Ready for my close up

Assuming of course you’re shooting a film involving a bespecled, bearded chap dressed like a tramp and sporting a full set of luggage under his eyes.

Apologies for the lack of bloggage. It’s been a bit frantic this week with family stuff (Niece being born), work and my stuffing up my time management due to last week’s trip to Wales and thankfully I have tomorrow off. Which, judging from the amount of soy sauce I just spilt down my white shirt, is a good thing.

I have a list of things to be posting about that are backing up and so expect some content to be coming your way soon. Just caught a glimpse of myself in the monitor.

Oh lord, I look frightening today:

Not so much web 2.0 today as Hobo 1.0.

Deadline…what’s that?

Well, today has nearly gone. As expected I failed to finish The Woodsman today although I have managed to get to Chapter 17 - around eighteen thousand words to go. Of course - although it is a major rewrite - it is the third draft and so not quite as daunting as it sounds. Feel free to rib me mercilessly.

I’m probably a week to a fortnight of finishing the structural rewrite. Then, due to the amount of new material, I’ll need to do a line rewrite. The latter will probably have to wait a few weeks for me to distance myself from it a bit and then it’s off to my test readers. Hmm. Still seems like a lot.

My main aim now is just to finish the structural rewrite as soon as possible. Mainly because I haven’t really been writing any short stories - other than flash - while I’ve been working on it and I need to produce some in time for mid July. This is because I’ll be attending an Arvon course in late July, and I want to make sure I have some material to be ripped apart critiqued.

I wasn’t the only one who missed a deadline. Today is the day my brother’s daughter was expected to be born - I still can’t quite believe it: seems frightfully grown up. Anyway, I’m looking forward to going home soon and seeing everyone. It seems like ages since I was in Wales.

In other news, work is continuing on my new site. I’m struggling to find a theme that I want to use and so I’m considering whether a) I want to show advertising from day one or wait until the traffic is there and b) whether I want to just design the styesheet myself. To be honest I’m thinking I might be better off just getting content up there and worrying about a snazzy advertising integrated theme once I have the traffic.

Any ideas?

Bombs Away

There was a bomb alert today, a few buildings up from my office in central London.

The cordon ran from about a foot from the entrance to my office up to the far end of the street, something like ten buildings long. I arrived to find a number of people milling around taking advantage of the drama to catch some extra UV before the rain takes hold again.

To be honest it wasn’t the alert itself that captured my attention. It was the reaction or lack there of. No one bats an eyelid now, we’ve had so many of alerts the typical reaction is oh there’s another one and (if it’s not close enough for us to be evacuated) the obligatory joke about moving down the far end of the office. In the event of an evacuation you’re more likely to hear people whinging about having to leave the office than worry about shrapnel.

And it just struck me that was a kind of cool thing about London. Maybe it’s true of other places as well, I don’t know. I just like the fact that London’s reaction to this kind of thing (terrorist threats) is a one-fingered salute and a return to discussing the football/apprentice/whatever. I like it because it’s so refreshing in an age when we’re told to be afraid of everything from Diet Coke to men with beards - it’s nice to see we still have some backbone.

Now if we could just get the trains to run on time…

The week that was

Well, that was a tougher week than I was expecting.

It’s funny isn’t it? You get back from holiday and you always expect it to be a bit of a shock to the system but no matter how hard you prepare it’s always a shock in an unexpected way. So it goes I guess.

Monday was our first full day in the UK and we switched on to GMT quite well. I was feeling a little stiff after the flight but nothing out of the ordinary, or so I thought, by Monday night I confess I was struggling to move my head. By Tuesday morning I couldn’t move my head at all, in fact the only way I could get out of bed was to roll onto the floor and then stand through moving just my waist and knees. So that was the first thing, I was stuck like that most of the week. It’s funny how only turning from the waist unnerves people, I felt like a bond villain…albeit one that has gone to seed.

