Vacillating between decades

I’ve spent the week vacillating, unsure about leaping into the next section of the ‘Hellfire.’ I’m not sure why but I’m finding it hard to get Sarah to move forward and find her voice. Terry and Benjamin were easy, they came to me fully formed and I could visualise them on their journey, making decisions and their reactions. I’m not sure if it’s Sarah herself (perhaps the wrong name) or else the setting. I’m not a child of the 60s anymore than I was a child of the 1940s, but I know the war period better because it plays more of a part in our society. It was the turning point for the modern world. We studied it at school, we’ve watched it on the television (I think the History Channel shows nothing but), we’ve read the books and dissected the memories. The 60s is different, it’s my parent’s decade, not that far removed from my own and so seems too normal, too much like today. I’ll get their eventually, I just need to find my way in.

I’ve joined Twitter and rather than use it to tell you what I’ve been doing (which would be very dull and mainly consist of ‘On the computer....still on the computer....having a sandwich (chicken)....back on the computer’, I’ve putting up a story piece by piece. I’m not sure it will work as it’s a strange format. You’re limited to 140 characters per entry and everything must happen in the immediate past.

You can read it by signing up for Twitter and looking for me at https://twitter.com/MiddleManLost (don’t try looking me up as for some reason Twitter does not return full results).

I’ve set up a map which show pictures from Hellfire London. You can find it here http://www.flickr.com/photos/34782120@N03/map/

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‘The Resurrectionist’ has some great middle bits, a slow start and an ending that seems to have come from another book entirely. It tells the story of Gabriel Swift, a young man trying to become anatomist in 19th century London. Dazzled by the corruption of the city he falls in love with a prostitute and drink, falls on hard times and becomes a body snatcher. It had traits of Burke and Hare, with a well written grotty London serving as a back drop. 

I saw ‘Joker’ some time ago but put off reading it as I thought it was just a cash in to ‘The Dark Knight’ but it’s not and it’s good. Similar in idea to ‘The Killing Joke’ it examines the Joker, trying to understand what makes him tick, in this it money just as much as his own madness, which helps ground him a little more in reality. It’s the art work that really works here, with lush dark colours and the character picked out in hyper-realistic way.

I’ve heard of the ‘Young Bond’ series by comedian and writer Charlie Higson but never read any. Silverfin is a graphic novel but it doesn’t really work very well. It is aimed at kids but even so it’s just a little bit to easy, the story line flat with no real pay off.

Also read my first Doctor Who book by Mark Gatiss (another comedian / writer). Called Nightshade it follows the seventh Doctor as played by Sylvester McCoy and Ace. Ending up in England in 1968 (the same year as Hellfire) it shows the Doctor going through a bad patch due to a past adventure. Here the character is really quick dark and brooding, denying his companion the chance to lead him. It’s good but certainly more for fans and adults than children.

Read this week:

The Resurrectionist by James Bradley

Joker by Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo

Silverfin by Charlie Higson

Nightshade by Mark Gatiss (read on an iphone).

Where the streets are paved with gold....

I’ve been in London for the weekend doing a bit of research around Camden where I was introduced to the City’s alternative community. The place is full of different tribes; punks, rockers, goths and emo’s, and whilst it is now a tourist trap full of stalls all selling the same ‘independently’ made items, it still has something of the 1960s ethos that I hope to capture at the beginning of the new novel.

I got a good look around the market and the lock but unfortunately could not see into the Camden catacombs as these have been locked away, I assume for safety, but I reckon they would make a great tourist attraction.

We stayed at the lovely Hoxton, which is a great hotel in that now very trendy area of Shoreditch. I was surprised at how that area of London had changed, with Spitalfields Market looking all shiny and new. Last time I had a look around this area (for a novel that sits in my bottom drawer to this day), Spitalfields was a hole in the ground.

We had some great meals at the new Boundary and a little Italian restaurant across from the hotel, plus a great Sunday roast in The Waterpoet pub.

I had been reading (on an iphone app which worked really well) Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, a great YA novel set in the not too distant future where a terrorist’s bomb causes the US to slip into a period of reactionary meltdown. Marcus gets caught in the fall out from the bomb and before he knows it he has been detained and shipped off by Homeland Security to an unknown destination. The book explores our rights and a Government’s need to stay within prescribed measures and not deny those laws enshrined in law even with the enormity of the situation. Marcus ends up running his own cyber guerrilla group against those who saw to abuse him of his rights. It’s a poignant, clever book which should be required reading in schools and universities. It lead me to visit the Taking Liberties exhibition on at the British Library which looks at the struggle for rights and freedoms across this country from the Magna Carta to today. There was also a great short play put on by Lois Tucker called Glitch.

