Welcome to Chennai

I'm installed in my hotel, overlooking Mount Road in central Chennai. It's hot, busy, cacophonous and bizarre. Wealth and real poverty side by side, a modern thriving metropolis but one rooted in ancient cultures, its a mishmash of ideas, thoughts and voices. It's going to be an interesting year.

So far I haven't gone far. A quick trip to a shopping centre through the noisome streets and to the gym (where I made a friend of the trainer and he tried to kill through exercise - which I need to do everyday).

Tomorrow Madame Vin is going on her first visit to the office and I'll start my writing regime.

In the mean time, some links:

• A biomechanical world in this stunning video
• Supernatural is getting the Anime treatment.
• "Migrating Floating Gardens" by Rael San Fratello Architects.
• A 'Super Sad True Love Story' from Gary Shteyngart "we live in such a fast-paced society that the moment you want to write about something, that instant is gone. The only way to capture the present is to write about the future."
• The age of the book is coming to an end. 
• And now that I'm India for a year, Kate Griffin has made me a little home sick for Edinburgh.

I'll try to put up some photos tomorrow.

India Tomorrow

So I'm off to India tomorrow morning. That happened a lot quicker than I expected. 'Juvie' is in and my agent likes it. That doesn't mean a publishing deal is guaranteed but it's a step in the right direction. Over the next year I want to concentrate on books 2 and 3 in the same series and start the new version of 'The Park'.

I'll keep this blog updated with my travels, work and news, and perhaps the odd photo of India.

It's gonna be one hell of an adventure.

See you on the other side.

Quick Break

Enjoying my new writing life and trying to get all sorted out for the big trip to India. My father's coming for a few days over the weekend but I hope to get the current draft of 'Juvie', plus a synopsis for the three book series to my agent before I go.


The past written on top of the present through photography.


Apparently, I'm a 'selfish elitist' for owning an iPad. I've been called worse.


A quite scary robot talks German and demands fruit.


The cheap and useful Indian computer for under $35 has its critics. This would be great if they can get it off the ground. Lets hope it's not dead in the water just because hardware companies impose high price structures.  I think we should have something similar world wide. Get everyone online, turn it into a real democratic cyber world, with a everyone participating. That's what the internet is all about, freedom. I'll follow this story with interest whilst in India.


Good website Design Mind with interesting things to say.


And I leave you with the Doctor Who Themes. All of them, showing both the continuity and the increase in tempo over the years.

A New Routine

I have to get into a routine.

Writers hours are important when you don’t have the structure of a place of work to go to. I’ve always done my writing in an evening. Two hours minimum straight from work (from about 5.15pm) with more like four hours Saturday and Sunday. This is enough to produce a novel length piece of work every year plus the odd short story. 

With going to India, that structure is gone. I’m now free during the day. Every day. For a year, minimum.

So, I have to get into a routine.

Currently my thinking is write in the morning. I’m better at this time, the work seems fresher. I want to get about ten pages done a day. I can probably get that done by about 1.00pm. After lunch I plan to focus on redrafting, reading, small projects (photography, film, art) and getting some exercise (very important when your place of work is about 30 feet from your bed).

That’s the routine.

I’ll let you know if I stick to it.

Comic Book Reviews

Mister X - The Archives 

Mister X helped to change comic books from the all encompassing days of tights wearing super heroes, white-hatted cowboys and WWII GI’s into something more grown up, more thought provoking, more weird. It’s a tale of a city built to be a utopia but instead sends its inhabitants mad. Part German expressionism, part noir detective tale it follows the mysterious Mr. X, an architect of the madness inducing city, as he tries to right the effect his built environment is having on the populace.

Drawn by a series of artists using pulp film references the stories start out going for the big story. Unfortunately (no fault to the writer Dean Motter) Mr. X did not have a very successful run and was cancelled several times. In this book Motter has attempted to finish the story but it feels slightly rushed. 

God Save the Queen 

A one shot about fairies and drugs. Set in modern London, the story follows Linda, a rebellious teenager, enticed by a mysterious group of hip layabouts she meets at a rave. They introduce to the drug Red Horse which in turn opens up her world to the entities living on the fringes. Based on characters started in Sandman this is a thrilling ride that makes good use of its modern setting and actually portrays modern teens in a realistic light. Written by Mike Carey of ‘Felix Castor’ fame and drawn by the brilliant John Bolton, this adds colour and complexity to the Vertigo world.

Salem Brownstone

This is a beautifully produced and written gothic tale about a young man who’s left a strange house by his estranged father. On entering for the first time he’s attacked by strange creatures and saved by a mysterious attractive contortionist. Taken in by a local circus troupe he soon realises all is not as it seems. 