The next thing I can’t really tell you, suffice to say it’s a four letter word beginning with W and a source of ongoing stress. I’m told this is normal.

Finally today the third thing happened. You know how bad luck always goes in threes? Well that’s what I’m hoping anyway as it means I’ll be due some good luck. Anyhow: this morning I’m talking to my mum, who’s visiting at the moment, and all of a sudden we can hear a very loud dripping. Now after the last plumbing related debacle I have a pretty fine ear for any potentially unplanned water feature and so I leapt into action…pausing briefly to yelp for my neck. On pulling back the curtains I discover that our bay window is leaking water from about four or five different places across the frame.

I had a brief moment.

So that was the third thing. I hope. And I now fully expect all three recently submitted pieces to come back with acceptances as a means of redressing the balance…what do you mean it doesn’t work like that?

In writing related news I finally sent off a short story I’ve been working on for ages. Good for the soul that. And I’ve been slowly building the segue between Golgotha and the forest for The Woodsman in preparation for the major surgery required to bring the end rather closer to what I would like to say with the story than the way it is now. I think I’ll still hit my deadline of the 15th June but it will be touch and go.

But hit it I shall. Why? Because yesterday I started laying down notes for what I’m pretty sure will be my next novel length project and I’m keen to get going. I’m very excited.

Now back to the forest. I have Tream to kill and gods to pick fights with.*

* For the newer readers: no I haven’t been taking hard drugs, I am referring to my story The Woodsman.

Commuter Capers

Top five comedy commuter capers, go on - I dare you:

5. Next time a free paper is slapped into your chest arm bar the free paper pusher to the ground and tweak him a la Mister Miyagi. Helps your defence later if you yell assault as the paper hits you.

4. Dramatically swoon to the floor, drawing maximum attention the next time someone walks into you or cuts you up.

3. Next time someone with hygiene issues sits next to you remove a can of deodrant and spray the air around you. Use of phrase “For the flies” optional.

2. As everyone rushes to the train to board dance down the platform performing the corect steve tyler moves to classic cheese rock Walk This Way.

1. Next time some one invades your personal space cough loudly, explosively and spraying as much vapour at them as you can without actually spitting on them. Then talk loudly to your companion or mobile phone about how your TB is really a lot better and you hardly bring up any blood these days. Hand wipe to space invadee’s garment is optional.

Murky Monday

It’s been a strange day thus far. I awoke - it’s fair to say - in a bad mood having slept quite intermittently but then due to a speedy writing session I was feeling quite good. I had done something. My commute was also reasonable - seat secured, an absence of nutters and a good forty minutes of reading.

The fact that I randomly saw Keith Chegwin running on the spot as I waited on Waterloo bridge was the real beginning of the weird. The morgue like atmosphere of my office another string to the strange - several people on courses or leave means the usually frenetic - I like frenetic - atmosphere has dulled to a tepid: well I see your point but…

And now the weather seems to be on some kind of random selection: hail earlier, then sun, now grey again.

A shame really as I’ve had a great weekend. We had house guests - friends of G’s from Uni - and The Party. The Party went well although I noted with a kind of sadness that we seemed to have reached the age at last where attendees no longer stay where they drop, all partied out, but instead return to their own abodes to rest. It had to happen sooner or later. A good time seemed to be had by all and G had fun - that was after all the point.

I also caught up with my sister - E - who I’ve not seen in a while. She just got back from Cape Verde where it seems she had a great time; not including a dodgy tummy and got to hand over her copy of Illuminations - now available from WHSmith, Blackwells and Foyles (ownly the later two of whom can spell my name). I hope she enjoys it.

I’m hoping to get a fair bit of writing done this week and to that end will be falling off the world around Friday to get some done. Although I’ll be locked up in a B & B there will be some scheduled posts to keep you entertained.

And that’s it for now.