Little Brother has also been released by Doctorow under the creative commons license which means as well as it being available in book form, Doctorow also reserves the right to release his books for free electronically. This is obviously working because based on the free iphone copy I bought a paper back version of it so that Madame Vin could read it.

We were also able to briefly catch with old friends and their ‘double trouble’ twins in a small coffee shop somewhere near a street flower market.

I’ll write up more at the weekend and include some photo’s of venues for ‘Hellfire.’

Read this week:

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Art Department

Just a quick note to mention that 'The Missing' has now been passed on to the art department for, well art obviously, and also to be blocked - which I think means to have the lay out done. Another step forward but still no idea of a release date yet.

Rich Tea with The Doors

I’ve bought a new computer, a very posh and shiny Apple Mac, so I spent most of last week transferring all the stuff on my rather battered lap top over to the new one and cursing when I lost things. That said it’s all on their now and, what’s more, it’s behaving itself.

Chapter one of ‘Hellfire’ (provisional name for the new book) is finished. Sarah is coming out as feisty but innocent, Terry is older, wiser and a caring father, Sarah’s mother doesn’t have a name yet, whilst Uncle Benjamin is quite creepy.
I’m trying to get a feel of 1960s London to the piece, and having to check things as I go such as, if they’re eating biscuits, which ones were around in the swinging sixties (answer Rich Tea). If my characters go to a famous gig that happened at the Roundhouse what day of the week did it happen on (The Doors only UK gig took place on a Friday). Had school holidays finished (no), what would a teenage girl wear when not at school...all sorts of things that have to be checked and confirmed.

Next weekend I’m in London to get a feel for the places around Camden and conduct research on the basin and the catacombs. I’ll report back with details.

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I’ve mentioned ‘The Writer’s Tale’ previously. It’s Russell T. Davies diary via email conversations with Benjamin Cook of the last series of Doctor Who. It’s a brilliant book, with Davies coming off as part megalomanic, dictator and artist. He has a wonderful, damn it, brilliant mind, but he suffers from the same anxiety as the rest of us, screwing himself up and obsessing when he knows he should be creating. It’s also very good at conveying the art of writing (not just for TV but in all its forms), from thinking of that initial idea to getting it down on paper, revising it and then letting it out to a wider audience. Any budding author should read this, any artist should read this - it is inspiring.

Enigma is Vertigo at its strangest. The comic deals with Michael Smith, whilst going through a bad patch mentally his childhood hero, the super hero ‘The Enigma’ comes to life bringing with him his arch enemies who start murdering people. Smith sets out to find the character, ditching his girlfriend and life and teaming up with the drugged addled creator and changing his sexual preferences along the way. Strange but oddly compelling.

I’ve been reading other book on my phone. I’ve never been big on digital works but the iphone has a really good app called Stanza that makes it really easy to download work and reading from it clear and doesn’t seem to produce any headaches in me.

A Dangerous Man by Huston is the last in a series about an unfortunate killer, down on his luck and looking for a way out that won’t result in his parent being killed and trying to stay out of trouble. Needless to say, he doesn’t. Clever, with quick fire dialogue. I’ll definitely go back and read the first two books.

The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe (who is celebrating 200 years since his birth - which is odd because I thought he was dead), is a short story about a man’s hatred, how it manifests through alcohol, resulting in him becoming paranoid and eventually committing murder. It has a certain Hitchcockian feel to it and reads well for a story of that period.

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Read this week:
The Writer’s Tale by Russell T. Davies

Enigma by Milligan and Fegredo
A Dangerous Man by Charlie Huston
The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe

Dr Who, I presume?

Got a nice surprise this morning when my new copy of ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ turned up in the post. This tale is one of my all time favourites, its imagery having stayed with me from when I read it as a teenager, always staying in my top ten. I think it’s up there with the best of horror from Stoker and Stevenson with beautiful prose and not a shred of over writing anywhere. What’s even better is that this version is encased in brown leather and has been put together as a limited addition by Bill Amberg. There are several companies now doing these limited finely crafted books. I mentioned the Subterranean Press before who do great Gaiman book as well as many others authors and while I don’t believe in buying every thing from these more expensive producers, when they do a book that you believe is a classic then they are wonderful to put on your shelf once your paperback has split and died.