Drawn like a fin-de-siecle Beardsley and with echoes of Edward Gorey this is a dark, out of this world gothic masterpiece.

30 Days of Night Collectors Set

The three chronicles of the 30 Days of Night Franchise. This has a brilliantly simple premise, the town of Barrow, where the sun sets every year for thirty days thus becoming the perfect hunting ground for vampires.

Unlike the current popular undead (who seem to do nothing but moan about their condition) these vampires are mean and nasty and love nothing better than ripping their prey to bits. It reminds me of The Thing (all that snow). A quick entertaining read.

Read this week:

Mister X - The Archives by Dean Motter & co.

God Save the Queen by Mike Carey & John Bolton

Salem Brownstone by John Harris Dunning & Nikhil Singh

30 Days of Night Collectors Set by Steve Niles & Ben Templesmith

Writing advice

Good writing advice from Janet Fitch, author of WHITE OLEANDER & PAINT IT BLACK from an article in the Los Angeles Times (thanks to Jonathan Carroll for the heads up).

1. Write the sentence, not just the story
Long ago I got a rejection from the editor of the Santa Monica Review, Jim Krusoe. It said: "Good enough story, but what's unique about your sentences?" That was the best advice I ever got. Learn to look at your sentences, play with them, make sure there's music, lots of edges and corners to the sounds. Read your work aloud. Read poetry aloud and try to heighten in every way your sensitivity to the sound and rhythm and shape of sentences. The music of words. I like Dylan Thomas best for this–the Ballad of the Long-Legged Bait. I also like Sexton, Eliot, and Brodsky for the poets and Durrell and Les Plesko for prose. A terrific exercise is to take a paragraph of someone's writing who has a really strong style, and using their structure, substitute your own words for theirs, and see how they achieved their effects.

2. Pick a better verb
Most people use twenty verbs to describe everything from a run in their stocking to the explosion of an atomic bomb. You know the ones: Was, did, had, made, went, looked… One-size-fits-all looks like crap on anyone. Sew yourself a custom made suit. Pick a better verb. Challenge all those verbs to really lift some weight for you.

3. Kill the cliché.
When you're writing, anything you've ever heard or read before is a cliché. They can be combinations of words: Cold sweat. Fire-engine red, or phrases: on the same page, level playing field, or metaphors: big as a house. So quiet you could hear a pin drop. Sometimes things themselves are cliches: fuzzy dice, pink flamingo lawn ornaments, long blonde hair. Just keep asking yourself, "Honestly, have I ever seen this before?" Even if Shakespeare wrote it, or Virginia Woolf, it's a cliché. You're a writer and you have to invent it from scratch, all by yourself. That's why writing is a lot of work, and demands unflinching honesty.

4. Variety is the key.
Most people write the same sentence over and over again. The same number of words–say, 8-10, or 10-12. The same sentence structure. Try to become stretchy–if you generally write 8 words, throw a 20 word sentence in there, and a few three-word shorties. If you're generally a 20 word writer, make sure you throw in some threes, fivers and sevens, just to keep the reader from going crosseyed.

5. Explore sentences using dependent clauses.
A dependent clause (a sentence fragment set off by commas, dontcha know) helps you explore your story by moving you deeper into the sentence. It allows you to stop and think harder about what you've already written. Often the story you're looking for is inside the sentence. The dependent clause helps you uncover it.

6. Use the landscape.
Always tell us where we are. And don't just tell us where something is, make it pay off. Use description of landscape to help you establish the emotional tone of the scene. Keep notes of how other authors establish mood and foreshadow events by describing the world around the character. Look at the openings of Fitzgerald stories, and Graham Greene, they're great at this.

7. Smarten up your protagonist.
Your protagonist is your reader's portal into the story. The more observant he or she can be, the more vivid will be the world you're creating. They don't have to be super-educated, they just have to be mentally active. Keep them looking, thinking, wondering, remembering.

8. Learn to write dialogue.
This involves more than I can discuss here, but do it. Read the writers of great prose dialogue–people like Robert Stone and Joan Didion. Compression, saying as little as possible, making everything carry much more than is actually said. Conflict. Dialogue as part of an ongoing world, not just voices in a dark room. Never say the obvious. Skip the meet and greet.

9. Write in scenes.
What is a scene? a) A scene starts and ends in one place at one time (the Aristotelian unities of time and place–this stuff goes waaaayyyy back). b) A scene starts in one place emotionally and ends in another place emotionally. Starts angry, ends embarrassed. Starts lovestruck, ends disgusted. c) Something happens in a scene, whereby the character cannot go back to the way things were before. Make sure to finish a scene before you go on to the next. Make something happen.

