THE PEN IS MORE PORTABLE THAN THE SWORD
Life On Earth
One day, all bookshops you go into will look like this - or at least variants thereof.
I know we've all seen this before, but if I put it here, I won't have to go looking for it again.
Head down at the moment on various larger projects. There's not a whole lot to say when you're doing nothing but pounding out words one after the other. Perhaps 'pounding' is a slight exaggeration but there are definitely words - and they do come one after the other.
Daughter number one has got a Portuguese exchange student staying with her this week - which is fun and gives me some insight into what life as a taxi driver might be like. Apparently they got dropped home from school yesterday by 'boys' in a 'car'. Great. I have officially entered Hank Moody territory lock, stock and two smoking barrels. Daughter number two meanwhile is 'girl about town' - hitting the West-End of London last night for Matilda, there's a sleepover tomorrow night and another one at somewhere else on Saturday and I believe there was something mentioned about ice-skating somewhere along the line but I kind of lost track along the way. Day by day is about all I have to offer right now. Shall we throw in taking Hector swimming at the weekend? Like, in a proper pool for dogs that humans have to wear wetsuits for to join in? Why not - it's on the radar.
Somewhere amongst all of this, I'm rebuilding my magazine to keep up with the demands of the twenty first century and - well, you might as well go back to the first paragraph and repeat after that, but that's OK. There's a time to mend your sails and a time to hit the open water - I think that's the expression.
The sun is out - no better time to fix your sails.
More - and proper news - tomorrow.
This Hound Is In Love
This is all I have to say today:
That's going to be fifteen days that sell out pretty damn fast. Aside from a few potential Kiss shows later in the year, that's about as good as it gets right now.
Note to self. Don't forget.
The Horn And The Saw
I just spent 20 minutes sawing something in half that I thought would take me about 2 minutes with a brand new hack-saw blade. It was a ram's horn:
It was a present for Hector to chew on but it was so heavy, he couldn't carry it around very far - hence the sawing. I learnt something today - nature intended these things to be unbelievably solid - and nature did not let the ram down.
When you need a job done properly, you will usually find that nature has all the answers and that's why stuff happens the way that it does out there.
Fact.
Welcome To The Future
Here is a picture of the library in Cincinnati - which was demolished in 1955.
So if you are wondering why nobody is using your drastically underfunded local library and can't figure out why it might close soon, the answer is because it doesn't look like this. I would spend all of my time, every single day of the week in the library if it looked even a fraction of this.
Hanging out here would be an adventure in itself. There's nothing remotely exciting or indeed useful about looking at local papers, hiring cheap DVDs and then returning them to a convenient drop box because there are no staff left who know what you're talking about.
Try it. Try going into your local library and asking where they keep their John Creasey collection - or if they have anything by Sheridan Le Fanu. If they go for a keyboard, you must leave a pre-made post-it note on their screen that says:
"You are a shopkeeper, not a librarian."
It's time to face some harsh facts about this world. Some things were better before. Some things do need funding from the public purse. The money is still around - contrary to popular belief, we are still amongst the wealthiest nations in the world - the powers that be have simply decided the cash is better spent on other things. I can't comment on it politically because I don't follow that game enough to do so but if we can afford war and more airport terminals, we can afford real public library facilities that are worth going to war over.
Talking of airports, here's a promo pic of a PanAm 747 from the late 60s:
This is economy class too but the next stage of air travel will not make your coming flight an experience even remotely similar to going on holiday with the cast of Mad Men.
Here's a 1925 Rolls Royce Phantom:
That's nearly 100 years ago. Sure, it's a Roller but you would think somebody would have gone out on a limb and done something of this much value in the years in between.
Seems to me that the only advancements being made any more are inside computers, phones and vacuum cleaners.
Is this really the world we created? When did it get so small? When did we become so easily pleased?
If you too want to sink into a mild depression about how the governments and companies that decorate our society think more about how much something costs than leaving something of value behind, you should follow @History_Pics on twitter. It's an eye opener for sure.
Me? I'm still working on a picture of my possessions that amounts to less than this one from Gandhi. Hopefully, when I die, I will have had to hand the keys to my car in already - or maybe I could spread my belongings out on the bonnet in a grand overblown display of irony.
I don't need glasses for reading, so that's one in the win column for me but man, those shoes look uncomfortable. You can probably find something similar if you drop into Next at the weekend.
The Writing Writer
New story up today: How To Drown The Sound Of Crying. As always, pushing and shoving of said story on your networks would be much appreciated. Cream Eggs available for those who act above and beyond the call of duty.
