...BUT WAIT

Is it OK to change your mind about something important? I think it is. 

I was sharing my declaration of not publishing The Family Of Noise through Bad Hare in favour of the more traditional route with a close friend and he asked what exactly a publisher was going to do for me that I wasn't going to do for myself.

This is a really good question. It made me think all day, all night and quite a lot of the next day about it. If you're interested, I'll talk you through some of it.

1. Getting a publishing deal would be great. Seriously. It means somebody believes in you enough for them to invest their time and money into your work. 

1B. This alone is no guarantee of success or failure. It simply means somebody else will pay for a quantity of your book to be printed and they will make their way into the marketplace... at which point the public will decide to buy it or not to buy it. If readers buy enough, it will be deemed a success and if they don't it will be deemed a failure... but only if you only tend to speak of these things in financial terms. Before you got that deal, you were likely simply quite pleased with yourself that you finished it at all. People buying a book in huge numbers does not mean it's a brilliantly written book (see all the things ever said by critics about Fifty Shades) but people buying a book in not very many numbers at all, doesn't mean it sucks (go hunt down The Three Evangelists by Fred Vargas. I can hear you asking 'who the hell is he?' from here... and he is a she). 

When you look at it like this, you might as well stop questioning it at all because it's a water tight argument, but it would still be nice to swan about the world for 24 hours telling anybody who will listen you got a publishing deal. Then you can sit around playing with your hair for many months on end before it finally comes out.

Impatient? Me? 

2. Given that I can make InDesign and PhotoShop do just about as much as any publishing company can, what exactly am I handing over my book for? The answer - and this is the real pig-sticker - is publicity and promotion. If people don't know about it, how are they going to be able to buy it? So far as I know, that all comes out of any advance/future sales you might get anyway - if you should be lucky enough to get a budget assigned to you in the first place.

2B. The plot thickens.

3. Amazon and iBooks have provided a good platform for people to jump into the water, but visibility wise, those are even harder shops to get your face known than a high street bookseller. If I wanted to make my books available digitally (which I may), I can make them available right here and not have to play with those stores at all - 

3B. This may seem slightly ironic but it's their own business model, so er... thanks guys.

4. Here's the kicker: I like designing my own book covers, I like deciding when they're ready, I like working with (professional) friends as an editing/back-up team and I really like the fact that there is nobody between my audience and me. 

4B. I don't honestly know if I'm right or wrong but I have no choice, I have to choose. If I choose to go it alone, the book comes out in a few days. If I wait, it could be a year or more and I could be dead by then.  

All of which reminds me of that Bukowski quote: "They didn't want to write. They wanted to succeed at writing."

Thanks for talking through it with me. Bear with me for the rest of the week while I get it ready... and we shall not come back to this place again unless somebody Really Important knocks on my door. 

Not arrogant. I just want to write. Hopefully,  you just want to read.

REFRAMING THE FAMILY

A note to those who like to read my work: I'm putting my plans to publish The Family Of Noise (it was due out April 14) on hold for four really good reasons.

Last week, I sent a few copies out to a variety of friendly editors, writers and proofers I'm friends with for them to cruise through the pages looking for holes in the road (i.e.: typos) and something I didn't expect happened.

The first one came back with: "I hope you're not thinking of putting this out yourself. This deserves some proper representation and a good shove into the world." To cut many long stories short, so did the second, third and fourth responses - variants thereof anyway.

I slept on it and decided all four of them can't be wrong and if they are, it was still worth my best shot. After all, the goal around here was never to staunchly publish my own material forever - it was to get my work out into the world in the best way possible at the time and this persistent flag waving from trusted people has convinced me it's the right thing to do.

And that's pretty much where the story must end for now. I will say nothing more while I work behind the scenes but I'll keep you clued in if and when I can.

OWL KILLERS

Time to start work on a little side project called OWL KILLERS. Let's see if there's any of the old majick left in the tank because there's things I can do in songs that I can't do on the page. 

