't have my details and I'll send them over. You can even (chuckle) write me a letter if you want!
d) There is no d).
e) To make you all intrigued enough to check out the blog sometime over the next week, on Saturday morning, I'm having all my hair cut off. Pics to follow - so long as it's not too harsh.
Ch, ch, ch, ch changes...
Taking stock of my online presence today, I have taken the executive decision that when it comes to being online, you can be in too many places and have far too many places to be - and even though there are a million tools to redirect a million things to somewhere else, I don't like it.
So here comes the cull.
First to go are the totally useless, namely LinkedIn and MySpace. MySpace takes way too much administration to keep it useful for my liking and is more geared up to helping bands get their music into a huge library than anything.
LinkedIn is nothing more than a niggling feeling that I should be doing something with it but I really can't think of anything useful to actually do with it.
Le Fin.
Lots more rocking the boat and rolling the car over the next week - some of it is pretty drastic too.
The King of the Swingers (absolutely the Jungle V.I.P.)
I have just learned something that I never even questioned the validity of before. In fact, I'm not even sure that what I've read is true in itself but I want it to be because it makes so much sense.
Strangely, it doesn't enhance or detract from what I previously believed about this subject. It simply explains it so much better than my previous belief system, and I have of course, taken this new superior belief system on board immediately.
In fact, immediately after this posting (which I am only going through with because it's such a great story), I shall stop acknowledging that I ever believed what I previously thought and adopt the new version as the way it has always been in my head - especially because it is true and I can't believe I have been so stupid.
Human nature being what it is, I shall probably also mock - harshly sometimes, especially if said person is younger or more handsome than me - those who still believe that my previous belief is still true.
For what is after all a very minor revelation in the big scheme of things, the fact that Planet of the Apes is not really about time travel but does in fact show time moving quite normally with the humans dropped into the "play" from suspended animation, my existence has titled on its axis.
This boulder of a fact has usurped my previous albatross - that Kiss were still a functioning band during the recording of UnMasked - but I'm really quite pleased that I have found this out before my death. Who would want to be stoned by Angels just because you weren't paying proper attention during the first ten minutes of a movie. That I have seen the film at least ten times is beside the point.
What other revelations will the Gods throw my way?
It's a good job feeling foolish has not propelled me to revengefully reveal my theories about Doctor Who this season... that Amelia Pond is in fact an alien. I have reached this conclusion via my normal anagram skills (Am Alien Pod) and feel very righteous because I have just found out she is revealed to be pregnant in Episode Seven... wait and see...
PostScript Re: The Doctor.
I have just thought - is Amy made pregnant by one the Angels a la everybody's favourite nativity tale? Hmm.
Beauty and the Beasts
Perhaps not always one for being known for being appreciative of things of outstanding beauty, allow me put that to rest with this fine photograph of some horses running away from the volcano fallout recently. Stunner.
For more absolutely "damn, I wish I had taken that photo" moments, you really need to check out the Guardian's compilation of the top ten best nature photographs here. They're incredible - I'm particularly partial to the dancing polar bears...
Amazingly Hostile Creature Alert
Ideas, ideas, ideas... if only the Pool of Knowledge had a parking system, but that's not the way it works. You either take the idea and claim it as your own or lose it forever. Such is the case with an idea I was toying with called SpringHeeled Jack which I now believe is the title of a book about to be published by Snowbooks. Oh dismay... still, I must now turn this into something useful, condense the idea beyond belief and get somebody onboard to illustrate it as a graphic short. It may actually work better like that...
Only people who have ever broken a bone will know what I mean by this. Similarly, I instantly knew I had been stung by a stinging thing. I threw my arm up in the air so hard - because it was caught under my armpit -that I wrenched all the muscles in my already busted up shoulder and elbow, then my heart started visibly pumping harder and my arm began to shake - and within a few more seconds, everything returned to normal.
Mr Smith; On Writing
Wow - am I ever in the mood for blogging today.
I don’t know about anybody else in the creative world but I tend to work very oddly most of the time. If you feel like this too, maybe this will help you all feel less alone.