•••
I see an independent book signing kind of thing about to happen. I think I would like to do it with Black Dye White Noise simply because there's a lot to talk about but it will also be a good exercise for things to come.
What I would really like to do is a signing for The Family Of Noise because as I'm coming into my final ten day stretch of writing it, I can see how the story will finally snap together and I'm really fucking pleased with it - pardon my French. It hasn't always been that way and I still have some doubtful days - a week or so ago, I threw away about 20,000 words on it and rewrote an entire section.
Anyway, for this reading, I might make up some limited edition chap-books (this is a good article on them as is this) that feature some never before seen or published Dirty Realism stories and just give them away - because I can. You can read forever about how to do things properly, but as usual, you actually have to get off your butt and see what works for you. If you play it by the book (so to speak) and don't enjoy it, what's the point?
I think I've got the measure of what would work for me at a book signing. To go in thinking that you will sell some books and make some money should be the last thing on your mind. In fact, you should expect to sell no books at all and then you won't be a) disappointed b) distracted c) demoralised. The whole point of doing a 'book signing' is to connect with a potential audience who may enjoy your company and go out into the world and talk about you with others. So I guess that's one of the things to discuss - whether to actually call it a 'book signing' or not. Perhaps a 'book talk' would be better.
I'll know more later this week. Hopefully I will get to design some posters or flyers for it and get to act like I'm 25 again. I miss those guerrilla days of taking your stuff to the streets.
Heron
I was smoking a cigarette on a bench, watching two swans glide up the river with their new family struggling to follow in their slipstream, when a large heron landed not more than three feet away from me.
I saw it from the corner of my eye but didn't turn my head to look at it directly as I didn't want to scare it, so I continued to watch the swans as they effortlessly muddied the water on their way to swan suburbia.
Five minutes at least had passed before it dawned on me that the heron was doing exactly the same thing as I was.
Maybe we were even thinking the same thing.
Maybe I should offer the heron a cigarette.
I wondered how it is that some are capable of settling down and raising a family while others are pulled to wander the earth in search of... well that's the point. We don't know what we're searching for until we find it, do we.
Then the rules immediately change and the game resets itself again.
I turned to look at the heron and he had the same idea. Our eyes met and the eternal question was answered in a heartbeat.
We sat together for a little while longer and fished for some more questions in the water to ask each other the next time our paths crossed.
A Chair Fit For A King (Of Some Description)
I had the dumbest idea this weekend. I thought it might be a good idea to write a book about life with Hector - you get the idea, kind of like Marley and Me, except of course Hector will never die and I will not be some blindsided and forlorn reporter but instead a tired writer who has seen far too much of life already to be that surprised by anything else it may care to throw.
It seems like a good idea but I'm not wholly convinced. Maybe I'll try an 'episode' out over at Hector's blog and see what the world makes of it.
•••
It must have been some kind of weird moon phase or something this last few days because not only have all the animals been behaving weirdly but I also had another idea that seemed like a great idea at the time. I can't remember where I saw these originally - Eleanor probably shoved them under my nose at some point - but I announced with much conviction that this was a work of genius and that I was going to build one even bigger...
So big would it be in fact, that it would have to stay wherever I had built it.
And so it came to pass that tomorrow, I am going hunting for wood. Not just any wood, but Giant Wood in order that I may build a chair fit for a... a... you know what, if I ever finish building such a thing, I know exactly who the chair will belong to:
Hector: 1 • Marley: 0
I might need a few goes at this. I am not the world's finest at building anything but hey - how hard can it be? Wood + Nails = Chair.
A Short Break From The Desk...
I read an article in the New York Times yesterday in which an author that I've never heard of but may investigate (Teju Cole - though the review of his book isn't doing him any favours at NYT) puts forward the idea that "'the novel' is overrated, and the writers I find most interesting find ways to escape it."
An interesting theory. The interview it seems, has been conducted by email or telepathy because the next question doesn't follow up on what he might mean more extensively - in fact it's as though somebody else came into the room to ask the next question. This is a shame because I for one would love to know his thoughts on that. From what I can gather from his website and biography, he is probably talking about telling stories with photographs or post-it notes spread across the city rather than something like a comic book or graphic novel - and that's fine. Whatever gets each of us through the night.
So - I read that yesterday and I'm still thinking about it today. I know he's more than likely right but I'm damned if I can think of a good reason why. Maybe I'll come back to this idea at some point.
•••
About 15 minutes ago, this young chap went for a haircut. Nothing serious but his fringe would let him into The Ramones right now and while he's there, he might as well have his hobbit paws fixed up too. They had better not do anything else to him. We're funny about things like hair around here.