It could be a long night...

FAMILY VALUES

I've been making waves with The Family Of Noise this week. I've finally caught up with myself and am bringing this baby on home. I still have another round of proofing to go through but the whole concept of releasing it has now moved from "I'm sick of looking at this damn book" to actually being excited about it. It's been a long time coming. I can't write it any better than it is now so the current state of play is that it's out with the proofers and book police that will happily point out any mistakes I've made and missed. We will be sticking with the new April 14th publication date though. It will be ready before that but it's nice to have some room to breathe. 

Over at The Family Of Noise page in the store, there's now a synopsis of the book along with a short prologue that doesn't appear in the book called SPOILERS which sadly, contains no spoilers at all.

••• 

With that on a back-burner for a few days, I figured this would be a good time to start work on the next episode of the Bad Hare Days podcast. If you can call sitting around making playlists of songs to include 'work', then work is exactly what I've been doing.

I'm looking forward to this next one.

While I'm on the subject, I heard Episode Zero will be getting an FM broadcast airing sometime this coming weekend. I'll post and tweet when I know more, but that will change the rules of the game somewhat - particularly if I can find a regular home for it.

•••

It's a good feeling coming to the end of this. My hair is a lot greyer but it didn't fall out along the way, my patience with myself has been pushed to the limit but more than anything, it got finished and if you're going to set yourself up as a writer, that's all there is to your story.

NOTHING BUT THIEVES

A million things to do on the table today, so a short post to help you through the start of the week.

There's nothing like stumbling upon a band that roars and throws wonderful shapes in the moonlight. The video below is from a band called Nothing But Thieves and they are fucking excellent. I think you can listen to pretty much everything they've released so far at that link so go do the right thing...

BAD HARE DAYS

I've wanted to do a podcast here for a long time... so I did. It's here. There's even a link up at the top called LISTEN for future reference. 

I learned something doing this. Even though I spent years getting used to listening to myself being played back at me, being in a recording situation in a studio with some other guys is a lot different to sitting at home talking to yourself. If you've ever wanted to know what's it's like to be hyper aware of yourself, give it a whirl. It's an odd sensation to say the least - but it will pass and I'll get used to it.

To give it a proper try-out, I pressed some buttons and we did a trial 'broadcast' of it at Sleep When Your Dead over in Cardiff. Nobody was sick, nobody left the shop mid-haircut and nobody threw bricks through the window. I'll put that in the win column for today:

* Note: Nobody associated with this podcast endorses the cutting of hair but whatever gets you through the night guys.

OTHER PEOPLE SUNDAY (1)

Looks like it's Other People Sunday. I'll probably forget next Sunday but it seems like a good day to blog about all the things I've seen this week, that I've taken notice of. First up is the soon to be released (September 8th, so not that soon) illustrated edition of Joyland from Hard Case Crime. Joyland is likely the best thing Stephen King has written in twenty years. I loved every moment of it, so much so that I took some time out to review it here.

Any book cover illustrated by Glen Orbik is a good book cover but this one captures the entire Joyland world in a pretty little snow-globe all of its own. All of which leaves me with just one unanswered question...

Where are the Hard Case posters? 

•••

Talking of posters, back in this neck of the woods, one of my favourite artists - Richey Beckett - has just released this fine looking piece in his store (from David Robert Mitchell’s new horror movie IT FOLLOWS):

There's another variant of the poster that looks like this:

Maybe that will match your curtains better. Regardless of your taste in decor - go buy something from him. I'm actually running out of room around here but hey, you can always make room for valuable additions to your life, can't you.

•••

Blast From The Past this week comes in the form of something I had forgotten all about. So much so, that the book I meant to buy a very long time ago has since been updated. Take a look at this:

If ever there was a subject matter that sat close to my heart, it's this. 

