The Khaibit's Shadow

Underword

2009-07-23T10:19:00.002+01:00

I will be appearing, with Hal Duncan at the Fringe in Edinburgh on Sun 23rd of August, Fingers Piano Bar, on Frederick Street, 7.50 onwards. Organised by Gavin at Underword . Not sure what I'll be reading yet, most likely Nelson's Blood and something from the new novel. WordDogs will be performing their greatest hits on the 21st.

The joy of being unemployed means I have been able to complete the first draft of a new novel, The Harrowed Garden. On the back of the synopsis for this, and on the strength of Adocentyn, I will now be represented by The McKernan Agency.

And with a new job starting in August its going to be pretty busy.

Robots Beyond UK

2009-04-25T09:02:00.000+01:00

Here's the link for the book on Amazon.co.uk: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1934861219/permutedpress-21

Robots Beyond

2009-04-19T08:53:00.001+01:00

I've just been told that 'Robots Beyond', which contains my John Dee story Primero, is now available from Permuted Press. You can get it from Amazon.com (I'm sure it will appear on their .co.uk site soon).

Dog Day

2008-11-26T15:15:00.002Z

Its time for another Word Dogs. Wednesday the 3rd, 8pm, 13th Note, King St, Glasgow.

I'm on last, so you have to stay until the end :)

Novel revision has been completed. I just need to do another pass on the final section and find a few thousand words to reach 80K and I'll be happy for a crit and then start finding an agent, again.

And now the end is near

2008-08-11T14:10:00.003+01:00

I recently updated the main website: www.khaibit.com so now it should be all shiny, W3C compliant and er up to date.

After supreme efforts each day (1K+, it helps when you have a plan) I'm within sight of the end of the first draft of Adocentyn. I haven't finished and already I have half a dozen edits I know I need to do. Mainly fleshing out paragraphs into whole chapters, a whole plot thread I left dangling and generally dramatising scenes. I decided to finish the whole thing rather than go back and finese part 2. Since it takes so long to get up to steam, better to make the whole journey, I thought. Polishing is much easier than raw creation.

Progress

2008-06-25T14:17:00.003+01:00

I have received the proofs for Nelson's Blood, to be published shortly in New Writing Scotland 26. So I'm guessing that goes to press pretty soon.

Have had a productive time of late. Closing in on 50,000 words in Adocentyn and I don't think I've quite got to the half-way point.

Eulogy

2008-05-23T10:42:00.005+01:00

My Grandpa died recently, and at the funeral I gave a short speech on behalf of my family. Cleaning up the house, in preparation for Asura moving in later today, I found the paper I had handwritten it on and was about to throw it away. I thought better of it, and have decided to preserve it here. It is a bit rough in places, as a scribbled first draft will be, but it is also from the heart, as a scribbled first draft will be.

How do you summarise a life? I don't think that you can recount all the words and deeds. But it is by someone's deeds that we should know them.

It is only relatively recently that I got to know my grandpa's history. One of his characteristic features was his relatively quiet presence. I don't think that it is necessary to have done great deeds to be a man - you don't need to explore unknown rivers or build a nation to be a man. A man's true deeds are much more subtle. His very life and the way he lives it - the example he sets- these are the deeds we should measure.

As I've said, my grandpa was softly spoken. I never heard him raise his voice - he never needed to. His word, when used, carried the weight of authority.

Despite provocation, I never saw him truly get angry. As a child, I had recent discovered that grass could be used to make green marks and his newly painted bungalow wall was the perfect canvas for me to continue this experiment. He was annoyed, but still I don't recall him raising his voice in anger or otherwise.

My grandpa always seemed content with what he had. He didn't seem to seek some elusive extra. I was amazed that he could eat a bar of chocolate over a week or two. It did however provide me with the opportunity to sneak downstairs in the middle of the night and nibble on it. This allowed my grandpa to show his keen eye and detection skills and deduce that the small teeth marks were mine.

My grandpa had huge reserves of patient and had time for everyone. He helped me learn to read, ensured I remembered my times tables, and eventually I could name my favourite dinosaur, Archaeopteryx.

The summary of my grandpa's life is before you, and around you. His family and friends. The people he influence by being himself. The summary of my grandpa's life is me. And for that I am happy and thankful.

Quick Notes

2008-05-16T08:48:00.005+01:00

A celebrity (model or pop-star) opens their own bank. "Bowies sounded like a pub, I mean it was, once, but it was a bank before that. Now it was a bank again, kindof."

"With iQ-Paper I couldn't understand why we still needed to craft models out of wood, card and glue (I used think of it as haiku paper given some of the ways it interpreted my handwriting)."

"With almost all information available just about anywhere, having knowledge is no longer important - what you do with it is now what is valuable."

Greek gods returning (perhaps an old chestnut) - subtly, as Greek gods can be. Punishing hubris, reminding humanity of the Virtues, speaking through statues and so on. Actually this ties in nicely with the my very sketchy headspace outline for the next book which would involve a dose of mass shamanistic initiation.

Talking of which, Adocentyn in now just passing the novella threshold and into the short novel territory (about 40K words). I'm still not halfway through the first draft.

Oh, and Croy Division, since Croftwerk was taken.

Second Wind

2008-04-16T15:09:00.005+01:00

I received news that my story 'Primero' will be included in the Robot's Beyond anthology from Permuted Press. Primero deals with the adventures of super spy and Magus John Dee as he was expelled from Prague in 1586.

Technically, this was accepted first, but it took some work rewriting and making other edits before it was fully accepted.

As before, full details of publication as and when I know.

First Sail

2008-03-13T13:05:00.002Z

I've sold my first story. Nelson's Blood, my tale of video pirates having a high seas adventure, has been accepted for New Writing Scotland 26. I think it will be published in July/August sometime, but naturally will let you know as soon as its available. I'll truly believe it when I see it.

Dog House

2008-02-04T14:51:00.000Z

I'm doing a reading, possibly my best piece to date, at the next Word Dogs do. Which is on Wednesday, same bat time, same bat channel (7.30, 13th Note, £2). Be there or be bored somewhere else.

Dominion

2008-02-04T14:38:00.000Z

One of the pivotal moments of my young life was seeing a video on TV by The Sisters of Mercy for Dominion from the album Floodland. I recall a goateed Andrew Eldritch poncing and posing around pyramids with a sword cane. Anyway, for a laugh, I thought I'd see if it was on YouTube. Inevitably, this turned out to be true:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWvOHT0zfXY

It's funny to think just how cool this still looks, even if the pyramids turn out to be the equally cool city of Petra in Jordan. (You may recognise it from the last Indiana Jones movie, no The Last Crusade, silly). And even if there was a full beard and not just a goatee and moustache. Still some things remain so 80s it's unbelievable. At points early on I'm reminded of Bladerunner.

Unexpected Gifts

2007-12-30T15:25:00.000Z

I managed to cheat death for the second time this year. The NHS gave me an early Christmas present and I finally had my offending gall bladder removed. It had started to cause me some pain again and was described as 'filthy' by the surgeon and 'ready to burst' by the anaesthetist. This time I was barely in the hospital for 24 hours but it was just in time. Now just over 2 weeks later I can drive again, experience a little discomfort from time to time and can't lift heavy objects.

My house has recently been invaded by beautiful, sweet things with barbarous names, except Asura, who is beautiful and sweet but not in the least barbarous.

After an otherwise crappy year things are looking up.

Let Down

2007-10-29T14:04:00.000Z

So there I was, secreted in my model of an ancient aeroplane, suspended from the ceiling of the Musée National des Arts et Metiers, in Paris, at the stroke of midnight on Saturday the 13th. And nothing happened.

When I got home, I discovered that the Vatican is releasing a special edition of a papal finding of innocence of heresy, which came a little late, if you ask me.

Deus Vult

2007-10-04T15:08:00.000+01:00

In 1307, Friday the 13th of October, to be more precise, Philip IV of France sent his agents to arrest members of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, or Knights Templar for short.

The 700th anniversary, the quick of you amongst you will have noticed, falls a week on Saturday. I wonder if anything interesting will happen?

Paper

2007-10-02T13:00:00.000+01:00

I've just about finished Stone. Just need to do another couple of passes through it. Either it is a work of astounding genius or a complete failure. Or perhaps just a story :)

Living in a twilight world of waiting, as I still don't know when I have to go back into hospital. It makes organising anything more than two weeks away rather tricky. I guess I was lucky not to get those Led Zep tickets after all.