10. Torture your protagonist.
The writer is both a sadist and a masochist. We create people we love, and then we torture them. The more we love them, and the more cleverly we torture them along the lines of their greatest vulnerability and fear, the better the story. Sometimes we try to protect them from getting booboos that are too big. Don't. This is your protagonist, not your kid.

From the desk of Adam J. Shardlow

Ipad

I'm writing this on an Ipad. This has probably reduced a select few of you into howls of derision. It's just a great big phone, I hear you cry. Another one taken in by the Apple hype, you call. Poseur, you sneer.

I'm not sure why Apple's devices cause such devotion in some and such spewed bile in others. I'm not apologising for my own love of their products. I'm a new(ish) convert to Mr. Jobs and in the last few years I've replaced all my hardware with Apple and it's been a blessing. Not one blue screen of death or dodgy joining of devices have I had since moving over to the fruity ones. Everything works as a joined up network and I no longer come close to throwing my laptop across the study (ask my wife about this).

I love Apple products - there, I've said it.

If you don't - fine. I'm not going to judge you.

RED and TED

New York was great. Thanks to all our friends, new and old, for making it such a great week.

New York from Tash's window in Brooklyn

So the idea of India is percolating around my head as I consider the options open to me and all of the time I'll have for writing. I want to maximise the opportunity and get as much work done as possible with minimum distractions (apart from a whole continent to explore of course). I want to work on both book two and three of the 'Juvie' series and make in roads on the idea that I have mentally entitled 'The Park' (something I've been working on and off for several years). I also have an idea for a short story around the idea of augmented reality as well as the comic book idea 'Icons'. As I plan to do some photography whilst there and plenty of reading I imagine that lot should keep me busy.

****


Language Deciphered by Computer
"The lost language of Ugaritic was last spoken 3,500 years ago. It survives on just a few tablets, and linguists could only translate it with years of hard work and plenty of luck. A computer deciphered it in hours."


RED
The first trailer for the Warren Ellis based comic book RED - looks good.


Augmented Reality
"Property developers won’t be wasting money on fancy architects if they can throw a skin around their building and flog the exterior to Coke. Particularly not if half the passers-by aren’t seeing their building -- lost in a reality constructed by a Belgian design studio and distributed via Specsavers."
A world we would all see differently depending on our subscriptions and opt-outs.


TED
"It's a bit like YouTube, but instead of featuring cats falling into lavatories, it has short, cutting-edge talks by the world's leading neuroscientists, behavioural economists, video artists, philosophers, particle physicists, rocket scientists, endurance athletes, Aids researchers… you name it, it's been at TED."
If you've never looked at the free lectures on TED you should drop what you're doing and go there immediately.


****


Garth Ennis is  favourite comic book author and his Preacher series is one that garnered plenty of press in the last few years. Proud Americans looks at the Reverend's relationship with his friends as he goes after the captured Cassidy. The second part of the book looks at how Cassidy became a vampire and is the better of the two halves. 


The Affinity Bridge is the first in a series of books in the Newbury & Hobbes series from small press Snowbooks. It's a steampunk adventure in an alternative London where Queen Victoria's Empire has been elongated beyond her death and enhanced through technology. It has magic, risen dead and robots. I would say that the two lead characters aren't fleshed out as much as I'd like, but I imagine this is remedied in the later novels.


Haunting Museums is a non-fiction work about artefacts around the world that have strange or inexplicable stories attached to them. A sort of believe or not Warehouse 13. The essay are hit and miss and a US slant. Mildly interesting. 


Read this week:


Preacher: Proud Americans by Garth Ennis  & Steve Dillon
The Affinity Bridge by George Mann
Haunting Museums by John Schuster

Hot in the city ... 2

So this is the other half of the blog the NYC blog my Blogger email account missed. Please sort out Blogger email. 

Sunday night was Tash's birthday in the Meatpacking district, frequented by drag artists and old friends. We've been over to Brooklyn this afternoon to see her and get an update on the movie. It's coming along but as usual these things take longer than expected.

Last night we saw a bit of jazz in Central Park and tonight we're at a wine tasting. Tomorrow I'm going to see the Mets play. Don't know anything about baseball so it should be interesting.

****
There's a crack in the universe similar to the one in the current Dr Who series, which is either a huge cosmic coincidence or the BBC marketing department has too much money:http://tinyurl.com/389ljpv

Hot in the city...

So I'm in New York and it is hot. Damn hot. So hot bits of me are
sticking to other bits and I have to prise them apart in the evening
with a fridge cooled spatula.