Short update…

This week is proving mental. Work is quite busy as I’m trying to get things cleared before I head - quite literally - to the other side of the world in a few weeks. Meanwhile we’re trying to get everything co-ordinated for the kitchen install in late May/early June; plus there’s birthday parties and trips to Weymouth as well as planning the afore mentioned trip to the other side of the world. It’s been a lot of fun reading about New Zealand and I’m now quite excited. Oh and I went back to Wales last weekend.

So a bit on.

As a result I’m quite pleased that I’ve managed to write every day since around the beginning of March, sometimes it’s only around five hundred words and others I’m merrily steaming away at 2000 words plus. But I’m doing it and I’m enjoying it. The Woodsman’s progress has slowed as I’m now into one of the heavy rewrites, having to refer back to notes and research material but I’ve also managed to finish another short story. That’ll go out to market in the next few days. Once I decide where to send it.

And now to work once more.

Notes to self…

1. Attempting to eat Haribo whilst driving may help keep you awake but E numbers and Metallica do not a law abiding driver make…

2. Everyone else on the motorway is out to kill you…never forget this.

3. When purchasing Chinese take away, ensure girlfriend has not just made up the name of the restaurant to confuse you before driving to the wrong establishment, this saves time and embarrassment later.

4. Do not leave chocolate on your laptop for later: laptop get hot, chocolate melt, laptop - unlike Neil - does not run on chocolate.

5. Do not stand downwind of parent’s dog after she has eaten. Not if you like breathing.

First you, then the world…

They’re coming for you, oh yes…(photo courtesy of G)

What Neil Did Next…

Now for the infamous leg story.

When last seen our fearless feckless hero was exiting Eastercon after an exciting weekend of beer, literature, more beer, geeks and a healthy dose of book buying.

Putting aside a very nearly lifelong fear of rats, he had foolishly agreed to having his better half, G, look after her friend’s pet rats. The afore mentioned friend being in Australia, we just had to pick the little critters up on the way home. Having agreed that he would not have to have anything to do with the rodents Neil thought himself safe.

After all readers: What Could Go Wrong?

Rats are fairly large as rodents go and so you need a decent sized cage. G’s friend H lives a few floors up in a block of flats; like all flats of this nature it has an awkward shaped set of stairs for carrying things up and down. G having decanted rats into a neat travel case, Neil prepared to carry the now empty cage out to the car.

Can you guess where this is going?

Somehow, despite cage being almost the same size as Neil, the cage is manoeuvred down the stairs to the front door. Where upon our hero halfwit discovers that the door has been locked. Stuck with an awkward shaped cage that cannot easily be put down he faces a dilemna: put the cage down or try to open the door?

Then he sees the switch.

Now, it is a common feature of many newer blocks of flats in London to have an electronic release button for the front door. In order to get out you must press this and open the door simultaneously. Neil presses the switch with his knuckle and pushes the door wide open with his foot.

The door swings back much quicker than intended.

And Neil steps back, swinging his left leg out behind him to block the door, rather like a bearded ballerina who’s gone to seed. In an act of what some might call karmic justice a piece of direct marketing lodges under his right foot before sliding away from him. His not inconsiderable weight is airborn - along with the cage - for a brief moment of hang time and then gravity catches on that something not quite right is going on; it slaps him to the floor with errant ease.

Neil’s entire weight, shin first comes down on the raised door frame. Now the rat cage is looming towards him grating his arm on the way to the floor. And he’s sure his leg is broken.

But somehow. It’s not. Neil knows it’s not because he can stand on it and you cannot stand on a broken tibia as it is a load bearing bone. It’s funny what you remember from your writing.

And so he starts to walk away, limping and thinking himself lucky. Then he notices his trouser leg is damp and sticky. That he has in fact done this:

NB - It actually doesn’t look as bad here as it did by the time I got to A and E, the bleeding hasn’t really got going because I’m sat down. By the time I’d walked the short distance from the car to the hospital my entire lower leg was soaked red. Cool huh?

So that was my Easter Monday. Hope yours was better.