Men dressed in fur and looking peculiar in a field for no apparent reason other than to disturb passers-by? 

Maybe. Maybe not.

These images are from a book called Wilder Mann: The Image of the Savage by an insanely talented photographer who goes by the name of Charles Ferger (because that's his name). There are more from the series on his webpage for the book here.

I would like to interview this man. Sooner rather than later.

•••

On the record deck this week has been Goon from Tobias Jesso Jr. If you think all the creative male singer/songwriters died somewhere back in 1975, stick your nose in and see what you think. 

One man and a piano shouldn't be allowed out into the world unaccompanied. I like it. A lot. There's some fine songs lurking here... and if you do like what you hear, there's a tour on the road right now with some UK dates in the bag.

•••

On the reading front, I'm on a go slow due to writing but still enjoying ploughing my way through Knausgård (if your still unsure about him, there's a great piece in the New York Times which should help you make up your mind one way or another) and somewhere along the way, I picked up a copy of Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons which despite a royally mixed bag on the review front, is suiting me just fine.

•••

And here's a playlist if you're a user of rdio.com - because I felt like it.

Le Fin. 

WALKING THE LINE

I am, without question, going to blow my own personal deadline for releasing The Family Of Noise clean out of the water by at least 14 days. If you were pacing the floor and beating yourself about the head with a hammer waiting for it... sorry.

I could probably squeeze it out but I wouldn't be 100% behind it and that's not a good place to be when you're climbing the cliff-face with no safety net. I thought long and hard about this and finally came to the decision that it's taken this long... another couple of weeks is not going to change the world.

Reason? Just as I come into this last stretch, I find myself with a huge magazine redesign on my hands. That's what day jobs do: keep a roof over your head, food in your mouth and sometimes steal time as well. All of which is fine by me and like I say, what's two weeks between friends? 

I shall find a new date and then we can pretend I never said anything.  

••• 

Talking of hammers, the pile of bodies filed under "Jesus, look at this huge stack of work from friends I haven't written about", is not getting much smaller, so let's tick another box:

A little while back, I did some work with Richie Guy - and we got to be buddies... of a ships that pass in the night kind anyway. We don't see each other a whole lot but as a tattoo artist, he's a class act who is a far better an artist than he thinks he is and only half as good as he's going to be. 

As a thanks - not that any was needed because I never do anything I don't believe in - he sketched me up this picture of Johnny Cash...

It was in a frame - and I got it all the way home in one piece too but earlier this morning when I came to hang it on the wall in my Writing Room, I accidentally put a hammer through the glass, which is how it now comes to be taped to the wall. 

Oddly, the tape does not offend me. It reminds me of being thirteen, but I'll reframe it this evening and hang it properly. 

You can find Richie here on twitter. He does have some other places online, but I like his twitter feed because there's no other noise on there apart from what he does. If you're in the market, you know what to do.

Thanks Rich. 

•••

Now... if I have timed everything right, I have a couple of hours to dedicate to getting the Raw Sharks project back on track and maybe also do something with my bears. 

IF YOU DON'T THINK, THEN YOU SHOULDN'T TALK

I appear to have lost the threads of writing this week. The tighter I hold onto the rope, the more frayed ends seem to be sticking out of my white knuckled fist. Such is writing I guess. Not every day gets to be a leisurely walk in the park with the sun on your back, though it does make me wonder. Day in, day out, I see guys tattooing original art (at least up at the top end of the scale) and I sometimes wonder where it all comes from? Is it easier to create a single image than it is three thousand words? One certainly doesn't take more time than the other. Maybe writers would generally be more productive if we knew somebody was going to hand over a fistful of crisp twenty pound notes at the end of the day. That would be an interesting experiment don't you think?

Would you cough up £300 for Stephen King or Neil Gaiman to write a short story for you and only you? What would you do with it when the author handed it over? Scan it and post it online for all to see or stash it away somewhere you could purr over it in private? How long could the author keep it up? Indefinitely? Who knows.