Modern Media Initiative

Let's all move to Iceland (country not the shop).
A unanimous vote in Iceland's parliament has seen the country pass its
so-called "Icelandic Modern Media Initiative", giving it the mandate
to create what are intended to be the world's most stringent laws
preserving free speech and a free press.
http://tinyurl.com/367gfy4

Cool Wall
Architect Bill Peterson renovated this 14th Street townhouse so that
the living room wall rolled up like a garage, leaving it open to the
street, with an "air curtain" to keep the heat in
http://tinyurl.com/33hdotr

Links for Today

"The real problems are twofold. First, even though the content is digital, the reader loses most of digital content's benefits. I can go to the Wired website, link to articles there on my blog, share them via email or Twitter and use the power of the web to share and opine. The iPad edition offers none of that flexibility -- and it doesn't offer any of the flexibility of paper either. I can annotate my paper version of Wired, clip out articles, or even pass the entire magazine on to you and you can in turn pass it on to others. I can't do any of those things with the iPad edition."
Martin Gartenberg on the problems of digital magazines. We're just not quite there yet.


"sprawling and sticky spideweb-like installation"
From Hi-Fructose


"An animated short by Joe Bichard and Jack Cunningham, MARS! tells the story of, well, the planet Mars."

MARS! from Joe Bichard and Jack Cunningham on Vimeo.



Time and Again. Life, don't get me started on life. From Jacques Khouri. Comic book art animated.

time & again from jacques khouri on Vimeo.

Lost Myths

Lost Myths: new stories in an old format:
"Tinkerhorn Muziek (Lost Myths Records LM-0013) was a 10-inch 78rpm
released only in Europe in 1927. There was only ever the one pressing,
and it's unlikely that there were more than a few hundred copies
made. Only seven copies are known to still exist. The original tapes,
along with any documentation that might have helped us understand this
music better, were lost in a fire in 1940, when the Nazis invaded
Amsterdam."
From http://lostmyths.net/

EMA

Waiting for a plane at East Midlands Airport. Saw an iPad for sale, thought about it but decided to wait until New York in a week.

Wedding was good and it was nice to see so many old faces (and some of them were looking very old indeed).

Have a bit of time before my flight so I'll get on with a bit of 'Cell' as this week is very busy.

Cloud Printing

I'm off to another wedding tomorrow (what is it about 2010 that made everyone get hitched? Do they know something I don't about the end of the world? That 2012, right?) so here are a few quick links to keep you brain active.


Jan Chipchase on Cloud Printing
"whilst its not socially acceptable today, in time someone will subsidise the cost of individual prints by inserting subtle advertising by manipulating your photos."


The Leith Festival is on this weekend and my agents are sponsoring the Literature Festival. If you get the chance, pop down. 


Now, get off the interweb and back to work. 

Robots and Weird Laws

Robotics developers at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich's
Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control have built autonomous robots
that drive, dock with their peers on the ground, then fly into the air
in coordinated swarms.... http://tinyurl.com/2w42fcy

DivineCaroline.com has a list of 50 weird US laws, including the
following:
Alabama: It's illegal to wear a fake mustache that causes laughter in
church.
Alaska: Whispering in someone's ear while he's moose hunting is
prohibited.
Arkansas: It's illegal to mispronounce the name of the state of
Arkansas.
California: You may not eat an orange in your bathtub.
Florida: If you tie an elephant to a parking meter, you must pay the
same parking fee as you would for a vehicle.

'Cell'

'Juvie' 2 is currently titled 'Cell', which when you read the book will make much more sense as it has a double meaning. I'm currently about 11k words in and going strong. The book has a more dirty urban feel to it and it opens up a concept about the 'Governors' that is only hinted about in the first book.

You’ll also notice lots of new short blog post here as I’m having a go at posting them in via mail so ensure all my links and ideas are in one place. Some of them might be of interest to you.

****

Wasting Time

Great little comic from Luke Ferenc which sums up mine and many others feelings about the internet

Nollywood

Nollywood is said to be the third largest film industry in the world, releasing onto the home video market approximately 1 000 movies each year. Such abundance is possible since films are realized in conditions that would make most of the western independent directors cringe. Movies are produced and marketed in the space of a week: low cost equipment, very basic scripts, actors cast the day of the shooting, “real life” locations. Despite the improvised production process, they continue to fascinate audiences. In Africa, Nollywood movies are a rare instance of self-representation in the mass media. From Pieter Hugo

Ideas are Immortal by Alan Moore

Ideas are immortal, or at least as long lived as the culture that comes up with them, whereas the objects, the monuments and even empires those ideas inspire are transient by comparison.

Though I don't agree with all Alan say's, this is an article worth digging out.

****

Finally got around to reading Warren Ellis’s and got introduced to the character Spider Jerusalem (interesting as I have a character called Spider in ‘Juvie’), one of my favourite new characters in comics. He’s a gonzo journalist of a the future, a drop out city survivalist who has to return to write those books he promised his editors. It’s anarchic laugh-out-loud with plenty to say about society and where it’s going.