Started proper Japanese lessons last night. 80% of the class is made up of students studying animation at the Art School!

Stone

2007-09-27T15:32:00.001+01:00

Having completed the first third of the new novel at the weekend (my original holiday plan was to complete the second third - destiny takes its own course), I've forged onto another quick side project that has been gestating for a few weeks.

Unlike many other stories I don't want to say too much about it as there is, perhaps, a mystery or a twist (we'll know better when I finish it). Suffice to say it is currently called Stone and concerns a young woman's problems getting close to people. I don't think I've written exclusively from a woman's perspective before. At first I was surprised by the 'voice' - it felt different to my recent writing - but have got more comfortable with it afk. And, inevitably, it has all started to come together now the keys are depressing.

On the subject of which, I have received a rather swiftly delivered Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000. I dropped a book on my trusty old MS 'gull-wing' style ergonomic split board, which has lasted me three PCs (it wasn't even a USB board!). Haven't had a chance to plug it in yet. The dropping of the book was precipitated by my moving a lamp, usually used as a bookstop on the shelf over my desk, in order to see if there was a footprint in the dust on my window ledge. You see I thought, but wasn't sure, that someone had broken into my house on Saturday afternoon. (I came home, the alarm was going, the internal doors were ajar and the back window was thrust wide open - they had been firmly shut when I left, and there were some muddy marks on my front bedroom floor. But nothing appeared out of place or missing, like the MP3 player sitting on the sofa in the backroom.) Anyway, satisfaction bringing the cat back, I found a footprint and it wasn't mine. The next morning I found one on the front window itself, that I had washed earlier in the week. So I figure the alarm spooked my burglar when they got into the hall and they scarpered out the back window. Nevertheless, my habit of leaving the windows at the front open, to prevent damp on the walls, is now cured. What I'll do now about the winter mildew is another matter.

September has been fun, hospitalised, burgled, and got a year older to underwhelming recollection (although my star of a sister did pull out all the stops), and still a few days left.

They're Here Already

2007-09-10T17:31:00.000+01:00

Now that I'm out, albeit 'on pass' temporarily, the strangest part of this whole adventure is how unreal the 'real' world seems. I keep having to resist the urge to go up and pinch people to make sure they're actually there and not some kind of projection. Also I very quickly got institutionalised. You know what time of day it is by when your pills turn up in a plastic cup and your drip gets changed.

I feel like I'm sitting in command control of some kind of robot colossus that looks like me, but somehow doesn't quite move right or feel right, a slowed exoskeleton with delayed responses and sluggish controls. To cap it all I suddenly can't stand milk in my tea and can barely tolerate sugar. I'm still discovering the other surprises in store for me.

Maybe the MRI scanner has transformed me into some kind of mutant (or perhaps back into a normal person). I happen to know the guy who looks after the one in the Southern General they used on me - I may have to have words with him :) If the crime-rate in Glasgow suddenly falls due to a mysterious vigilante it's nothing to do with me, right?

Carry on Nurse

2007-09-10T10:19:00.000+01:00

I dropped off the planet recently.

After a long week of pain ended with an even longer night of agony I ended up visiting an out-of-hours clinic a week last Saturday and before I knew it I was in A&E, followed quickly by a bed in Ward 5 in the Victoria Infirmary here on the Southside of Glasgow.

I was disappointed to find that morphine didn't get rid of the pain, it just made the rest of me detached so thankfully a heavy dose of anti-biotics began to make some progress after a couple of days. Really though I put my recovery down to getting some Oxygen on Monday morning.

I am amazed by the things I saw and learnt in just one week on the ward. I saw doctors, and not just junior ones, be doing rounds at 7am and checking up on patients after surgery at 8 or 9 at night. Nurses, from the Sister down, pulling 12 hour shifts. The dedication was something that makes any job I've ever felt challenged by pale into insignificance.

I also learnt more about life in a few days than I have in years. The tales other people had to tell, and those I witnessed, from the guy stabbed 14 times, to the amputee who was up and about barely two hours after getting his leg taken off, to the total crazy hard-man from the Gorbals who wouldn't co-operate with anyone with enough tranquilisers in him to put down two elephants.

I'm only out for a couple of days, but hope to get discharged properly tomorrow. But if I'm ever in a hospital again I hope I'm in a place as good as Ward 5. They may never read this, but I'd like to thank all the staff and doctors who have looked after me there.

Globalisation

2007-07-27T15:46:00.000+01:00

I guess its a sign of changing times: apart from the occaisional work permitting attendance at the GSFWC I don't seem to know anyone British anymore. Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, German etc

Consequently there are some evenings when I feel my head has been hacksawed open and exposed to so much 'otherness' that the brain will dry up and crack. Now to Google Zizek, apparently something to do with Marxist psychoanalyis or something.

Blimey!

2007-07-27T15:41:00.000+01:00

Finished the last Harry Potter book a lot quicker than I had intended. Thought it was a damn fine read as a reader and a writer. I would love to be able to tie up a story so well, give everyone a bow and do it all while filling out the background mythos.

I was still struck with one image afterwards, which almost seemed to sum up the whole book (I don't think it could be a spoiler): Papa Lazarou sqwarking "You're my wand now!"

More Dogs

2007-05-07T12:32:00.000+01:00

Our next WordDogs event is on this Wednesday (9th May). Like before it is in the basement of the 13th Note on King Street. Starts at 7.30, £2 on the door.

First Release

2007-03-20T14:02:00.000Z

After a very long slog in the dayjob we finally launched our first product yesterday:
www.osicus.com

Meanwhile, after cases of insomnia and blockage I now can't keep back the flow of words in the novel. Yay!

Extra Curricula Activity

2007-02-19T09:01:00.000Z

Not content with getting on with the novel, I've started musing on a story. I can't help it if these images pop into my head and demand attention, an airing at least. Here's how it goes so far:

"I stood with the Sabatier knife held above my head like some latter-day Excalibur. The King lay dead at my feet. The King was dead, long live the King!
He had been due to die today anyway, just on a suitably consecrated altar not the kitchen floor."

Somehow, and I'm not sure how, yet. This takes place today in a world in which a form of volkish tradition rose up in the UK and embraced the Celts as a pure race.

I'm still working it through, and it may be too big for a short story, but I like my background to be sound. Already the parallels between the Red Clydesiders in Glasgow and the events in Munich in 1919 are rather astonishing. Glasgow didn't have a Thule Society and nascent National Socialist group fighting back the Communists, that I've found, yet.

For Relaxing Times, Make It Satori Time

2007-02-16T12:44:00.000Z

In a circuitous way I discovered this week that I'm an Existentialist, a Romantic and an Anarchist. I prefer to use Gnostic as a short hand, but that does have the added connotations of demi-urges and other mythic entities. Not that I'm averse to that association, but it does blur the image.

But also I'm not an Artist. Something I had been laying claim to. The parallels are strong. I make marks on paper; these marks are images that I collect together in a way that aesthetically suits my need to convey a message. Some of them, this one, 'A', for example, were once closer to a more obvious picture of a cow's head.

I am also much more pleased with the fact that the images I create give many different readings and interpretations to the observer. Pleased because I feel these interpretations involve the observer much more than photographs or paintings. There is, in my opinion, a deeper reaction. Most art is passively passed by, ignored or interacted with in a >blink< level response. Maybe my work requires the observer to stop a little longer to truly see what is there?

Technology has affected my art in the same way as it has all fields of endeavour. It has allowed me to more readily arrange my shapes into the collages I want and to have them distributed further.

I think we have established that my art is the equivalent of oil paintings and sculpture. But I am not an artist. Not even, as I had amused myself with the idea, an out-sider artist (I have no formal training past an 'A' in English Higher). The reason, pure and simple, is that I do not live the life of an artist. I have chosen that instead of living in penury, eeking out an existence eating stale bread and whoring with prostitutes in my absinthe riddled insomnia, I would hold down a 'regular' 9to5 job and practice my art, like some furtive secret vice, in the evenings and on weekends. I haven't given myself over wholeheartedly to my muse, nor nobly sacrificed the balance of my bank account to writing sketches of verse for tourists on the banks of the Clyde.