It's funny how different types of art prompt a different response but I'm not going to think too hard about it because it hurts my head.

••• 

To relieve the hurt behind my eyes, some lovely person released the teaser poster for SPECTRE this morning. If it's anything like the last three Bond films, this is likely to be the highlight of my cinematic year. Sadly, it's not out until at least early November (or October 23 if you happen to be in Denmark) which is kind of wishing my life away but I'm not holding my breath over anything else... and that includes the ruck of movies from the Marvel camp.

Here's that poster... plus another that I kinda like too:

After a day of 'engineering' tracks in GarageBand - that podcast is still on its way - and proofing The Family Of Noise, lying around in front of Casino Royale sounds like lightning hatched in a bottle.

••• 

Despite - or should that be in spite of - my earlier statement of writing being like trying to hold on to an unravelling rope, now that I look closer at one of my notebooks on the table, I find this to be a huge lie.

Two poems have been written this week. I'd forgotten I had done both, possibly because of the hour of darkness at which they were created. These are both headed for a collection called (forgive me if I've mentioned this already) Fear Makes The Wolf Look Bigger. 

Actually, I use the word poetry loosely here. If you consider the thousands of words Bukowski laid down to be poetry, then yes it is, but maybe it would be more honest to say they were short stories without a structure. Fragments of a narrative. 

Yeah... That sits a lot more comfortably with me.

ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN

Honest, I only went in the bookstore because I needed coffee and that's where the coffee shop is. I didn't mean to come out with this but it was staring at me all the time I was in there. I went over to see what it wanted and the rest was history:

I shall chew this up and spit it out on the other side of the weekend. Sonic Youth may be a sign of a time gone by, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't go back and look. Maybe I should start reviewing books around here. Not all books but certainly some. I see there's a 'category' button that I can tag posts with which looks like a decent way forward. 

I didn't know this was even coming, let alone out in the world but with a little digging I find that it's also available as two different limited editions that look like this:

And this:

If you're a super-loaded fan, the best place I can find to get hold of them are right at the source which is Faber Social - respectively (to the pictures above) those links are here and here. 

For the record, I am not the world's biggest listener of Sonic Youth (and certainly not of her new band Body/Head) but I read a fair whack of this in the store and it's damn good regardless. 

LISTEN LIKE THIEVES

I spent some of this afternoon diving back into the podcast that I'd begun to work on for something I have planned called The Dope Show. I suspect it's a lot like shooting on film or paying for studio time in that before everything went digital, you would plan what you were going to do and give it your best shot until, over a really long period of time, you got to know what you were doing. 

Knocking ten bells out of GarageBand while I make repeated efforts to get it right is pretty handy for getting better but it seems to kill the spontaneity a little. Once I've figured out how to work the desk properly, I'll be heading back to an analogue state of mind. It's fun though and if I'm concerned about anything it's not the content I'm dropping in of my own creation but rather the music I've chosen to go along with it... which rather begs the question, why bother?

File under pending. Hitting the mixing desk again tomorrow.

•••

Meanwhile, filed under "Jesus, look at this huge stack of work from friends I haven't written about", is umm, a huge stack of work I should have written about, so starting now, let's rebalance the scales a little:

My lovely friend Abril Andrade Griffith out in Ohio has been busy laying down the paint recently. Here's a sample of her beautiful work, posted here for rather obvious reasons – steal the image and hounds will bay outside your window for the rest of your time on earth, but please feel free to enjoy it with all your heart aside from that.

Two important things to remember if you have instantly fallen in love: 

The first is that she has a store at her own site and also an extensive store at FineArtAmerica where you can buy her work - it's one thing to admire it on your screen but another thing entirely to be hanging it in your house. Trust me on that. Secondly, she also has a page at Patreon where you can throw in a few pounds/dollars every month to help her keep being that artist - it ain't easy being a full-time creator in the real world. This is the first time I've come across Patreon as a concept, so she can count me in. I like this idea a lot - it bears further investigation for sure.