Read this week

Transmetropolitan: Back on the Street by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson

Transmetropolitan: Lust for Life by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson

Minority Report Style System

Human computer interface.

Today's Links

Chinese mods. Turning corporate built hardware into free thought
hacked builds. http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-06/1/chinese-pirates-are-tech's-new-innovators

Want something like this in Edinburgh.
TAM, or The Amazing Meeting is now an annual fundraising conference
that raises money for the James Randi Educational Foundation, which
promotes;
critical thinking by reaching out to the public and media with
reliable information about pseudoscientific, paranormal and
supernatural ideas so widespread in our society today.

http://tinyurl.com/39cjefg

Ink on Paper

This is a really interesting insight into the future of print/books etcetera from the blog of the graphic designer Frank Chimero:

• Question: What is the future of print design? How will the tangible, ink-on-paper pieces that designers love coexist with design on digital platforms in the years to come?

Things are changing. We want to know where it’s going. But, hell if I know, or any one else has more than a hunch. Craig Mod calls it the PRE/POST era and I think he’s right. As I’ve said before, we break stuff before we know what replaces it, and we invent things before we know what they are for. Maybe we’re now living in the future tense.
Next thing to clear up: Books are not music, so I’d stop looking to apply the patterns from that experience to ink on paper at a high level. (Though, it could work at a smaller level.) Music lacks a physical form, gained a physical form for a short while, and some people made loads of cash selling that artifact. Some people made bookoos of bucks selling stacks of vinyl and cassette tapes and CDs. But now music is moving back to the vaporous state from whence it came. Neat. Wait. Magazines are like that. Just sub out reams of paper. Damn it.
But not so much books. Literature requires an artifact, whether it’s ink on paper or e-ink on e-paper. We have to see the words with our eyes, which means they need to exist in meat-space. Maybe I’m overly romanticizing this. Books could be considered to be vaporous (storytelling has its roots in the oral tradition), but the idea of “story” is bigger than the idea of “ink on paper,” so you’d spread yourself too thin to think about where story is going to live in the future. (I’d say television is just as good a receptacle now for some stories. In fact, in some instances it’s better.) And, I’d say, really good literature requires an artifact. But that’s just me. I think quality creative work deserves a physical form that achieves some sort of permanence. It’s the reward for producing something good. I know reading Infinite Jest wouldn’t be the same if you didn’t have to pay the penance of carrying around that monolithic paper slab on the bus, and risk being judged terribly bookish by your neighbors sharing the ride. (Still haven’t read it. Going to give it a go again this summer. We can do this Frank, we can do this. This time!)
So let’s talk about ink on paper. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but here is what I want to see: I want to see things earn the privilege to be objects. If we have the option of things being “real” and “not real,” I want the real stuff to be really good. I want the times when ink hits paper to always be beautiful, useful, and desirable. It seems like such a shame to cut down a tree to print this Land’s End catalog, with the thin model coyly smiling at me on the back in her awkward swimsuit. I bet it bunches up in the wrong spots. It seems silly to give permanence to a thing that was meant to be ephemeral to begin with. This goes for junk mail, beach-books, handouts for students, whatever. If your shelf-life is shorter than forever and ever amen, I think we need to think about whether or not it needs to be printed. (Although, it is so damn nice to print something to proof-read it. But that’s a different story.)
If I’m thinking as a normal consumer, I don’t really care terribly much about what the future of ink on paper is going to be. I care about what the future of content is going to be. I want fuller, more thoughtful, more substantial, more enriching, more nourishing content. I want good stuff. I want stuff that doesn’t feel like a chew toy. I’d suppose that the only people who care about the future of ink on paper are the people who make their money (or not) selling the paper that has the ink on it. (Or if your magazine is named PRINT.) Those of us who consume the content, I’d suppose, don’t give much of a rat’s ass. We want convenience and access, and then after that quality.

It’s easy to think of a future where the predominance of ink on paper is minimized. And, as a designer who practices the kung fu of deciding how that ink gets slathered on that paper, it’s scary. But, here is my tip to you: stop thinking of yourself as a print designer. You’re not designing for print. You’re designing for content.

Also on CarrollBlog

Holiday Weekend

Ahhh Bank Holiday Weekend. Rain, cold winds, and nothing on the TV. Just like I remember them as a kid. Luckily I have plenty to keep me busy as I'm working my way through 'Juvie 2'. Currently getting about 6-7,000 words done a week. Not a lot, but I tend to edit on the run so a lot goes down and is then dumped when I read it through again. I'm considering titles and will probably change it many times before I'm happy.
***
What's a book to become in the 21st century post internet and network media revolution?... How does one introduce the connected and computational user experience of digital media into the paper book, to actualise it, widen its scope, and engage the reader in new ways?
Bertrand Duplat & Etienne Mineur


What's in your bag? 