So the official representatives of art, who rolled up in their fat, black pickled-in-formaldehyde half-limousine, hair coifed just so, wearing factory-worn black Armani denim suits handed me an official cease-and-desist order, then crapped into Jesus-shaped cookie-cutters and left the contents in my garden. So, just so we're clear, I'm not an artist.

Perfect Wakefulness

2007-01-27T17:45:00.000Z

Well I think the reading went down well, despite only having 5 hours'
kip in the previous 4 days. I even beat my previous record for staying awake by six hours;
I'm now up to 66, yay! The thing that I really hate about staying
awake too long is entering the state of being 'perfectly awake'. This is where you are beyong sleep and enter a hyper-reality. Everything is increased in sensation, while at the same time seems like it is hidden behind a warm, damp cloth. It is kinda cool and kinda creepy.
I am now having difficulty remembering how to sleep. I go to bed anxious I'm going to stay awake, which means that I do...

Unleash The Dogs Of Havoc

2007-01-21T11:57:00.000Z

I have something to confess, it's part of my messianic complex - it's all my fault. A throwaway line leads to the theme. And so on Wednesday the Word Dogs are running a reading event, and I'm somewhere in the line up.

Where: The 13th Note, Glasgow
When: Wednesday the 24th Jan, 8.30pm
How much: 2 quid

8 writers, 8 tales of high adventure, pirates, pestilence, and general havoc.

Website Upgrade

2007-01-03T13:32:00.000Z

After happily converting the khaibit.com site to CSS
sometime in the recent past, I have now upgraded the design.

Apart from a sunnier spring clean to the design I've also converted all the stories to PDF format and uploaded two new ones: Search Engine and Clatty Pat's Needle.

I think all the links work (except to the Adocentyn area), but if you find a fault, flaw or bizarre browser rendering (this last one took me all morning to fix) it would be kind of you let me know about it.

Highly Influential

2006-12-22T11:19:00.000Z

I was asked an unexpected, and for me, unusual question, given that I'm not published (yet) and don't tend to be on panels at conventions - what were my influences?

I replied with a quick thought (Umberto Eco) and then rather blithely said 'Everything I've ever read'. Which is both true and inaccurate at the same time. Having been thinking about it, I realised that my influences tend to be in theme or flavour rather than style and structure. Consequently, I'm faced with the stark realisation, for a writer, that most of my influences aren't books or authors. Rather it is film and TV. To some extent this could be a worrying sign. Certainly in the past I've seen people write RPGs where their influences and knowledge of the world has been other RPGs. But on the other hand I consider myself more of a storyteller than a writer. Writing just tends to give me more control of proceedings than say live roleplay.

So what are my influences?
In the style and structure category I think I am quite unwittingly married to Ian Rankin's Rebus books, but think I'm starting to break free; I read some JG Ballard recently and that has blown my mind - he's already doing what I want to do and that includes the themes and flavour, but I love the style. No 'he said', 'she exclaimed', the reader is orientated through the dialogue by descriptions of what the person is doing while they say it - this not only adds details but removes the sense of two heads talking to one another separate from the environment. I also think that structure and the use of perspective comes from Neal Stephenson. But this whole area is one of experimentation for me.

In terms of theme and flavour there's a heavy dose of Lovecraft which is sometimes more explicit than others (see The 23rd Nail). But we have to go to things like the myths of Arthur, Robin, Loki, ie English/North Europe/Norse myth to really touch the depths. And here it should be pointed out that Robin of Sherwood and an Arthurian adaptation were both on TV when I was very young. The former especially with its strong pagan feel still echoes with me, and perhaps explains a tendency toward fantasy than SF. But I also watched Shogun as a kid too and this has left an odd sense of Japan in my mytho-conscious. Consequently, the Ring (which could be Lovecraftian too - in the original film there's a lot of hints about Sadako's mother's relationships with sea goblins) and Samurai films have a stong influenc eon me - both nobility, honor and horror. But in the end the Arthurian stuff resurfaces, with knights, Templars, Gnostics and the odd mad magus really being a strong vein. What I really try to get down to is the horror of simply being human.

How evident a lot of this is I have no idea.

Theatre Of Cruelty

2006-11-29T14:15:00.000Z

Lets get this straight - an unknown agency poisons a man with a rare radioactive isotope, a highly dangerous one that probably could only be obtained through a government, smuggles it into Britain within the relatively short lifetime of isotope and uses it in central London; a material that could be attached to some form of dispersant such as a 'dirty bomb' - and this actual act of terrorism, by possibly a foreign power, doesn't cause a widespread terror alert?

Head Cold

2006-11-04T14:17:00.000Z

There has been speculation ever since science threw out the God question as to how humans became intelligent - what was it that caused the spark that ignited Prometheus' flame and made us almost overnight some 200,000 years ago change?

I have rather liked the idea that eating some mushrooms by accident opened up the mind to experiences whether real
(ie just neurons firing away and creating dreams) or spiritual (elves, shamanic quest beings etc).
But I came across this article about
fossil viruses and their remains in the human genome. And I'm beginning to wonder if all we did
was catch the right cold.

Until The End Of The World

2006-09-25T10:56:00.001+01:00

Some sobering news in an otherwise unsually drunken weekend included the revelations that polar ice, ancient, always there
perennial ice had molten and that in the opinion of James Lovelock, the guy who brought up the Gaia holistic-earth theory and pointed out decades before anyone noticed that CFC emissions were damaging the ozone, that the Amazon rainforest is turning into desert.

So we're all doomed. Who needs to try and instigate WWIV as the End Times are here anyway? But it'll be fairly nice in the north of Scotland. So I'll be alright, Jack.

Back Door

2006-09-08T15:36:00.000+01:00

I'm getting a small, but growing, trickle of people asking to see Enoch's Vault, my first novel. If you're interested don't feel shy. Whether you like it or not, pass it on. I'm getting even more tempted to just put it into a downloadable, readable format.

The Tarantata, as it is now, is finished and due a critique next week. For me it is the simplest story I've told in a while, but I'm happy with it. Primero is with another magazine and I may have one last punt of Enoch's Vault to a small Scottish publisher.

Quadrilogy

2006-09-08T15:25:00.000+01:00

I saw several films recently and it is interesting to compare and contrast. In order of viewing, I saw Innocent Voices, Volver, Little Miss Sunshine and A Scanner Darkly. I don't think any of them could be considered mainstream viewing. Two are in spanish and two are American 'indie' films.

Innocent Voices is the only one which remains with me. It is set in ElSalvador and an 11 year old boy is the 'man of the house' and trying to avoid conscription by both the government and rebel forces. Apart from a single moment of what seems like convenient timing the story is shocking, grim and haunting, and is apparently a true tale. If you can go see it.

Volver is a film by Almodovar. At first it appears a mother has died and is haunting her children and her granddaughter. Alas this would actually have been a better and more interesting premise. Penelope Cruz stars and is getting many plaudits, but I found her wooden and a vacuumn in the center of the film that the rest of the cast do well to ignore. Otherwise there is no real sense of resolution.

Little Miss Sunshine is billed as having a standing ovation at Sundance and is a comedy. It's funny, but it isn't a comedy. Most of the laughs are in the last half hour, unless you've not seen the trailer. However, it is a fabulous study of a family in crisis and the finale is unexpected, apt and superb.

Finally, A Scanner Darkly. If you've seen Arnie in Total Recall go and watch that again. This is dull, goes over the same ground and is less a waste of your money and time. Ohh it's rotoscoped. Why? It adds nothing to the film but nausea. Really it is five hours of Robert Downey Junior doing a turn as a druggy.

Rescued Cliche

2006-08-05T15:06:00.000+01:00

I managed to salvage the Tarantella story from the old hard drive. Sometimes you think you have a wonderful opening and invariably it gets changed before you're finished. It is almost as if the parts of your own writing you love have to excised from the script - if you love something set it free. Reviewing the 'great' piece whose loss I was traumatised by it now seems it may be a little cliched. Fortunately, it is the voice of the narrator not the author, so it may, just may betray some character if it remains. See what you think:

"The problem with the 21st century is that everything has already been done. Every procession of notes, or arrangement of proteins, has been sequenced and synthesised, protected and patented, purloined and pirated. Every nook has been explored, every people exploited. Each resource has been near exhausted, every species has been near extinct. In short, there is nothing new under the sun."