Anyway, get out there and rummage in her work, you won't be disappointed and being as I know she stops by here regularly, this is a good place to say 'Hi Abril!' A good place to say, yes I owe you a very long email and also a good place to say thanks for getting flustered over the pic I posted of myself yesterday. 

That last bit didn't really happen at all but it's been a long day and we could both use a few laughs.

The Wizard

I owe the world an apology... if you missed me at all, it's because I've been busy growing my hair:

Not sure how all that grey stuff got in there but it's OK - I believe this to be the first year of the 'wizard era'... although I have no intention of growing a full-on beard to go with it. There's no point in being a wizard if people point at you and say things like 'hey, look at that wizard'.

That's like joining MI6 and wearing a badge that says 'spy'.

Talking of majick - which is a great link if I do say so myself - I read a killer story today about crows, but let me start at the beginning. A couple weeks ago, the BBC ran a story about a little girl who fed crows in her garden and found herself rewarded with valuable trinkets for her trouble. The story is totally worth a read and you can find it right here. 

Cut to today and the BBC ran a follow up story in which a whole bunch of other people have mailed in their own crow stories - that links to here - but before you run off to read it, read all of it and then go back and re-read because after the picture of the cat collar, there's a submission from a hippy-witch called Amethyst. I'm sure she's a lovely person. I actually know somebody called Amethyst and she truly is a loving, genuine person. 

I don't really. I made that up to ease my conscience about the following: 

I imagine she wears purple a lot. She will own a cat, own at least one tarot card deck and spends much of her time telling people that there's no such thing as black or white magic - simply "magic that is used for good or ill". All of which is wonderful food for your soul if you live at home, are 13 and watch Twilight once a week. By dropping her story into the article however, the real majick of crows, ravens, magpies and rooks is totally diminished.

You don't have to pretend you bought some jewellery - which you immediately and carelessly lost - so you can tell a story of how you were re-united by the birds. That's not how magic works.

"Three weeks later... three magpies... three minutes..." Come on? I have three magical words that may help: 'Pull yourself together'. The real magic is in all of the other stories and if you can't see that, then quite honestly you deserve to spend your evenings flirting with Mr Grey. 

On your kindle.

Gerald Gardner will be rolling in his grave.

* Footnote: My scowling face should probably be aimed at the compiler of the story for letting it in and not Amethyst herself. Sadly, said compiler remains anonymous, so I will let it stand.

PROOF OF LIFE

Work continues on proofing and fixing The Family Of Noise - I've read this book so many times now, I'm not even sure what I think of it, but if it's finished, my job now is just to make sure that it's right. The irrepressible Zadie Smith wrote a post a couple of days ago about how to edit your own work, so if you're in the same boat, it's very much worth a read. For my part, I can't do any of this as a manuscript and that's likely because of the other thing I do all day long. I would venture that most authors will load up their printer, return to it every half hour or so to reload paper and eventually kick back feeling very satisfied at the big stack of paper in front of them. Things around here work a little differently.

I totally agree with Zadie about seeing yourself as the reader and not the author with you book, but for me to do that, it's simpler to actually produce a single proofing copy of what would be the final product. In this instance, this is proof number two: 

Extreme perhaps but it works for me on a grand scale. Chewing through something that looks and feels like a final product a reader would be paying for quite focusses the mind - nobody wants their inadequacies falling into the hands of the public.

So, today's job is making these 270-odd pages of amendments and reprint again for a final sweep by three other people who have never seen it before - which is also the time when I need to nail down the back cover and filter that information into its page at the Bad Hare store. It may seem long winded, but I like doing it this way. It feels very real, like you've had more than a hand in every single page.

Why this is important to me, I don't know. If somebody gave me fifty grand, maybe I would care a little less. Now there's something I'd love to put to the test. 