Taking a typical evening as an example, here’s how stuff normally pans out for me:
1. I know I need to do some work.
2. Last night, I decided I needed to finish my short story - Backsliding Fearlessly - for the Alibi Channel (more on this later).
3. I wrote about 800 words and then set aside at least half of them because they would be better served in a different story.
4. Then I had to rewrite the 800 words I took out and now I have two stories on the go in my head. The new story does not yet have a title and this pisses me off more than anything. You can’t have your own children running around the house and not know what they’re called.
5. Meantime, because I have come to the table with the intention of writing a lot and finishing things, all other projects have formed a disorderly queue in my head and begin randomly throwing ideas at “the wall”. This is not helpful, but at the same time, I like it because if I ever ran out of ideas, I would surely die a horrible death.
6. Outside of the story room, there are other rooms, namely the PopCulture room, the Blog room and the Comic room. I know these rooms are there and I know they all need attention. I don’t even have to get out of my chair to enter these rooms. Simply acknowledging them is enough to get me there. (I believe there is also an upper floor with an “admin” room and a “real life” room. I don’t tend to go in these as much as I should.)
7. This is a royal pain in the ass and takes a lot of effort to stay in the room I am in.
8. OK - back to point 3. From one second to the next, I either feel like a) Stephen King, b) a four year old or c) a total fraud.
...and then we end up back at point one again.
Most of the time, I like to write creatively from about 9pm and work through until about 2am. When the sun is still in the sky is when I find it’s best to do all the “other bits”. The day-time is fine time, but the night-time is the right time, yes?
And sometimes, when I don’t have anything at all to do on a particular day, that’s when I tend to have three machines on (one in the kitchen, one in the lounge and one in the study) and all my notebooks out in the open and I drift from room to room as I need to.
If you don’t work like this - or at least a variant of sorts - how the hell do you get anything done? See, I think that if you have to sit in a room with your pen or keyboard, what the hell is the point of trying to wrestle the writing game into submission? That sounds to me like a j.o.b. and as David Lee Roth once said, “just because I’m having fun doesn’t mean I’m not taking it seriously.”
Ain’t that the truth. Comments please creative ones - let me know I’m not alone!
(...and yeah, if ever there was a movie in need of a revamp by Rob Zombie, it’s Rawhead Rex for sure. Bring it on.)
A Question
It was suggested today that I try and separate my personal life from my writing life for the purposes of blogging, but I simply can't do that. They're fuelled by each other. I'm not sure if I'd be quite so interested in some writers who chose to go down the road of being one person today and another tomorrow. It's not right..
Or am I wrong?
A Dark Matter
It's good to keep faith in things you love. Even when those things closest to your heart turn that nasty shitty colour, you can't simply give up and walk away because sooner or later that shitty colour will wash out. The thing you loved won't be the same anymore, it will be different, maybe better, maybe worse but it will still be the thing you loved...
I'm not actually going anywhere highly emotional with this. I've started reading A Dark Matter by Peter Straub. The very same Peter Straub who wrote two of the finest pieces of supernatural fiction in the shape of Shadowland ('79) and Ghost Story ('80) and then tried to be serious until he co-wrote also notable The Talisman with Stephen King ('84) after which point, he just went 'bad'.
Nobody can explain why things like this happen. It may not even be the author - it may be the reader that changed but still, his output was so much not for me that I gave up and only dipped in and out to check that it was still not for me along the way.
Until today.
A Dark Matter is truly a return to form - one should never overuse that statement in case one needs to use it and actually mean it one day. I'm only about 100 pages in but either Straub has come home to roost or I have. I don't really care which. We shall probably never know the answer. All we need to know is that A Dark Matter seethes with weird and understated menace and will be finished in but a couple of days.
No. One should never lose faith - even through the darkest of days.
Uncharacteristically, I also really like the artwork on the cover of the UK and the US edition. This is a world's first.