It is good to be writing again. It seems so fleeting the time I get to do it these days. But I still feel the restless yearning building inside me to go through the pains of creation. Nothing satisfies it like a blank page filled with crafted text. I'd love to be a musician or a painter, even photography is good. But as much as I'm sure I could and can. The time isn't there and frankly they don't hit the spot.

Norwegian Blue

2006-07-31T11:22:00.000+01:00

Last Monday I came home to find my PC trying to boot up. This was a little odd as it was switched off when I left. I fiddled about but nothing I could do could induce it to switch on. After a lot of diagnosis the next day, including buying a new power supply (which I no longer need - if you're interested), it was pronounced dead at 1200 hours. It was a little like mourning a friend. That computer got me through a lot of the last year as my window on the world and my source of entertainment. No wonder it was worn out. The unusual heat finally did it in along with a failing power supply. Crispy chips are nice when they aren't silicon.

Today I'm waiting for its replacement to arrive. Not something I'd planned on getting as I crawl out of debt induced by unemployment and exacerbated by having to pay huge repair bills on my car. It cost me the same amount as the number of the beast. I choose to think of this as an amusing omen for good.

Fortunately, I had done a backup not long before and so most of my data is safe and recoverable. All that I really need from the harddrive, if it still works, is my savegames and and the story I'd started working on.

I don't know if this will make it into Adocentyn, but I'm imagining it set during a holiday my narrator/hero has and perhaps the first glimmer that his childhood is catching up with him. Taking place in the deep south of Italy, I'm taking an almost voodoo spin on the Tarantella; a dance once done to rid young women of the poisonous effects of the bites of a Tarantula. I think I've got it mapped out, but I wrote a great opening paragraph extolling the ennui of the early 21st century. While a re-write may do it good, sometimes you never capture the same intent twice.

Comical Ali

2006-07-29T12:14:00.000+01:00

Remember the information minister for Iraq who spent a lot of time denying the Coalition of the Willing were making any headway into Iraq while huge explosions happened right behind him?

I was reminded of him today when I was listening to the radio and heard the Israeli ambassador to the UN reject a call for a truce to allow aid into Lebanon because Hezbollah are trying to create a humanitarian disaster...

Guernica

2006-07-22T16:45:00.000+01:00

It is a bit of a mystery to me how after one military force attacks another (usually considered a 'legitimate' target) this justifies the 'precision' bombing of an entire country and specifically the civilians.

Meanwhile the people supplying the arms just sit back and watch the show.

Saddle Up

2006-07-01T12:54:00.000+01:00

Much of my work seems to occur at just the right time that a similar wave crops up in the media in general. Enoch's Vault takes Biblical mysteries and the whole 'alternate history' research that we see in The DaVinci Code et al. Primero, is an alternate Bond/spy story, just as there is an upsurge in these.

I'm not claiming to be in tune with the Mode of the Monde, in fact this is the problem. Someone, somewhere, decided two years before that these things would be good to publish, or make into film. So you need to either make the wave or be in the right place at the right time.

I'm back working on my misunderstood magnum opus Adocentyn. There are, I guess, the usual fantasy moments in the book, and they'll be tinged with that religious faith quest thing I seem to do, that yearning for touching the divine. I mean, it is a self styled Gnostic parable after all. Will this be good enough/ different enough? I dunno. El seems to think so and she has a gravity of opinion that outweighs most.

Here's a bit I wrote recently that I really love:

The stairwell was an odd mixture of damp, mouldy patches, sometimes with disturbing fungal growths clinging to the wall, and dry, arid regions duned with dust. Both of them made my nose itch and I fought the urge to sneeze. I didn’t want to breathe in whatever might be floating in the air.

Just as curious, in these regions, were the creatures that inhabited them - spiders with tiny bodies and long legs that made them as big as my hand skittered over the deserts, while fat, anaemic slugs writhed amongst the mildew. I imagined a polarised war between these two forms of decay and prey. Dry rot versus wet corruption.

I don’t know, now, if I realised that same war was waging within me.

Migrating Cranes

2006-06-25T14:59:00.000+01:00

Every afternoon, for the past three weeks, as I drive home from work, I have seen large, vehicle-based cranes heading west. I have begun to suspect that apart from a plan to slow down late-afternoon traffic on the 'M'8 the cranes are migrating west. Quite why is a puzzle to me, but I expect to see them standing forlornly in Saltcoats and Largs, arms raised and extended, mourning their inability to go further as the land has ended.

My Double-O Dee story was rejected by Farthing, no explanation besides an implication I'd not read their submission guidelines. I've just finished the edit on Primero after feedback from the GSFWC. Not sure where to pitch it next. Really, it is a choice between Interzone and something further afield.

Back Down T' Pit

2006-05-08T17:37:00.000+01:00

My life as a full time writer is about to fade away for the time being, and let's be honest; it wasn't exactly paying the bills. So tomorrow I return to the 9-5 and am actually happy to be running my own company. Nothing like being the boss if you _have_ to work.

Meanwhile Adocentyn nears the 10,000 word mark and I've polished off Primero, and hope to start submitting that to various magazines soon as I research suitable ones.

The Enki And Enlil Show

2006-04-25T10:38:00.000+01:00

You know how you suddenly have one of those meme particles beam into your head and suddenly it's like 'Ahhh' and followed by furious scribbling (if your hands can still do that).

Well there I was in the warm afterglow of that orgasmic moment of First Principle (and hell En Sof knows they're the only orgasmic moments I get these days), when I stumble onto Hal Duncan's Blog and find the bar steward has beaten me to it, cos he was up late. Puck and Jack, and Enlil and Enki, you bet (or is it Enki and Enlil, they're a bit like Ant and Dec). Sigh.

I better just stick with my Sufi stand-up Neural Din. And I'm beginning to think that Kitten Uzi and her Uzbek punk bank Uzi Kitten will turn up in Adocentyn. Poor Sec needs a girlfriend.

Having escaped Oblivion, I can now get back to writing, but The Movies turned up on my doorstep. Machinima here we come.

Eastercon, Eastern-con

2006-04-18T16:05:00.000+01:00

The pre-Eastercon reading went well. Finally did an smaller extract from the Dee 007 prelude to Primed. Now I'm thinking maybe I should see if I can make it a full novel in its own right again. Plot inspiration may be helped by some research on my reading shelf.

I was lucky, as I seem to be these days, to get a ticket to Eastercon here in Glasgow. Much more relaxed and less hectic than Worldcon was last August. Strange how things have not changed much for me though. Still, the whole weekend was highlighted by me walking down the stairs from the mezzanine into the hotel bar, at about lunchtime on Friday, while a rather stunning woman, wearing green, was coming up them. She gave me the most wonderful smile (which threw me off guard). Turned out to be Justina Robson, one of the guests of honour. Now I bet she's married and confused me for someone else... ;-)

Anyway, started thinking about next years con, but I may be in Japan for a Kyudo tournament, and off course Worldcon in 2007 is also in Japan. Started looking at prices - Con £100 membership (very reasonable considering a taxi from Narita airport to Yokohama will be £150, think I'll try the train), Flight £700 (if it costs the same as ths year, can't book next year yet, damn it), Accomodation £550. And that is without any special room rates. So about £1400 quid before everything else, so budget about £2000. Experience of a lifetime - Priceless. But going to Japan twice in one year - better start saving, hmm and maybe working. Wonder if I can get a book finished and picked up in time for Aug 2007 publishing?

Fester and Ailin

2006-04-03T14:36:00.000+01:00

If you ever see Podge and Rodge let me know, if you have the DVDs I'll buy them from you. But other than borrowing their namesakes for their folk duo, that's all they have in common with progress on Adocentyn.

I've been forging forward with this and hope to get the first third done before going back to revise the Primero starter with Dee. Having just started the point where our 'hero' begins to have his future shaped by the abuse he recieved, I'm coming up for some air.

I'm also having to be very disciplined as I have a copy of Oblivion and it is better/worse than crack.

We're doing a reading evening (well Mike is organsing it, the we in this is the members of the GSFWC) just before Eastercon, which is in Glasgow this year. Starts at 8pm in The Ingram Bar on Queen Street, on 13th April. I'll be reading something. Might be Clatty Pat's Needle, might not, depending on feedback and obstinancy on my part.