A perfect little animation about love called Crater Face:

Crater Face from Skyler Page on Vimeo.


****
I've never read any Richard Kadrey before. Sandman Slim is the story of bad dude who pulls himself out of hell after being tricked into his own death by his so called magician friends. He's back for revenge, and having trained to kill the demons of the pit, he's angry and ready for action. It's a quick, thrill a minute read, with a dark alternative LA hipster feel to the writing and characterisation. That said his main character ain't too bright and it does feel like he's just putting off what needs to be done.


The Charlie Parker thriller is a highlight of my reading year and The Whisperers is just as good as anything that has come before. It's the assured voice of Connolly's writing, his ability to take what could be a well written thriller and turn it into something more. Parker investigates the apparent suicides of a recently return from Iraq soldier and soon finds similar deaths, and then someone tries to scare him off. Not a good idea with Parker. He calls in help from New York and sets about uncovering the truth. At the same time a deformed figures looms from the darkness. Clever, dark and continuous of the Parker myth.


Read this week:
Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey
The Whisperers by John Connolly

Look what just arrived...

Beer and saki

Links for Today

Interesting idea. Computers and creatures sharing the same virus: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-05/26/scientist-infects-himself-with-a-computer-virus

Mmmmm... dried zombie meat: http://pinktentacle.com/2010/05/zombie-meat/

Kim Alsbrooks White Trash series: http://juxtapoz.com/Meighan+OToole/22138-kim-alsbrooks

A partial map of the TARDIS. Which might come in handy in the future: http://community.livejournal.com/dwfiction/2794749.html?view=2658301#t2658301

From the desk of...

Testing mail to Blogger

Quick history of publishing: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audioslideshow/2010/may/24/publishing-history-20th-century

Douglas Adams. Much missed. Please carry your towel responsibly: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/may/25/douglas-adams-towel-day

Missing, No More

I’m suffering from a cold which might be partially the fault of strong Belgian beer and the lack of sleep I’ve had over the last few weekends. Anyway, as I spend my Sunday snotting and hawking up the odd lung, you’ll be glad to know that, “Juvie” is now with my agent and I’m waiting to hear back.

As is the way of many small publishers, Libros has gone into liquidation which means copies of ‘The Missing’ are now no longer available. If you have one you hold something quite rare. That said I think I know where I can get hold of six remaining copies. So if you don’t already have one, drop me a line and I’ll see what can be arranged.

I’ve spent most of this week sketching and writing my brother’s best man speech in time for the wedding next weekend. I might need to sacrifice some more virgins to ensure travel (I’m running low in Edinburgh).

Links galore:

Free novels on the internet

Behance Gallery's

Online magazines with Zinio and Yudu

****

And Another Thing is the Eoin Colfer written part six of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It’s not bad, but (and this wasn’t a surprise) it’s no patch on the original. It’s like the concept was passed through an Adams-o-matic machine. It’s essence of Douglas, and I’m not sure whether anyone should have bothered. Colfer is a pretty good author in his own right, but Adams was something else, a once in human history writer.

The Road is one of those books that I’ve been meaning to read for a long time but never got around to it, which is a shame as it’s brilliant. Beautifully written, sparse, with an undercurrent of approaching sorrow. Sci-fi in the sense it’s set in an unnamed future after something terrible has happened that wipes out most of the human population, the world turned grey in a possible nuclear winter, it tells the continuous journey of a a father and his young son. A mesmerising work of art.

Pandemonium is the new Hellblazer, set in the difficult and challenging world of Iraq, sucide bombers and insurgents. Delano is one of the best Constantine authors around, with tight scripts that bring the old weathered magician to life. The art work by Jock is almost worth buying it for in the first place.

Read this week:

And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Hellblazer: Pandemonium by Jamir Delano & Jock

The Digital Economy Bill

I recently wrote an email to my MP (Alistair Darling) about the Digital Economy Bill (DEB). He wrote back to me requesting more details and so today I sent him this letter. Anyone who wants to send their MP a letter feel free to copy it (this at least is copyright free):

Dear Alistair Darling,

Many thanks for your reply to my email dated Sunday 4th April re: the Digital Economy Bill. I know that the Bill has now come been passed but I want you to understand the serious ramifications and implication that the Bill contains. My main points are below:

