Travels Over, Work Required

I'm back in India after a week in London. I had a great time, walking around Hyde Park in glorious end of summer sun:

Seeing the Dave McKean exhibition at the Pumphouse Gallery, entitled Hypercomics. The full set of photos can be seen here:

I met my new niece, Orla, who didn't talk much, unlike this man, who did.

And then we went to a wedding in sunny Eastbourne:

And now I'm back at work.

I'm going off line for a few days as I've got to review the line edited version of 'Juvie' and put together a full synopsis for 'Stigma' as my agent is at the Frankfurt book fair next week. That means lots of work and concentration which is going to be interesting since I'm ever so slightly jet lagged and plan to move into a new apartment this weekend. 

This blog should also be appearing somewhere 'new' soon. I'll let you know details as soon as I hear more.

Right, now - work.

On Not Really Liking Curry

I know this is going to seem as blasphemy, of a sorts, to some good friends, and also not particularly grateful to the country I'm currently living in (India not Scotland), but the thing is, I've recently discovered I don't really like curry.
I don't hate it, hate is far too strong a word. In truth I don't really hate much apart from .... (lets not go there). But the thing is I don't really like it. It's okay, the taste is agreeable (it's not a heat thing. I quite like hot food), but I don't enjoy it as much as so many other food types out there. Even a Friday night curry, after work and many pints, I've always found all right - just okay - not bad - mildly diverting.
For me curry is nice on the first bite, middling on the second and then it just kind of goes down hill until I can't be bothered eating any more. I think it has something to do with the fact that when you've eaten the first few mouthfuls of curry, whatever you have with it after that, rice, naan, the many different breads they have out here, pickled veg, they all kinda taste the same.
I would much rather have slices of Parma Ham with ripe melon, or roast meat with gravy and red-current jelly, fresh langoustines baked with lemon, garlic and salt, paella or a simple bowl of pasta in a fresh tomato ragu. I like sweet and savoury mixed together, fresh simply prepared food.

Curry just leaves a bad taste in my mouth - sorry. Perhaps being over here I'll learn to love it, become some sort of disciple, able to wax lyrical on the joys of a good, true Indian curry, how to create that authentic taste and what to serve it with, but at the moment it just kind of - meh!

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I'm off to London for a week very early in the morning. There I plan to fit in numerous activities including seeing the Hypercomics Exhibition at the Pumphouse which contains some Dave McKean work, visit my newly born niece 'Orla' at my sisters, get to see the wonderful Mr. Stephen Fry at the Royal Albert Hall (who I have now attempted to see twice and failed both times) and nip down to Eastbourne for the wedding of friends Jo'n'Joe.

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In the meantime and whilst I'm away here are some links:

• India's $35 slate has been outed as a Hivision Speedpad.
• India is also about to issue biometric ID's to the entire population -  I still don't really agree with this.
• And I've just finished the complete 100 Bullets by Brian Azzerello, which is brilliant and if you haven't, then you should read.

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

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