Hector with some large unmentionable part of a cow... we think,
...and that's all I got! Things to finish, things to start, things to be chased and there are more than likely also things I've forgotten about too.
List Club
List Club is something I would really like to see succeed.
There's a home for everything on the web but to really introduce itself to the twenty first century and to become everything we ever hoped for, it still has some work to do.
Somebody - and more than likely this somebody will have a crappy day job with a manager who is not too fussy about how said person spends their time during the day because he too has a crappy day job but has simply been there longer and is therefore now a manager by default - needs to spend some time cataloging all of the empty halls and clubhouses around the country in order for people with nothing better to do in the evening to form worthwhile social clubs.
The first club I would like to introduce you to is List Club. List Club is not really very much like Fight Club other than it has a rule.
The first rule of List Club is: Make A List.
It doesn't matter what you put on it (nobody will ever see it - that's the second rule of List Club) so long as you're making your list. Ideally between this weeks meeting of List Club and the next, you should not do any of the things you put on it. The fact that you didn't do any of the things on your list will make you feel pretty bad about yourself, so by the time of week two, your list will get a little bit longer as you add things to it that you won't do over the course of the next seven days either.
This will continue for many weeks (because you like getting out of the house even though you're not getting anything done on your list) until finally, the penny will drop and you will write the following on your list:
176: Quit List Club
Having quit List Club, you will thus feel vindicated that you actually achieved something.
First of all though, Somebody has to get the cataloguing of the halls and clubhouses underway - and how is that ever going to happen if it's not on a list?
Life sure can be complicated sometimes.
•••
Footnote: If you've not been paying attention the last couple of days, there are a couple of new stories online - head up to the top and click on Dirty Realism. It's all good stuff. Promise...
Emancipation
This, I believe, is a gem:
"I've lived too close to the woods, for too long, to be frightened by the hoot of an owl."
•••
Over at the Guardian website today, there's a great piece on the very fine Ian Miller - here's some Ent action to get you in the mood.
So, if you think you're really good at getting art out to the masses, think again.
One day, all art will be as good as this - or maybe not...
I forget now why I headed over there in the first place but while I was reading that Miller piece, I spotted a link to an article on which books will never be on your shelves - and it's very helpful and nice to read thank you very much - for the following reason:
There's an excellent comment from a guy (who appears to be a judge and has the name of a judge) that goes something like this.. hang on... I will in fact, cut and paste...
"I have attempted reading four DeLillo novels ('Mao II', 'Cosmopolis', 'The Body Artist' and 'Libra', the latter being one I used to own) but with each one I barely made it to the halfway point before tossing it aside. The characters never really come to life on the page, and the writing is too pretentious by half. Like Norman Mailer, he seems more focussed on his own literary capabilities than actually crafting a decent story or anything resembling a sympathetic character. I've really tried to like him, as so many of my other favourite authors admire him, not to mention friends of mine with otherwise good taste, but even the really short novellas I can't make it through - if anything they're even worse than the longer ones. End of rant..."
Here, he is talking about Don DeLillo of whom, it's true, is a little hard to fall in love with on the first date but I love the guy. I think he's one of the best living writers of the modern age. The fact that somebody who is articulate enough to mention Mailer in his bashing of DeLillo, gives somebody like me a real kick in the pants.
Why? Because when you're doing something creative - anything, not only writing - I think you always hope that everybody will love what you do but as we have seen recently, that's not quite true (check out this Anne Rice story) - the simple fact of the matter is, the more successful you are, the more people there will be around to hate you - or worse still, be cool enough to give you a try and then not understand you.
That indeed, sounds a hell of a lot worse to me.
Time (Is Waiting In The Wings)
Short post. There's a new story up here called Dead Man Talking. Feel free to share.
You Know My Name
True Detective might be the best thing on TV right now but it got a good battering here yesterday by Fleming - the biopic of James Bond creator, Ian Fleming (natch). Aside from it being quite excellent TV whether you're a Bond fan or not (and granted that it took no small amount of liberty with the truth), when you're reminded of Fleming's upbringing and the circles he ran in, it's hardly surprising that he pulled that beautiful white rabbit out of the hat. A finer example of writing about what you pretend you know never existed... no matter how much the truth was tweaked.
I don't mind admitting it, I would really love to be James Bond. Sometimes I think about cutting all my hair off and hooking up with Hugo Boss but I have an inkling that I would just look like a Bond villain no matter how hard I tried.
Today's find on NoiseTrade from No Sinner would be my theme song. It's called Love Is A Madness... lap it up.
Hmm. Would I rather be James Bond or Doctor Who? That's a tough question. Given that my driving is definitely a better skill than my running, I will have to go with Bond - who also regenerates if needs be. Handy skill.
