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Sometimes I feel I little torn. During a favourite and frequent pastime (listening to music repeatedly clicking the Stumble button) I arrived at this Wikipedia page.

And then I arrive at an oft repeated conundrum. I am torn between two opinions:

1. "Oooh, that's quite interesting."


2. "What eejit spent their time not only thinking that up but explaining it too.

Generally 1. wins. That's probably a good way of defining geek. There must be a strong non-geek part of me because, depending on mood, it can win. Another good example is this, which I watched to the end and rather than thinking "idiots", I thought, "Mmmm...that looks like fun, not a waste of time at all"

But hey, its fun to rejoice in the weirdness of language (or the Japanese). Lets face it, there are far worse things on the Internet.

In no way, shape or form

"In no way, shape or form"

Listen up people, PLEASE stop saying this useless phrase. It is driving me mad.
One of "way", "shape" or "form" is enough. Really. It is.
Thanks, I appreciate your cooperation. Coz if you don't I'll drive over your head in my car, vehicle or automobile.

Broke the rules...

Ok, I said I wouldn't write any of the new book until I finished The Beatle Man. And I suppose that's true. It is 'finished'. Its just that really should be sorting out a decent synopsis. But I've got a cold and I'm really not in the mood. So I wrote this instead. The (potential) opening paragraph of Terra Exitus. Whether or not it survives is a long way down the road.

I saw him standing by the flower stall at the end of South End Road. He looked alone. A kind face. I waited a while to make sure he didn't call anyone. Leaving the train station, I crossed the road, walked passed him and headed up the hill. At the hospital entrance, I called him again with the next location and headed off towards the coffee shop on Haverstock Hill.
The table in the window was free as I had arranged. The world walked by. Steam rose from my coffee. I ate the small round biscuit with a single bite. He came in and looked around, his eyes finally finding me tucked in the window. His scarf unwound from his neck, he sat down and smiled.
"Finally" he said, breathing heavily from the walk up the hill.
"This is the last time, yes? Do you have the tape recorder?"
I wanted to get started. It was dangerous to take too long. "OK, its running, off you go." I had thought through what I was going to say a number of times but now, faced with this one last chance, I didn't know how to start. I looked out the window again. I could hear my own breath. I started.
"In the beginning..."
I stopped. That wasn't the best to way to start. I laughed but didn't smile.

Be interesting to see if it stays like that.

And now...the end is near...

And so we arrive here. At the edge of a cliff.

After many years of toil, the manuscript of my first novel is ready to submit. Which simply means I'm sick of the sight of it. But I think that's normal. I found as I did the last two readthroughs that you enter a dangerous period. One in which every bit you read starts to look rubbish and you feel compelled to change it. Its quite hard to get that balance right. A lot of the time you hate it simply because you've seen it too many times.

Now I have to struggle with a synopsis. I had one for a while back and it is guff. Need to start that again. You would think it would be easy. But it ain't.

Then there is who to send it to? I've decided that my very first submission will be to SnowBooks. I love the ethos of their site and it means that I have already read the rejection letter! After that, well, I'm still working on that.

The best news is that the process of really digging in and getting it finished has really fired me up to write again. The plan for Terra Exitus is coming along well (although several fairly important aspects are still changing on a daily basis), not to mention the sizeable plot whole in the mid-section. But that will come when I can put the hours in.

The other night, to celebrate the fact that I wasn't going to touch it any more, I designed a front cover for a bit of fun. It came out like this:



Yes, that's Eurostile again (for all you font fans). Expect it to appear in self-publish format in a few months time :-)