Vanarchy In The UK

2006-03-20T15:49:00.000Z

Saw 'V For Vendetta' yesterday and my fears were fortunately futile. While, yes, it is watered down and some plot points being dropped become a nice in-joke (Birch talks about visiting the concentration camp and having a 'feeling' about how this would all turn out - I seem to recall he drops acid and trips his way to revelation about what happened there and where to find V). I actually found the film very moving with some wonderful scenes taken straight from the pages of the book. For a film adaptation, of this material, it was splendid.

Madimi

2006-03-03T11:28:00.000Z

As soon as I start work on Adocentyn cursing Primed and my inability to get past the first chapter of the Dee section, something gives and I'm away. Instead of pulling teeth it is just flowing along nicely, so now I'm close to the end of the first draft.

I was pitching for about 10,000 words, but will probably get 6,000. I'm sure as the revisions go on this will swell up a bit more towards the target, but I always write tight. As soon as this draft is done I have to go back and change the dialogue into iambic pentameter. Glutton for punishment me.

Dancing In The Street

2006-02-16T14:27:00.000Z

It's tommorrow (or maybe next year), you sleep rough in an old railway tunnel, or Victorian shops someone built a railway station over, you're young, angry, delinquent. What music (available now) is a good soundtrack to your life?

Crisis Averted

2006-02-07T14:50:00.000Z

Not reported much on progress recently, mainly because there hasn't been any to report on.

I love the Dee/WWII project, and have averted a bigger problem by narrowing those into one work. However, as much as I liked it, it wasn't coming from the soul. And in the vacuum in steps Adocentyn.

Some of you will know that I've been struggling with a number of stories involving street kids and their own mythology. All in all not too pleasant and I've had real difficulty seeing how to realise it into anything, anything at all. The long sub-conscious gestation may have done it well. I have a sketchy outline and I have finally begun writing with a sense of enthusiasm. This will not be a joy to write in the normal sense and I actually hope to work on Primed as some kind of light relief from my own demons bubbling forth.

Here's another opening paragraph or two for Hal's critique:
"The last thing I remember my sister saying was something about man being everywhere in chains.
We were travelling north on our summer holiday. It was a gorgeous autumn day, the sun high in the blue sky, faint wisps of cloud minced along. The sun was a nice change as it had rained all the previous day as we drove from London to Glasgow. Now we were heading up the side of Loch Lomond.
I was gazing out over the fish scale water. My sister, Jo, was practising her manifesto on me, for when she got back to school. Most girls want to grow up to be a princess. Jo wanted to be the elected leader of the revolution.

Originally it started with the last two lines here first, I'm still playing. Never tried first person before either.

Candidate must have hands on sludge experience

2006-01-26T09:26:00.000Z

A true line from a job ad today

Turn Left At Plymouth

2006-01-20T14:11:00.000Z

I can't believe I'm watching live footage of a whale in the Thames. I'm pretty sure I'm not smoking crack, but there could have been something in the soap I used to wash the car earlier.

I thought I'd supply the joke for tonight's stand up in the headline.

Casino

2006-01-18T15:00:00.000Z

Finally got started. Took out my spade and broke the ground. I've done about half of the first chapter so far. I don't know if this will pass Hal Duncan's first sentence critique test, but here's the first paragraph:

Dee, Mathematician, Magus, Spy, picks up the cards that he has been dealt. The good quality deck is of the Italian style. He has one card with seven gold coins, made with real gold leaf. The other depicts seven batons, sprouting leaves. “Numerus quarante huit,” he says, making his bid. He hasn’t been recognised yet, good. He places a few coins on the table in front of him and observes the reaction.

16th Century pulp, historical accuracy and adventure. Why did I do this to myself?

Closer

2006-01-16T13:27:00.000Z

Well, finally finished the first draft of the outline. I'm going to do another pass and fill in some of the XXX and YYYs. Then I can work on filling it out in more detail while I get started on the opening Dee section. I've been itching to write this for soo long now, I almost don't want to start and disappoint myself.

Plot Apocalypse

2005-12-23T13:06:00.000Z

I had something of a revelation on Tuesday evening in the pub. I could feel that light beaming out of the sky illuminating me.

Instead of getting stuck writing two WWII based stories with weird shit going on, why not combine them?! Suddenly all the issues I was having melted away, and now, a few days later, I'm close to a very rough outline. (Xxx meets Yyy. No, really! I know who they are, just was on a roll so couldn't be bothered stopping to look up the names.)

In so doing, it's like all the other issues I've had to contend with this year dissipated too. I even had a call about a job. Not an interview as such, but a step in the right direction.

So now we have witches, wizards, WWII, werewolves, mecha-Nazis, Kabbalah Prime bombs and Dr John Dee. Annoyingly, I can find to legitimate reason to include ninjas. Warrior-monks, no problemo. Ninjas, not yet.

There goes another rubber tree

2005-12-20T12:45:00.001Z

I heard back from an agent yesterday and they decided they didn't wish to represent Enoch's Vault. So two down on this draft and er however many it is in total now. Obviously, I could be happier and wonder if I should devote myself more to the next one than worry about selling the last one. But that little flicker of hope still burns.

I may have been rejected again, but both of these recent rejections have not been 'sorry, your work stinks' more 'sorry, I don't think _I_ can promote this' and in the sense that the agent personally doesn't feel right for the book. You can't complain about that and you can't change your style or subject without writing a new book or developing naturally.

So I don't know. At least I have closure on the year, no loose ends. At that means a nice clean start to next year, which can only be better than this one was. Still I did finish a novel, twice. Was able to be a professional (if unpublished) writer at WorldCon and gave readings of work to audiences in LA and Edinburgh.

So chin up and have a good holiday. Hope you get what you need next year.

Softly Spoken

2005-12-19T14:17:00.000Z

I think this year's Writer's Bloc/GSFWC 'Write Off' went rather well. I was second last and so the last from the west coast to do a reading. 'Search Engine' will be up on the site soon, the tale of a quadriplegic finding a friend on the Internet. It remains the only thing I consider to be truly SF that I've written since I was 15. Revised since the submission to Nova Scotia, it came across funnier than intended, but the audience is primed for laughs by the end, and hell people laughed at 23rd Nail last year!

Now do we wait a whole year to host it again, or do we strike out boldly on our own?

Hmm. Upgrades!

2005-12-12T12:46:00.000Z

I've revamped the site(s) (www.khaibit.com and www.khaibit.com/vault.hmtl) using lovely CSS tools and just have to make sure the 'Vault' pdfs are up to date as I wrote a considerably better (and longer) synopsis (thanks Robert for the advice).

Please have a look and let me know if they work okay on your machine (Opera and IE6 over broadband is all very well but that's not everything/one covered.)

Have rejigged one of my stories for the reading event. The other needs too much attention. I used to be able to do plot - I don't know what happened. All those years in the Cam? The Buffy effect, where each years Big Bad has to be bigger and badder to present a challenge to the point where it gets silly? I dunno. Maybe its not so much I can't do plot, more I've just got shy of it.

Reminds me of one of the funniest Thrud the Barbarian strips from White Dwarf. Thrud sits under a tree for a few cells then some dwarf pops up asking where the plot for this month's strip is. Thrud hits him with his axe making a Plot! noise. I guess you had to be there. (Maybe one day it will appear here: http://www.thrudthebarbarian.com/archiveindex.html

Once More Unto The Breach

2005-12-06T13:31:00.000Z

Well I find myself with a lot of time on my hands again. So just need to get back into the swing of things.

First up is a crit tonight of a couple of stories I hope to read at this year's showdown between the GSFWC and Writer's Bloc. On the 15th December in the Canon's Gait over in Edinburgh.

Finally started making progress with Herne's Brigade and have begun to etch out the outline. Then there is still novel 2. Incidentally got a knock back on the newsest version of Enoch's Vault. Right now it is still out there with one agent. I don't know what to do if they're not interested. Meeting a wall of self doubt at the moment.

Herne's Brigade

2005-10-04T09:52:00.000+01:00

One of the things I've been labouring on, is the background for an outline for a script for a TV series (and breathe). I'm tentatively calling it Herne's Brigade - A private unit loosely connected to SOE in WWII, fighting the evil Nazis with witchcraft (as oppose to magick).