Note to self. Learn how to do that.
Soon.
•••
A little aside here - I don't normally talk much about the day job but it's always exciting when you find somebody that you really want to tattoo you. Believe me, when you look at hundreds of (sometimes close on a thousand) pieces of work on an average day, those moments don't come quite as often as you would think. However, as soon as I saw these pieces from Hannah Willison, my heart went boom:
I think we need to have a conversation this week...
•••
Currently reading this - and it's highly addictive:
Music To Ears. Are You Receiving?
An old project found some new life today. How much should I write about it before I say anything? Not much at all is probably a good idea but it's enough for me to mark it here as "alive" in the annals of my own history. Funny how things work out... it may have something to do with goats though. If you've been around - you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
•••
I'm struggling with finding new music to talk about at the moment. My subscription to rdio is wearing a little thin too. It's cool to have a million things to fall back on for comfort music but it's not firing my cylinders for the future. That said, if you're not familiar with what goes on over at NoiseTrade, then a good use of your time would be to head over there and scout around. Earlier on, I discovered this by acoustic duo Penny and Sparrow:
There is obviously far more happening in the world of 'people doing it for themselves' than there is in the 'business' of selling records itself. Sure - things get picked up and flaunted around the place, but I suspect I can find a dozen things worthy of attention at NoiseTrade on an almost daily basis - conversely, the record industry is showing me nothing new right now.
Don't take my word for it. It's great idea for a website, delivered well and it has value behind it for those committed to hosting their music on there. I think we shall have more of this kind of thing here. Particularly on days when I don't actually have much to write about. Win/Win if you ask me...
Now, back to work...
True Detective: Bring it
Just when you thought TV had bottomed itself out and was sitting back on its laurels waiting for us all not to notice there was nothing on, along comes True Detective to prove that even after all this time, there's still nothing quite as satisfying as a pair of detectives out of their depth.
The first episode hit Sky Atlantic this week (in the UK) which means there's plenty of time to catch up but seriously, the last time I actually wished I had written a cop show was when Life On Mars arrived. I feel the same about this. Very, very cool. Here's the trailer:
I don't want to say anything more about it but if a poster, my hand on heart word and a trailer aren't enough for you, this write up will fill in some blanks and light your fire.
Just thought you ought to know because things like this are very important.
Just Sit Here For The Present...
Spent a day in Cardiff this weekend, fixing, sorting, arranging and finishing various day-job type things off. I like Cardiff - it's got a lot of soul about it.
Took a couple of hours out on Saturday afternoon to do a photo-shoot. Just one of those things on the list of things to get done that's haunted me for a year or so but now it is done and am very happy. I'm more than very happy actually but you need to be careful over saying how happy you really are when you're talking about things to do with the self, lest you find yourself looking like an arrogant dirtbag. How can I put it? My buddy Scott did an excellent job on positioning me around the store we hijacked and the results are technically top notch. As for the bloke in the middle of all the shots, you can keep those opinions to yourself - though my opinion of them is that I think I might need to catch up on some sleep.
Not entirely sure that the staff and public were quite as keen on my choice of soundtrack album (Pictures For Pleasure - Charlie Sexton) for the afternoon. People can be so uneducated. Regardless, special thanks to Kellys Records for putting up with us - but I did manage to sell somebody an Everly Brothers album, which is no mean feat...
Anyway, here's an out-take. The remainder will appear over time somewhere - there's one on the front page right now. I think I'm pretending that Scott didn't just tell me there were some Alvin Stardust albums in front of me. I would imagine they will be there for a very, very long time...
During the darkness that was Saturday night, Wayne Simmons dropped by and we swept a table in the hotel of debris and ran up some material for another writing podcast. We were going to talk about noir fiction but talked for so long about other things that we figured the noir side of things might go on for quite some time - so instead, we talked about how we write. What works, what doesn't, how, where, why... those sorts of things. I'll hook it up again when he's done his thing with it but meantime he also found the time to say some nice things about The Eternity Ring. Here's the link so you can look at it over at his place (which is only right) but I'll also paste his review here because nobody ever says nice things about me and it made me feel good:
One of my favourite reads from school was CIDER WITH ROSIE by Laurie Lee, a vivacious memoir of a young boy’s life. I was an incredibly imaginative lad, for better and for worse, and Lee’s magical account of his War era childhood, and the characters that punctuated such, very much resonated with me. Sion Smith’s THE ETERNITY RING has a lot in common with Lee’s memoir both in terms of tone and style.