Scattering the Crow
I probably don't spend enough time as I should here pimping my ass as a music journalist (as opposed to a layabout who watches too much TV) but occassionaly, something happens that's worth mentioning and today, it's the Slaves to Gravity tour. They've been around for a while now but my personal feeling is that they're not given the attention they deserve.
I know you all do exactly what I say because I am the Diabolical One and you shall pay dearly in the afterlife if you don't, so if you've not already checked it out, their album Scatter the Crow is widely available. Go buy it - and then get your ass to one of these places:
Mon 19-Apr Dundee, Dexters
Tue 20-Apr Aberdeen, Tunnels
Wed 21-Apr Glasgow, Cathouse
Fri 23-Apr York, Duchess
Sat 24-Apr Sheffield, Fusion
Mon 26-Apr Wolves, Little Civic
Tue 27-Apr Leicester, Sumo
Wed 28-Apr Cardiff, Club Ifor Bach
Thu 29-Apr Milton Keynes, Crauford Arms
Fri 30-Apr Colchester, Arts Centre
Sun 02-May Oxford, Bullingdon
Tue 04-May London, Underworld
Wed 05-May Brighton, Engine Rooms
Thu 06-May Exeter, Cavern
Fri 07-May Southampton, Hamptons
Sat 08-May Tunbridge Wells, Forum
If you're too damn lazy or don't believe me, do this for a taste of the future:
www.myspace.com/slavestogravityofficial
Lecture over.
Made a cool new friend this morning. Paul over at PS Publishing (www.pspublishing.co.uk) was kind enough to unleash his industry wisdom with regards to I, Wendigo. That bit's of no interest to you but for afficiandos of cool editions of good books, check out the site, there's lots of goodies up for grabs.
More later... work to do...
Currently listening to: Paul Stanley - Live To Win
Currently watching: Supernatural getting better and better with every episode
Currently reading: Between the lines... and judging books by their covers.
Waiting for an Alibi
...but one is unlikely to appear in the near future. Stating that I have been too busy to blog seems so lame, but it's true. I guess that's a good thing but I have actually missed tipping the contents of my head into here.
Real news first. Late last night The Fire Sermon hit 10,000 readers. This made me extremely happy but being an ambitious sort of fool, figured I would wait for the next 10,000 to kick in before I was truly pleased. the debut issue of Too Hot For Dogs is also not far behind this figure, which makes me happier still. This is good news all round as the next graphic short will be heading that way before the month is out.
I've also reached a critical mass with a project that might be sheer genius or absolute suicide. It's called I, Wendigo - and is somewhat obviously, a supernatural short story. Except it's not really a short story at all, it's a complete novel - delivered via twitter. That's right. Every single day in May, a new chapter will be released (sometime in the morning GMT) making 31 chapters of monster mayhem. I don't believe anybody has ever attempted to deliver a whole novel in this way before - and there may be a good reason for that, but I wanted to find out for myself. If you're interested, you can follow the mayhem at twitter.com/iwendigo
Slightly related, the lovely people at Google have slightly revamped their blogging tools and if you're reading this at the source page, you'll see that across the top, just under the header image, there are now some additional stand alone pages. These are in development at the moment, but if you check back later today, you'll find either a "Press" page or an "I, Wendigo" page - haven't decided yet. This is good news as zodiaclung.co.uk takes far too much work for me to keep it updated daily.
Anyway, there's three more of these twitter stories lines up for later in the year. I hope it works otherwise I might have to develop the ideas into longer works - and I have enough to do thank you.
There's also three supernatural crime stories headed out over the next couple of months. All three stories are aimed at competitions and feature my (now slightly modified) creation D.I. Kang. In no particular order they are: Backsliding Fearlessly, Death May Be Your Santa Claus and All Of The Good Ones Are Taken. For the observant or just plain curious, these are indeed all song titles from Mott the Hoople/Ian Hunter. No reason. Just seemed like a cool nerdy thing to do at the time. No further reference will be made to this ever again until somebody asks me. The comps are all high profile things with stuff at the end of them, so we'll see what happens.
More later...