I'm hoping to capture the mythic/pagan feel of Robin of Sherwood. Hence Herne is ultimately petitioned for aid/patronage. Here's some of my 'bible' in progress:

‘One history passes by in full view and, strictly speaking, is the history of crime...This is one history, the history which everybody knows, the history which is taught in schools...The other history is the history which is known to very few. For the majority it is not seen at all behind the history of crime...The visible history, the history proceeding on the surface, the history of crime, attributes to itself what the hidden history has created. But actually the visible history is always deceived by what the hidden history has created.’
P. D. Ouspensky, A New Model of the Universe

One of the mysteries bequeathed to the Romano-British towards the end of the Roman Empire, was the seed of knowledge that the Empire had, from far India to Ireland, attempted to capture not only as much of the known world as possible, but in particular the sites of power; Pyramids, lingam stones, the circles of Gaul, Malta and Ireland, ancient cities built beneath Anatolia, henges, groves, oracles and springs; for it was to the Romano-British that the administration of these places fell...

The loud retort of the First World War still echoed across Europe, as Imperial powers realised their futile constructions were about to crumble. Another ideal rose, no less an Empire in ambition, but forged in the conflict of Fire and Ice, sweeping aside the martyred Jew and nailing once more the creed of the Volk to the cathedral door. From lands that stood outside the Pax Romanum, this Reich was determined to grab those places of power for itself...

Unseen armies clashed with one another. This is the tale of one band of occult commandos who struck deep into the Nazi occult engine and won unsung honours; Herne’s Brigade.

And on the 30th Day he will arise

2005-10-03T14:22:00.000+01:00

I get to rejoin the land of the living this week. Four weeks after being made redundant and, better yet, beating my previous recording of signing on (last time it was two, this time one). I should be careful though, not signed a contract yet, and the Gods are already messing with me by destroying my TV.

It's only stuff, but I made a lot of sacrifices to get it and for obvious reasons can't afford to replace it (getting the repair guy out will be...taxing). Not to mention missing the last half of Waking the Dead tonight...

More Prime Beef

2005-09-30T11:55:00.000+01:00

In one of those spooky coinkidink situations not only was there the start of a new series on Queen Elizabeth (I) but a programme on prime numbers on BBC 4 this week.

The prime programme was interesting, if so full of juvenile analogy that the science was lost. I mean suddenly we're taling about Riemann and a landscape, no explanation of where this landscape came from (I assume, right now, that it is some geometric function). Then at the 'sea level' of zero points all the prime numbers appear in a straight line. So I can find prime numbers on the coast of Scottish sea lochs, can I? Bloody Slartibartfart was a cunning soul.

It was fascinating to find that primes group together rather like the energy levels in heavy atoms like Uranium. You know explosive elements like Uranium. Prime numbers, the fundamental building blocks of the mathematical universe are like explosive atom energy levels. Boom. I laughed for hours.

Now I'm seeing prime's everywhere. Even Hal Duncan was having rpoblems with a TV game show and for a few minutes I thought the supposed answer was a prime. This is getting a bit like one of those Lovecraft stories with a solitary scholar and non-Euclidian geometry. (I guess if it can create landscapes with prime sea levels...)

Focus

2005-09-27T10:16:00.000+01:00

I learned, later yesterday, that all it takes is focus. I put up an umbrella to shield me from the raining memes - No, it wasn't a tin foil hat. Remember, I know where you live - and got down to some work.

Instead of trying to multitask, I worked on Herne's Brigade (The WWII/pagan script). Started to look at character histories. Man, it's all very well saying that X was in WWI, but do you know what regiment, where did it see action? Which then means you need to decide where they where born, rather than it be a vague thing.

For instance the specific Riding in Yorkshire determines if it was the Queens' Own Dragoons, or the King's Own Light Infantry. That's the easy bit. Were they a regular or a volunteer, so which battalion where they in, and where did they see service before the war. Only a brave man with Google and Wikipedia in hand wades into that fray lightly.

Thankfully, I know people who know far more about this than I ever will, especially from browsing. But the story seeds from arbitrarily deciding someone was from York and thus probably saw service in Mesopotamia...delicious.

I love it when a plot comes together.

Primero!

2005-09-26T10:50:00.000+01:00

Still lost in the quagmire of no job. However, I do have ideas, millions of them, bombarding me like rays from some superhero-generating freak experiment gone wrong.

The downside of this is the sublime torture of taking them and turning them into something useful. This is why I stopped trying to write SF - I had the Idea, but the resulting story was just Idea and little stick figures worshipping it in dark Cthonic meaningless gibberish chant.

For a real writer it isn't the having Ideas, it is doing something worthwhile with them, that is the measure. This is where sitting with other human beings (preferably in a warm pub) comes in handy. I haven't seen another human being since last Tuesday. Anyway...

So I have the Idea for a book Primed, the one with Dee and Prime numbers and golems and World War II and I discovered that there is even a game I can use in my opening Dr No pastiche called...Primero! I love how these things come together - but then I just am stuck on a plot for the next 100K words.

I have an Idea for a World War II set TV series (always handy to use the same research twice I think), a Robin of Sherwood meets Secret War type thing. Got the top level arc, and even some of the smaller plot details. I sit down to do an outline for episode 3 (it is, so the received wisdom goes, better to pitch a mid episode than a pilot) and >bang< it all goes blank.

I decide to start work on a kind of prequel short story to Enoch's Vault called Clatty Pat's Needle, which is about my detective Alex McEwan looking into a shooting next to an obelisk in Glasgow*, and how the obelisk is actually sovereign territory for an African state...And I can do all that, but there's no plot...argghh.

That's before I even start on investigating the bottle of Nelson's Blood rum...which, you know, isn't sitting in a cupboard in my flat.

Its not so much writer's block and writer's white noise.

*It should be noted that there isn't actually an obelisk like this in Glasgow (that I know of), which is kinda part of the point of the story.

A slight case of progress

2005-09-07T12:51:00.000+01:00

After four months of 'employment' ie I was chained to a company but not being paid, I have finally been made redundant, after I begged for it. Yep, four months of worse than slavery (a slave at least gets shelter and food in return for their labour). I can now claim on my insurances and get benefit from the government while I seek a new job.

I have been witholding my labour for about 2 of those months. But really I could no longer afford to go to work on my own savings. This would have been so much easier to bear if I had been on the dole for four months, as I would have had some income and the insurance and my savings. But I've exhausted my contingency money just getting here. I can only thank the people who have supported me this far - even if it was just a coke down the pub - it's made a difference, believe me.

Now all I need is a new job, very very soon. Last time I was unemployed was exactly, down to the day, two years ago. It lasted about six weeks. I had only just come close to recovering from that; the not being paid for the three months that followed me being 'employed' and the year of half-time and reduced pay I'd been through before that. It occured to me that in my whole working career I have only worked for one company that was making money - Guinness, my first proper job, seven years ago.

Still I did have time to finish a re-draft.

Alternative ending

2005-09-01T16:38:00.000+01:00

I just finished the latest draft, within my deadline. I put on a big push over the last couple of days. Of course I realise now you never truly _finish_ a book, merely stop working on it.

I made it to 91,000 words. About 11K short of what I wanted, but I'm much happier with this draft than the last one. I still need to read through the third section. Make those edits and then read through the whole thing.

Then I think I'll see what the GSFWC make of it. Poor souls. Who knows what I'll do after that. My main problem right now is a lack of a laser printer. A 400 page novel on ink-jet printing - it'll take a week and about a gallon of ink ;-)

Pause for thought

2005-08-23T11:34:00.000+01:00

I have set myself a deadline, two more weeks to go. (Or is it now 1.5?) Just finished writing new stuff for the end of section two and begun section three. Shortly to go back to editing established material.

I'm now past the 70K line and trucking on. Hard to think I had no idea how I would get past the 40K of the first finished draft. I now have proper book-length novel, and all I need to do is finish it satisfactorily. In two weeks.

End of Part 2

2005-07-29T11:28:00.000+01:00

Finished my edits and rewrites of the existing part 2, of the Vault. Just have to do a quick read through for continuity and errors. That was the easy bit out the way, part 1 has had three edits, part 2 has had two edits. Part 3 will now see a sustantial rejig. I have actually written down a timeline for once. I just hope I can pull it all together, as I'm still not sure how to reveal the revelations. I also think that some of the newer stuff may end up at the end of part 2. Not sure where to make the cut, to be honest.

Well I'm at 63,000 words. The last entire draft was 69,000 ish. So well on track for 90-100K.