Coffee would be on me. All night long.

•••

Also on the table right now is a sweeping re-arrangement of travel plans for the rest of the year and the part of doing this myself that I always struggle with - promotion. Somewhere out there, I'm sure there are people that do this as a job with their hands tied behind their back and never break a sweat. I need to find myself one of these people and draft them into the inner sanctum... and then arm them with fireworks and chocolate. Back in the days of brandishing a microphone and a guitar, I was good at such things. I don't know what changed - maybe it was the 'gang' mentality of there being four of us. 

Anyway - if there's travel on the cards, that also means there are opportunities I ought to be engineering. Time to crack open a calendar and see what gives.

•••

Meanwhile, Noel Gallagher and his High Flying Birds have a new album out this week and it's more than damn good. A real singer/songwriter album and there ain't many of them about these days.

Class. On a stick.

A RETURN TO ETERNITY

I've decided to make The Eternity Ring available as a free download for all digital devices - so long as you have a digital device that more than 1% of the human race are using.

There is no particular rhyme or reason to this but in a nutshell, it's too short for me to publish as a decent sized physical product, so this is the way we shall do it. The only caveat to the 'free' thing is that you have to download it here because I don't much want to play with amazon, apple or anybody else on this, so to embrace the raven, you need to jump to this page.

Le Fin. 

FAMILY VALUES

This afternoon, I finished The Family Of Noise. 

Yeah - it surprised me as well. One moment, there I was chipping away at it, nudging some things around and re-titling some of the chapters (which is actually still ongoing), when uncharacteristically, the rain outside stopped for a moment. I looked up at the skylight to see why it was quiet and when I looked back at the keyboard, it announced itself as a wrap.

Using 'The Rules Of Stephen King', this means I can have a ‘Misery Smoke’, but it doesn’t sound that special when I tag it onto the end of the other 7,000 I’ve already smoked whilst writing it. No matter. I shall smoke it anyway - it’s the spirit of the thing that counts.

So what next? I’m going to hurl it at the world - out of the window - on April 1st. That’s a month behind schedule but what’s 31 days between friends? That gives me a month to organise promo and redesign the cover for a limited edition (x100) hardback run. That’s also enough time to read it at least six times to catch Nasties That Make You Look Stupid and also even hand it around a few people who know what to look out for.

Anyway, when I take off the leash, I hope some of you like it. It’s been a long time coming. I’ll be mentioning it a lot during the next month or so but I ain’t gonna apologise for that. That’s what I’m here for right?

 Me? I gotta move on to the next one.

•••

That's all folks - I have a hot date with a Cameron Crowe movie and kettle. 

REGROUP

A few days back, via the day job, I got an email from some guys in Norfolk collectively known as ember films. They make films. A lot of people make films but these guys make 'special' films. Films with heart. Films with soul. Films that I've seen, enjoyed and didn't know were created by their hand. Here's a short from a new series from them called 'ember presents' that's been created around my friend Fade FX:

There's something about the way these guys work that I really like - so I told them. I told them why and then I asked them if they would like to do something with me sometime this year. That was where the conversation ended actually because we had other things to talk about... proper work stuff and I'm nothing if not professional, but the idea lingered. 

When you go out on a limb to be independent and make your own way, you should probably give these things more than a passing thought. Which is where it gets interesting. Yesterday afternoon and well into the evening, I had my 'sandcastle/sky' head on about how you go about saying all the things you would want a potentially watching world to know about yourself in less than four minutes. 

Hypothetically speaking, could you do it? Could you wrap yourself up into a four minute pitch? It's probably more like 60 seconds really once you add the visuals that go to make up a film, but it's an interesting road to take yourself down. If you can say what you need in less than 10 seconds, you probably need to disconnect your netflix account. On the other hand, if you need more than four minutes without any visuals, maybe you're spreading yourself too thin.