1. The bill seems to have been designed to satisfy the requirements of the entertainment industry and victimise the public. The ‘three-strike’ rule is unfair without proof or evidence by trial. The government does not have the right to say who is guilty without recourse to law. £50,000 fines are also too much when it is almost impossible to say who is liable when an internet connection is shared.
2. Making ISPs spy on their customers again in support of the entertainment industry is heinous. They don’t have the right to record what I look at online, just incase. It will also have a detrimental effect upon shops, cafes and restaurants offering open public wifi. The UK Government should be leading us into a Britain where access to the internet is enabled for all, this will seriously stunt any growth in this area.
3. There is nothing in the Bill about stimulating the digital economy. We need everyone connected to the net via cheap, fast broadband. This will stimulate growth and commerce. Also as a new writer trying to build up a public profile I work and create new media stimulated by digital access. Copyright rules can get in the way of this ability to create new things.

I really don’t believe that the Bill has been given due consideration and it was pushed through without rigourous debate. We have a great wealth of tech-savvy creators in this country, individuals who understand the future that the net will give us far better than politicians. I don’t believe you’ve listen to these people enough and have instead merely taken into account the wants of big business.

Sincerely yours,

Adam J. Shardlow

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I'll let you know if he replies.

Busy, busy, busy - Wrong, wrong, wrong

Busy, busy, busy so here's some stuff to look at along with a few quick book reviews.

• A short Dr Who comic from Rob Davis illustrating the appeal of the Time Lord.
• Article about the advances in 3D printing. Soon you'll just fire one of these babies up and produce anything.
• Article about how not to get a dead person through an airport and on to a plane. Sounds like the start of a novel.
• Dialogue and how to keep it natural.
• An art gallery on your computer.
• Free music from Ithaca Trio.
• Free comics Sin Titulo, Power Out, The Guns of Shadow Valley, Bayou.

Right off to write to my MP (Alistair Darling for those interested) about the Digital Economy Bill and how it is wrong, wrong, wrong.

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Comic protests that takes you around the world. Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasks Corruption is a comic collective who take on some serious projects and present them in a sympathetic way. Some better than others.

A short from Warren Ellis, Aetheric Mechanics feels like one of those ideas he had and dashed of quickly before it vanished from his vast brain. It's short and blunt but as usual clever and well presented.

I love Tomine austere art work in Sleepwalk. Fine lines with deep blacks that remind me Charles Burns. Good story telling as well.

Solipsistic Pop collection no 1. Some good, some not so, but good enough so that I'll buy collection no. 2.

Flinch is another collection this time from Australia. Only a couple were brilliant but some good stuff from Tan as usual.

A dark noir thriller set in the mind. The Manual of Detection is a brilliant idea, cleverly executed by a new author worth looking out for. Think Kafka with Bogart in it. Well presented book as well which is nice to see.

****

Read this week:

Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasks Corruption by various

Aetheric Mechanics by Warren Ellis

Sleepwalk and other Stories by Adrian Tomine

Solipsistic Pop by Various

Flinch by various

The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry

Easter Eggs

I've spent the Easter weekend knocking about the 'Juvie' manuscript. I'm making several significant changes, several structural revisions and adding in new scenes. This is going to take some time so I haven't seen much of world this weekend. However here's a list of stuff I recommend:

Dr Who - new series with Matt Smith looks good, really good (which is a relief). Moffat seems to have a good handle on the darker character led stories and Smith looks suitably alien in the role.

Great writing music to download from Ithaca Trio. Ambient and calming when all the world is in uproar. Download their new album Tesla Versus the Night.

If you haven't already make sure you sign up to the Open Rights Group and help stop the Digital Economy Bill. It's not ready yo be released yet and in it's current format it will mean innocent people (such as yourself) being cut off the internet without any trial or recourse. This can't happen. The bill is being voted on tomorrow so you don't have much time. If you can, email your MP.

And if you want a chocolate brownie sent straight to your front door order them from my friend Emily at Sugarmonkey. She kindly sent over some scanned photos of us on holiday. I've barely changed to be honest.

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Finally got around to reading some Philip K. Dick. Everyone knows Bladerunner (and if you don't - be ashamed of yourself) but Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep differs in several ways from the film. Familiar traits still exist but Dick's world is perhaps not so futuristic as dingy and decaying whilst humans just want to get ahead in life on a dying world. Deckard is more of company man than a shrewd detective and the replicants more confused as to why they exist. That said the book is good and feels only slightly dated having been written back in 1968.

Mesmo Delivery is quick read about an ageing Elvis impersonator and a tough delivery guy and what is in their truck. It's violent and funny and has art work to die for. Whilst the story is slight it's the scribbly lines and sepia tints that keep you enthralled. All written and drawn by Rafael Grampa who is going to be big.

Read this week:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

Mesmo Delivery by Rafael Grampa

Going Commando

I’m away from my desk for the next four days and only keeping in touch via the odd twitter (@MiddleManLost) update and Facebook detail.