Also finally got my last errant submission returned with a no thanks note. Ah well. Thanks to a mysterious benefactor looks like I will get to spend a day at Worldcon. This is principally an SF convention, but its all about the books not the people in Star Trek costume. Who knows what doors may open up beneath me?

Recycled

2005-07-20T11:47:00.000+01:00

I'm currently just above 50,000 words in the new draft and roughly, dare I say it, halfway through this version. Only a few months ago I reached that spot for the first time, now it may double. It is good to have people who wont let you get away with second best. Sure second best can be published but it can be better.

I still have one lost soul of a submission out in the wilderness, not sure how I can politely ask about it, or whether it is better to let sleeping dogs lie until the draft is finished.

Nova Scotia

2005-07-15T10:05:00.000+01:00

Not my holiday destination but a collection of Scottish Speculative Fiction will be available soon and contains contributions from some of my GSFWC colleagues. You can get it from Amazon. Sadly I'm not in it. But you should buy it anyway.

I did try, three times. But my only SF story ever was thrown together just after I got off a plane from LA, and frankly must have shown it really. I also submitted my near future Cthulhu-does-Godzilla-in-Glasgow story The 23rd Nail but it's not the same on paper as it is spoken. My third attempt was Nine Minutes, but clearly the idea of two people getting together over the course of three speeddating sessions wasn't speculative enough whatever its quality ;-)

Better luck next time. Which hopefully won't be in ten years time. Actually come to think of it, a latter day relaunched New Worlds annual thing might not be such a bad idea, but it will depend on sales not doubt. So once again go buy it. Well order it at least. You're still here. The post's ended, go to the link.

Putting the band back together

2005-07-07T10:27:00.000+01:00

I was reading Momus' blog, where the juxtaposition of the words cats and guns, gave me a band name bursting forth Athena-like, fully formed.

I haven't quite decided how I'll use it though. Maybe never at all, maybe a running 'See You Next Wednesday' gag in everything. I'm also not sure of the order either. Currently I favour Uzi Kitten, much more of a sense of aggressive moggy toting ballistic weaponry. Kitten Uzi, you see, sounds like a delightfully foxy Oriental Bond girl.

War of the Worlds

2005-07-05T10:40:00.000+01:00

I didn't make the march on Saturday. I was involved in an event in Edinburgh, however. While I was doing demos and being prodded and trained by Kyudo sensei I could hear the helicopters overhead and was, by late afternoon, beginning to feel like I had slipped into a Vietnam war movie. Amazingly both entering and exiting E'Burgh by car went without any traffic problems at all. While there one of my fellow kyudojin came in after doing some photography of the march relating a tale of 200 hundred anarchists who had spray-painted the buses of those attending the march. Such a sad protest really.

Recent news has been on NASA firing a large heavy object at an innocent comet. We've been told this won't effect it's path in any way (obviously having decided to drop Newtonian mechanics from their memory). Quite why 'we' have decided to premptively strike this object we don't yet know. Perhaps it is one of those missiles fired by Heinlein's bugs? Or maybe its a Rama-like craft covered in frozen water? Whatever it is, even just a comet now sent on a new course, I don't see any good coming of it. When ET knocks on the door moaning about our kids smashing his car with their cricket ball I'm sending the bill to NASA.

Production and Industry

2005-07-01T11:09:00.000+01:00

The times may be dark but I am feeling slightly smug at not only finishing my corrections for section one, but also adapting my story Nine Minutes into a film script, all in one day.

The script, however, is 20 pages long, which for a nine minute short may be a bit long...I dunno. It doesn't take that long to read through the dialogue, there's almost no action and maybe 30% of the dialogue is voice-over thoughts. I'll see what the experts have to say - it has been a while since I wrote a script. Back then I was the self-styled writer-in-residence of a blues/jazz bar in Glasgow who really was justing waiting for his partner to finish work. Whether that updated celtic invasion myth will see the light of day, never mind get typed up, is a mystery left to time.

The Dark V Returns

2005-06-27T11:57:00.000+01:00

Finally made it to see Batman Begins. Sunday afternoon, blazing sunny, me, alone, in a cinema. I couldn't afford the ticket but I went anyway.

Easily the best film this year. Easily the best super-hero film full stop (Sorry Spidey). They completely nailed the character, the motives, and I loved the training and becoming. I mean Batman _does not_ kill people directly. A point so totally missed from the previous films. I mean never mind that it reduces your villain count for sequels he just doesn't do it and the deaths of Joker and Penguin etc were always accompanied with howls of rage from me. (Okay I only really know Batman and Spiderman from the cartoons rather than the comics but there were still things I knew to be wrong). I also loved the slightly subtle fact that Bats does some actual, you know, detecting. Rather than having super-villains crashing a Bruce Wayne gala all the time.

I began to think that V from Vendetta is the kind of character Ras Al Ghul (is he really immortal?) would rather Bats was. And how he is really the only British super-hero; attack the government not the criminals as its their fault the criminal system exists in this fascist dystopia anyway. And this is especially poignant when you realise both Bats and V are terrorists.

It will burn

2005-06-16T10:13:00.000+01:00

Speaking of Vellum, (H)Al's publisher has launched their long awaited website. In my opinion it was worth the wait. I'm not fortunate enough to have read the whole book yet, but the bits I have over the past couple of years kick ass. I can truly recommend it sight unseen. (Probably a bit late for a cover quote attempt ;-)) But there's an extract to whet your appetite.

Sometime I Amaze Myself

2005-06-06T09:30:00.000+01:00

Well I had another one of those weekends where I spoke to nobody (unless you count the woman at the checkout in Asda asking me if I wanted cashback). If I had died when I got home on Friday, I don't think anyone would notice until Tuesday.

Anywho. I have just about finished the redraft of section one of Enoch's Vault. Consequently, the new first-three-chapters are up for download on the website. I only have to add the flashback chapter I'm still working on, do another parse of the recent edits and then move on to the next section. Still what amazed me more, is that section one is some 33,500 words long. This is just under half the overall length of the draft for the whole book, before I started. I don't know that I'll have the same expansion in the other two sections, but if I did that would be a novel just over the 100,000 mark. Something I never thought I could pull off. Ever. My style being typically too terse. At this rate I'll be writing big chunky books like Hal Duncan's Vellum.

Right to Roam

2005-06-01T11:02:00.000+01:00

Before I go any further, I'll nail my colours to the mast; I intend to be in Edinburgh on the 2nd of July for the Campaign Against Poverty march (Sans white band, although should they bring in ID cards I'm thinking a yellow one with a star might be a fetching statement).

My gripe is that I'm not sure this is how voices are heard anymore. I have no idea how many people really marched in Glasgow before the Iraq war to outside the SECC. It was chilling to experience such a mass movement. (Not as cold as seeing the snipers on the crane overhead). Many more marched in London and other cities around the world. A dictator was still deposed over the excuse of having weapons that did not actually exist, as most everyone who went on that march knew.

Marching is the merchandised acceptable method of protest these days. We get to let of steam, feel good and go home. Or worse some agitators (whomever they may be, and governments have a long history of planting agents provocateur) may start some rioting and defacement. But nothing happens. The protest is perhaps acknowledged. Tony will come out at some point and say on the front of Gleneagles that we have been listened to, if we're lucky.

I really hope I'm wrong, but it didn't work before. There must be some other way.

Easy does it

2005-05-23T09:51:00.000+01:00

Thought I'd drop in a quick update.

I have all but one of my submissions rejected, the remaining one is still in the field. Unless I forgot one. I got a very nice note praising the work and the talent of the writer's group which was encouraging if a 'I'm full, sorry' rejection. It helped me keep my head above water. I discovered later that this agent already represents one of the group, who was able to confirm the poor person really is up to their ears in work.

The rewrite is going much slower than I anticipated, but I am taking my time, honing, filing, tweaking, rearranging, and crucially, adding. It often feels bad at the time and I think I might appear ungrateful whenever I get a critical session from the writer's group. But I'm not, not in the long term. As I can't write notes it takes a while to sink in. I have to look again at the work. And in this instance I have four sets of comments which act like a gallery with me being able to call the writers up like holograms and question them as I re-write. (Really!) There are still comments I disagree with but there should be. Meantime I move ever onward.