They are about to announce the new Dr Who on the BBC…if you don’t want to know look away now (but how you plan to stay in a state of ignorance until 2010 is going to take some feat of ingenuity and no doubt some serious life style choices)….It is Matt Smith, who I think certainly looks Dr Whoish. Good Luck to him.

I read another of the Louvre graphic novels last night having thoroughly enjoyed ‘The Museum Vaults’. This one ‘Glacial Period’ is less good in so far as it feels like a much bigger story that got cut down slightly too much. It is set in the future and involves a group of arctic explorers travelling across the vast glacier that has covered Europe. It involves genetically modified dogs that talk, a hint of interspecies romance, anthropomorphic museum pieces and a misinterpretation of the history of man. The art work is nice, using thin pen lines and a simple board of colour, but it falls someway short of the previous work.

Read this week:

Glacial Period by Nicolas de Crecy

Cinema and Whale

With plenty of time off over the holiday period I’m doing a lot of reading, working my way through ‘London Lore’ by Steve Roud, a guide to the myths of the city which is helping me to create the world of the Gap. I’m also reading ‘The Writer’s Tale’ by Russell T. Davis of Dr Who fame which is him examining the role of the writer, where the ideas come from and pressures of making such a demanding show.

I’ve been filling in between both of these larger works with some short graphic and children’s works. Down in Buckingham in a charity shop I found several first edition Clive Barker books. Son of Celluloid is a horror work, and like many of Barker’s stories it starts off as one thing and then merges into another, subverting the idea of horror but still keeping the frights to a maximum. He seems quite happy calling on all genres and then twisting them to his own accord; I’ve always seen him more as a fantasy author who includes moments of pure horror.
Set in a cinema where a man has died resulting in the very building and its memories becoming an entity, it’s a quick precise tale let down only by the art work which is just a little bit bland.

“This Morning I Met a Whale” is a children’s environmental tale told by Michael Morpurgo from the point of view of a young boy who speaks to a whale stranded in the Thames. Based on a true story it’s a careful rendering of the environmental concerns of the moment without the sugar coating expected for a young persons work. The illustrations are wonderful pastels by Christian Birmingham that shows London as a luminous early morning city in a realistic and natural way.

Read this week:

Son of Celluloid by Clive Barker, Steve Niles and Les Edwards
This Morning I Met a Whale by Michael Morpurgo and Christian Birmingham

New Year Already...

Happy New Year…

Madame Vin and myself spent Christmas at my sisters and brought in the new year at Jo ‘n’ Jo’s close to the beaches of Portobello. A fine time was had by all with much merriment and a little imbibing of drink. I didn’t make any New Year resolutions, not because I don’t think I need the improvement, just that I would never stick to them.

Jo 'n' Jo and Madame Vin enjoy the beach.

Now I’m back at my desk with a few days of relative bliss and calm before starting on the next novel in the Gap series. I’ve started to do much in the research and already have a good idea of what happens in the first few opening chapters. The next few lines are me thinking aloud.

I started off wanting to use The Rolling Stones as the band Sarah goes to see in London, mainly because I’ve always loved their music and they represented the 60s, the rebellious youth.

Very early pics of The Rolling Stones can be found here. They look so young and hardly rock and roll. Interesting that originally their management attempted to get them to wear uniformly similar jackets but this was quickly rejected for more of a rebel look, unlike the Beatles who stuck to their uniform look for some time.

However, I want to place the novel in about 1968 to tie in with ‘DarkFather’ and to ensure that Sarah is old enough to want to go and see such music. She’s at an age where she wants to rebel, she’s getting into boys and music. I don’t want her to be as innocent as Terry and Benjamin because times have changed, the Second World War saw to that. Anyway, whilst checking on the Stones gigs for that year it quickly became apparent that they didn’t play London, plus by 1968 they had become quite famous, so I started checking into gigs that did take place.

On the 6th September 1968 The Doors played their only UK gig at the Roundhouse in Camden. The Roundhouse is a wonderful old Victorian building originally built as a turning circle for the London and Birmingham railway and later used as a gin warehouse. Just the sort of venue that fits with the Gap novels, as it has history and living memory that can be put to good use, plus the gig was an instant classic (not that many children will realise, but I want the books grounded in history).

Coincidence seems to play a lot in the Gap novels. I start thinking up something and then find that something very similar happened or exists ready for me to make use of. By setting the gig in Camden and the entrance to the Gap in the Roundhouse, I then did some research on the area and low and behold I found the Camden Catacombs, a series of tunnels and archways under Camden that is perfect.

The gods of the Gap are smiling on me and its only January the first.