Anyway, I don't know if we will ever do anything together - I'd like to, but that's not really the point. The point is, this is a company of great guys doing some fine, fine things for the right reasons. Go check out their work and if you happen to be in the market to be needing a film of quality and value, get in touch with them.

Seriously impressed. Watch this incredible trailer for BBC: One Planet - coming soon apparently - but not soon enough for me.

•••

So while I was chewing all of that over, I realised it was already nearly the end of February... and how the hell did that happen? Writing aside - or perhaps because I've been writing - I've gotten behind with a whole bunch of important stuff: the Raw Sharks project, the P.INK day project and the Romanian bear rescue. That's the 'trouble' with outside projects, they have to remain outside otherwise they take over, things falls apart and then everything is over, so I'm going to take a couple of days out next week and get myself back on track.

Expect updates in the extreme... and bear fund-raising. I'm not great at fund-raising or asking for help of any description, so I may have to enlist some external assistance on that front - and while that's still asking for help, it's a lot easier to ask one person than thousands.

That's what I keep telling myself.

•••

Lately, I've been getting very itchy feet to get back to some kind of martial art. I need to get out of the house at least a couple of times a week and do something else other than 'think' soon or my head might explode. I've probably mentioned this a few times over the last few months but I've reached a critical mass with it, so during that time off mentioned above, I'm going to book myself a couple of hours with my old Jiu-Jitsu instructor and see how well my knees hold up. If they're OK (or at least reasonable), I'll head back there. If not, I'm hoping he might have some suggestions as to where I might head next but I rather suspect some form of Tai-Chi is on the cards - which is absolutely fine... I just kinda miss being thrown on the floor.

It's good for the soul.

•••

And that's it - I'm outta here. 

COFFEE. LOTS OF IT.

Out on the web, there's a great site called Cultivating Thought. Basically, it brings together some great authors with some great artists and between them, they create nifty works of art - with something to say - that look something like this:

It's not a super new idea - there are hundreds of abused take-out coffee cups out in the world, but I really like the idea and figured I would like to do something similar, so I bought my coffee and then did a deal with The Man to procure a few test subjects.

Where this may lead, who knows, but it's a lot closer to leading somewhere now I actually have some cups. 

Anyway - on my travels, I saw that one of the artists who contributed to the Chipotle series is Pat Perry. Take a look at these:

This is some of the most wonderful art I've seen in a long time - the kind of art that makes me wish I could draw. The kind of art that makes me actually want to go out and buy some pencils and a big pad and practice - because if I could draw half as well as this, I think I would be knocking out off-kilter books with a startling regularity. It's been a long time since I've picked up a pencil with any intention of using it as intended though. 

Anyway, I have cups and a loose plan. There's a Sharpie around here somewhere so tonight, I'm going to see what damage I can do.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TRACKS

I seem to have spent most of the last couple of days making my replacement MacBook look exactly the same as its predecessor. Now that it is more or less exactly the same - minus the junk - it doesn't seem so new which is a little disappointing. New toys should be thrilling for at least a few hours. Still, on the plus side, I have a good three or four years before my fingers start to rub the letters off the keyboard. That's what happened to the other one - I got by just fine with it but anytime somebody wanted to use it, not so much. 

Win/win situation in the real world.

•••

Back in the days of Burn and Zero magazine, I came across a singer/songwriter with a voice to die for when he released his first single - Without - and a fine collection of songs in his arsenal. This week, Jack Savoretti - for it was he - has a new album out called Written In Scars and for no other reason than because I said to, you should go buy it (not stream it, but buy it - preferably from here where Jack might take more money than normal for things like strings and food) and then you will have eleven reasons to know why I told you to.

It looks like this:

•••

That's all I got today - I did have more but I've just had a great idea after waiting all day for it to appear.

Mustn't let it get away.