The story follows its narrator, an average boy who becomes obsessed by crows after witnessing something quite fantastical, involving the birds, down by the lake close to where he lives. We follow the boy through to manhood and eventually old age, the birds never far from view. And just like with CIDER, the seemingly ordinary becomes extraordinary when seen through the narrator’s eyes.
There’s a magical sway to this story, the crows taking on an almost shamanic quality after our protagonist has them tattooed onto his skin. The events that transpire thereafter could be interpreted as supernatural. And yet despite this fact, with an accessible writing style, and working class protagonist, Smith succeeds in keeping the story quite grounded.
I read THE ETERNITY RING in one sitting. It’s an enigmatic and engaging book that you’ll find hard-pushed to put down once you start. There’s a dark fairy tale quality about the novella that I really enjoyed. And just like all good fairy tales, its resolution proves both satisfying and mystifying all at once.
And there you have it - I didn't even pay him! I did buy him a coke, but he bought me one too so that doesn't count. Go read something. It won't take you long. I'm sure he would have pasted me to the wall if it sucked. He's from Belfast don't you know...
In other Eternity Ring news, I think I may have found who I was looking for when it comes to an illustrated edition. Pending - but not for long perhaps.
Finally, Nick Lord (mentioned a few posts ago) has finished up his portrait of Hilary Mantel and as of today, it hangs very nicely in the British Library. It looks like this:
Nice work Sir - you can read about it here. Very intrigued to see what he will make of me. I'm sure there are lots of walls in the British Library just begging to be adorned with that face...
Tommy Used To Work On The Dock...
We interviewed Tommy Lee this week for the mag and one thing really sticks out from it: how did Tommy Lee hit 51? I'm not talking drugs or anything else - simply where the hell did all that time go? Anyway, he then goes on to say that he's become obsessed over getting into shape and looking great for a 51 year old. I was quite jealous when I read that - not that I'm anywhere near 51 just yet...
Inspired? Yeah... I was. My plans for getting my act together on that front keep slipping through my fingers and that's not good - there was actually a plan too. Foolishly, it involved a very specific martial art that I can't find a class for. I don't think my knee can handle jujitsu any more - in fact I'm not sure it can handle a lot of high impact arts so I'm on the hunt for some kind of kendo class... I think.
If anybody happens to be passing by that knows of any such classes in Kent, it would be good to hear from you. I'm open to anything that involves not relying on that knee quite so much as jujitsu and it will get strong again but right now it's getting nothing and that's a bad thing.
So, starting tomorrow morning, it's back on the yoga mat to at least try and bring it back into shape. If you're laughing, it means you've never tried it. It's amazingly and incredibly hard.
Then again, maybe I've just been watching too much Arrow. Let me weigh this up...
Watch more Arrow vs getting your ass in gear. Hmm.
The Reading List: We Are Here
This is not so far away from me at all right now:
Is it good? Damn straight it is. Some of the reviews around the interwebs are not so good but I think folk have simply been largely unprepared for his style and substance. Michael Marshall is something of an acquired taste perhaps. His trilogy that begins with The Straw Men is wonderful. Some of his other books even better and some not so much. The Straw Men is a fine place to begin for the curious but if you're feeling brave and trust me, We Are Here is a real firecracker. I've read a lot of good books lately but none that have pulled me down the rabbit hole with my shoes on.
Much like Graham Joyce, Michael Marshall has a most unique voice and the curse of not dressing the same as the others is that it takes time for people to adjust - but people should not be so fucking lazy in my opinion because they have had long enough to get their feet wet. 'The People' are missing out on seriously good stories and fictional experiences.
Sheesh - what do I have to do to convince you? Open a bookstore? It would serve coffee and have several large armchairs that you could get both your legs in if I did. Maybe a dog would relax under the counter during the peculiar opening hours. If it was 1996 again, I might be quite tempted by that idea...
The Eternity Ring: Unleashed
So, there you have it - new site is live. I don't have an awful lot to add apart from you might have missed a couple of weeks of posts to trawl back through. Importing the older material will take a while... there's a part of me that thinks I might leave it archived and offline but we'll see as the next few days go by.
Let's move along the bus.
I've gotten myself into a good routine these last few days and conjuring a good 4000 words a day (or night as it happens to be) which makes me happy. If you've been following any progress I was making with The Family Of Noise, it turns out that it's asking to be rather a lot longer than we first thought. Some new people have turned up recently and pushed it in a different direction. This book has a lot to say without saying any of it directly.
I really hope it's as good as I want it to be. We'll never know until it's complete though, will we.
The Eternity Ring is now available to buy in the store - well it is for all digital devices bar the kindle. That will be along in a couple of days. Next job as previously discussed... perhaps an illustrated edition. And perhaps an audio edition too read by yours truly.