I’m away down south on my brother’s stag do, which involves several hours running around woodland in khaki green and shooting each other with paint balls in displays of manliness. There will be much in the way of grunting and the scratching of hairy chests and balls as we revert to primal instincts. If you’ve ever met me you will know that me taking part in such an activity is either hilarious or down right scary.

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I’ve been in research mode looking into ‘stuff’ for the follow up to “Juvie,” as well as several other things I have going on in my head at the moment which includes the comic book, a TV show idea and a work of non-fiction. Hopefully at least one of them will get off the ground. I’ve been using Evernote to store stuff ‘on the cloud.’ It’s okay but I’m having trouble linking stuff the way I want it. If anyone has any experience of using it drop me a note on the web link.

Right, I’m off to sharpen my hip knife, check the tension on my choke wire and prime my grenades for action. I leave you with a book review.

****

Stephen Smith is a reporter for News Night and his detailed analysis of the world he sees around him often slips into the writing of ‘Underground London.’ This non-fiction work looks at some of the oddities that exist underneath the capital and, whilst in no way is it exhaustive, it does visit some of the better known attractions. At times he does seem to spend an inordinate amount of time above ground and only really descends into the sewers, tube network and the odd basement. He also has a habit of going off at a bit of a tangent but it’s an interesting, thoughtful work with the odd moment of humour.

Read this week:

Underground London by Stephen Smith

I promise I've been busy

I know, I know...it's been a long time, but I've been busy. Honestly I have.

At about 4.00pm yesterday I finished the current updates to 'Juvie'. They've taken me a little over a month but the story had to grow. Now I've introduced a new character 'Spider', whilst several others have changed their reason for being. Ben (the main character) has become more of himself and he now has a damning reason to go back to Greenville.

The town has shrunk and become battered and bruised, whilst the world they inhabit has grown exponentially and opened up the story for book 2 and book 3.

Overall I think it's much better. More rounded and carefully crafted. Madame Vin will read it for me over the next few days and then I'll send it to my agent. Whilst the book is with him I'll start drafting ideas for book two and three and play around with a few other ideas I have.

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Somethings to look at whilst you're here:

A great short video in which Stephen Fry discusses Christian faith and religion. It's an emotive subject and for which I am firmly in the atheist camp. I've been watching 'The Bible' on channel 4 on Sunday and found the documentaries for the most part well made and intelligent. I watched them like history programmes as they help open an area of the world that I'm not too familiar with, but I don't believe that Jesus is the son of God. That is a myth, a story; a beautiful and moral one, but a story none the less. I have no problems with people who want to believe in Jesus or a prophet, God or any other religious entity. It just doesn't work for me. I know the world to be amazing and complex enough via nature and explainable forces.

A selection for great short films including LogoRama (which I've been told has won an Oscar. Was that just yesterday?), Lost Things starring the lovely Alison Sudol and the song 'Sleepwalking' by A Fine Frenzy and a 1000 Awesome Things that I mostly agree with, but I imagine they missed out the Bridge scene in Manhattan which I watched yesterday and is, well awesome.

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Finished off a few book series this last few weeks including Hutson's Joe Pitt and Carey's Felix Castor books. Both are similar in that they deal with supernatural beings that exist in the real world and both books are written as thrillers.

My Dead Body is as usual, noirish, violent and full of fast lines. The vampire communities are in disarray after Pitt's last adventure and he has been spending his days and nights hidden away from his lover in the sewers of NY. Brought out with the chance to redeem himself, Pitt as usual finds himself the pawn in a game of politics that might end up with him and half of Manhattan dead. Fast and mean the story goes in the direction you expect, but has lots of fun getting there.

The Naming of the Beasts is a little slower to build as Castor reacts to the events that ended the last of the series. There's a demon after him only this demon is riding inside his best friend and wants to kill both of them. Having to give up on his morals and join the enemy Castor needs to end the possession that kick started his career. Bit of a predictable ending but great fun along the way.

Cancertown: An Inconvenient Tooth is an independent comic book production by new writers and artists. I picked it up becuase the front cover reminded me of Hellblazer. The story involves Morely, a man stuck between real London and Cancertown, an alternative world that he can enter due to the huge tumour he has in his head. It's not bad. The writing starts off good with plenty of intriguing ideas but it eventually runs out of steam and that last part of the story feels rushed. The cover work is great but the art inside needs work. That said those involved are names to look out for in the future.

****

Read this week:

My Dead Body by Charlie Huston

The Naming of the Beasts by Mike Carey

Cancertown: An Inconvenient Tooth by Dethan, Downey, Cook & Wilkinson.