ORDINARY MADNESS IS OUT THERE

I'm heading into London later for some laser removal treatment which will co-incide nicely with today being 'giving some books away day'. That sounds more serious than it really is but I need to start chipping away at this stack of non-essentials, so today's gift to the world is to leave a trilogy of Doctor Who books on the train and hope they find their way to a loving home. It's as good a plan as trying to find somebody that might want them. 

Things like this are best left to the hands of fate.

•••

A few days ago, I ordered myself one of these:

I'm not a big badge fan but this is one message that needs endorsing. If you're feeling the same, you can order one for yourself from The Guardian here where a minimum of £1.32 of each badge sold will be donated to the Reporters Sans Frontières Charlie Hebdo appeal. If you're feeling a little more Parisienne, there's also this alternative:

Some things are worth making a stand over - and this is one of them.

•••

While I was in Milan, writing was good. Writing came easy. I wrote five (maybe six) new poems which is something I've not done for quite a few years, so I've started thinking about publishing a themed collection sometime later in the year. I'm toying with calling it Fear Makes The Wolf Look Bigger. Let's see if it sticks and still sounds like a good idea in a few weeks. Playing with the design of a book cover with that name also sounds fun. I might get started later and see what gives.

Milan also brought the Milan chapter of Cities Of The Dead to life. Three chapters down. Seven to go. Did I ever announce what Cities was about here? I don't think I did so it will be a surprise. To both of us.

So by way of explanation, I had intended many extended Milan posts while away - hence Milan:1 post - but it turned into valuable and long material so sorry about your damn luck with that. 

•••

Laser session now complete. If you're interested in whether it hurts, yes it does but it's not so totally unbearable that you want to run away and cry about it. Plus, it doesn't last that long either - a few minutes at most. Totally worth the time and money spent - if you're in the market for some tattoo removal, drop my buddy Wayne an email here and tell him I sent you. He knows his shit inside out and he has the best laser this side of Panama.

•••

Finally, two things that caused me to frown about the state of the human race today:

1. Woman on the underground would not keep her phone still while I was trying to read her ebook over her shoulder. She kept tipping it, flipping pages and then switching to her email and looking at pictures of false nails. Result? Whoever wrote that book made a sale but not a long term fan. Shit like that is important.

2. I'm no man hater (being one and everything) but there's a new thing virus spreading its way around the London Underground in which I see men have taken to sitting with their legs wide open - presumably this is an attempt to show the women of London how virile and sexy they are. Sadly, all I see is a bunch of small boys who don't even have a cat at home to stroke during the ten minute freeview. Come on guys... Mr Tobin taught us better than that.

Next thing you know, you'll be manscaping  and thinking that making your dick look like it did when you were four years old is sexy too.

•••

THE LAST WORD

I think I should really check this out at the weekend.

THE HOUSE AT THE END OF THE PIER

Yesterday morning, the guys at the office needed to send me a package via TNT, but TNT dropped it onto the wrong van and it went AWOL. In the time that we were trying to figure out where it had gone, one of the guys asked me if I lived anywhere 'weird'.  Somewhere so weird that even Tom Hanks couldn't find it. What he actually said was this:

"Do you live anywhere weird like at the end of a pier? I can see you living at the end of a pier - it would suit you. People would say things like 'don't go down to the end of the pier, that's where the guy with crazy hair lives. Best stay away from there'."

This is one of the nicest things anybody has ever said about me and got the day off to a good start. 

My brain made some tentative connections at the mention of the phrase 'crazy hair' and I sent him a link to the book Crazy Hair and then because they live side by side on a shelf here, I also sent a link to The Day I Swapped My Dad For A Goldfish - and my pier quoting friend at the other end, promptly ordered them both.

Package still MIA with no sign of Mr Hanks anywhere, I went back to work and wondered how, out of a stupid conversation I had managed to sell two Neil Gaiman/Dave McKean books without even trying but none of my own.

Note to self: fix this.