An Actor's Life For Me

2005-05-06T10:07:00.000+01:00

Had my first acting lesson last night. My intentions being to a) learn more about creating/becoming a character and b) get out of the house. It certainly looks like the next few weeks will be entertaining, but it will take me a little longer to get enough of an idea to fully immerse myself into 'method writing'.

Illumination

2005-05-04T09:05:00.000+01:00

I once joked in a semi-serious way that I could easily be a monk, devoted to quiet contemplation. In one of those life-laughs-at-you ways that is not too different from my current existence. I quietly sit illuminating manuscripts (sometimes with dusty light). At least monks have other people to talk to (if they've not taken a vow of silence).

My solitude is at least productive. I now have three new chapters at the front of the book. Returning to my moment of brilliance that I have been, quietly, so frustrated at not replicating, I now have a speed-dating intro to the book, which nicely brings into light many aspects of our hero's character. Followed up by a flash back to his first meeting with Kate. Then we have a frantic piece of detection as the original case gets its breakthrough. I started to look at the original chapter one again and the change in writing is now rippling through this like a shockwave.

I didn't want to write the whole thing again, and it doesn't feel like I am right now. But it does seem like a fresh viewpoint is turning this how I wanted it. We'll see how we get on; had two more rejections at the weekend. Five left in the field. Act in haste repent at leisure.

Peering into the night

2005-04-29T10:28:00.000+01:00

After a couple of days hard thinking and inspiration I started writing again. Hopefully from a better perspective in terms of the narrator - this time while being mostly inside McEwan's head I'm going to cover some of the other characters too (or at least this is how I perceive what I'm intending). I'm going to now finish the new intro-chapter I've started before plunging back in to what I had. Each line will then be reintegrated, weighted, altered and then examined again to be sure. Then I'll double check that I've answered any plot or logic holes. I also have a few good plans for the structure of the story so that we have some reveals earlier and also the big barney at the end again.

I might not be seen for some time, as while I don't want to rush and miss something if an agent wants to read the full script it has to be ready to go. There are a number of submissions still out there.

Getting back on the horse

2005-04-27T11:24:00.000+01:00

The GSFWC gave me their thoughts last night. At the time I felt defeated and thought it best (and it still might be) to just leave it for a while. The thing that hit me hardest was being told it was 'first drafty' when it is in it's 8th incarnation by now. Pretty much all my feedback has had some issue with McEwan or the lack of him, while that was deliberate it clearly wasn't such a good plan,fortunately this should be straightforward to fix. There are of course detailed 'nitpicks' which I have had a blind spot to - in fact largely there does seem to be a matter of me thinking I've written something but it not actually being there! Although a quick check this morning still sees some of it there, just maybe not where it is expected/supposed to be.

Nonetheless by the time I'd gotten home and my mind had started chewing it over I had gone from defeat to anger. Not at my critics but at myself for being so...amateur. But this anger is what makes me determined to pick myself up, look afresh with these comments in mind and try all over again.

For a start I wanted to look at what the Watchers would do in the real world, could they be re-integrated? For some reason I kill most of them off within minutes of them being in the plot. Not much point throwing away the 'realist' approach if I'm then going to throw my 'fantasy' away moments after introducing it. I think I have had two stories fighting with one another, along with a greater ambition than my ability at this stage. Which is not to say I think my creation is poor - it just needs more polishing to get that diamond shining through.

Despite my achievements this really is the hardest thing I've done, and I'm going to get that reward at the end.

Shoot and shootability

2005-04-25T09:35:00.000+01:00

Had a great day yesterday rambling around Glasgow cathedral and the Necropolis having my photo taken. It helped being one of the nicest days we've had this year. Thanks to the nameless guy in the cathedral for letting us take the shots in there.

I have only one submission out in the field, having got all of them back. This has led to a period of introspection, making sure my own marketing is correct. The realisation that I've not written what I thought I had was necessary and pointed. It still took someone else to point this out. This was backed up by my Mum's critique at the weekend. I've written a fantasy novel (or as my Mum put it - lost it when the men came out of the ground). Sure its modern, there's no elves (or wizards!), but yep its a fantasy novel borrowing from other genre's. No harm there but my Mum might be right - I lost it at that point, some perverse part of me told a very different story to what I intended and also managed to keep fooling me long enough to, not so much misdirect, but perhaps aim at harder to reach targets. You've got to try though, if no-one tried man would still be stuck in a hunter-gatherer eden ;-)

Thankfully I know people who will point out the Emperor is naked. Tommorrow night I get the critique from the GSFWC circle members.

Font and Fontability

2005-04-19T09:44:00.000+01:00

I have a confession to make dear reader - I'm a font geek. Maybe because the written word is what I do or maybe it is some higher aesthetic calling but the shape of letters is a whole language in and of itself to me. Thus choosing one can be a painful deliberation. Recently I read about the selection process of a font for a downloadable book. So we come to the font for the Enoch's Vault minisite.

I was looking at trying to find something which was like it had been carved into stone, so I guess a classical Roman style, but also something kind of Gothic too. Then I had to consider what would stand out on a shelf from a few feet away. The top three had been narrowed down to La Brit a nice clipped German looking font with some flourishes, Black Chancery a thick solid English-Robin-Hood feeling type and maybe Scythe which has a 1920's art deco meets mediaeval feel. But I have also found Chanticleer Roman which is growing on me for its plain clean almost brutal stone age brand look. I have a nagging feeling I've seen this somewhere else recently though.

I think I'll look around a little longer, need to find a good Enochian font too.

Microsites

2005-04-18T08:53:00.000+01:00

I had a look at the Jonathan Strange website the other day and it is a nice, elegant and I think effective sales point. It made me reflect more on using the tools that I have for marketing my own work. The Khaibit site is a good introduction but I think I need to beef it up and I'm putting together ideas in my head for a microsite for Enoch's Vault. I hope to go out and do some 'cover' and 'author' shoots at the weekend. Meantime I'll work on design and a bit of blurb. Otherwise it can carry my opening chapters, synopsis and biography.

Recieved my second agent rejection on Friday. This one was within a week! On the other hand it was a very nice personalised typed letter. Took me two readings to realise it was a rejection. Not suitable for their list though.

I have begun to wonder if I have overemphasised angels in my synopsis to help people understand who the protagonists are. When they don't have wings and well aren't actually angelic as we understand them today I fear this may have me giving false impressions. Meanwhile at the same time while I think it's a thriller or a detective story maybe it is more in some other genre?

Storyville

2005-04-15T10:07:00.000+01:00

Have also been musing on the difference between merely writing a short story and it being great (or even good). There's idea and then execution. I have begun to suspect I'm just lazy and don't put enough effort in. The one story where I just Knew it was good is the one I spent the most time thinking about what I was doing rather than just throwing it on to the page. But maybe it is more than that. I used to have great ideas but somehow on the page they were weak and not so mind blowing. For example when I was fourteen I guess I wrote about a computer virus attacking people. But it had no real pizazz to it. I've not written a lot of SF since. I just couldn't hack it.

On a similar note I recently discovered the 23 Nails are some kind of book in some strange other world connected to Lovecraftian based Chaos magick!

Reading List

2005-04-15T09:08:00.000+01:00

No news remains good news.

I am pretty certain now my next book will have wizards in it. Both in the past and the present. One of them may be a boy. Actually it did occur to me that what seemed like an original idea might be tainted by outside influences such as Stephenson and Clarke but it was one I'm fairly sure I came up with before either was published.

I'm starting to pull together a reading list which due to potential impending poverty may well have to mean resorting to the library ;-) I'm sure I know someone who did their final year thesis on Primes I just have to remember who...

Dee and Elizabethan Era Europe
The Queen's Conjuror by Benjamin Woolley
The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age by Frances Yates (typically the one I don't already have)

Prime Numbers
Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics by John Derbyshire
The Music of the Primes: Searching to Solve the Greatest Mystery in Mathematics by Marcus Du Sautoy
The History of the Theory of Numbers by L.E. Dickson is a three volume extravaganza which I probably wont need

This is just a start, fortunately I have a good knowledge of occult Nazis and the Khabbala, but all suggestions and donations gratefully received.

Notes of Rejection

2005-04-08T13:08:00.000+01:00

Well I got my first agent's rejection this week. To be fair they also got back to me within a fortnight (although this time just using my SAE). The thing that disturbed me most was not being rejected but in their form note they tell me that my work "is not something we feel we could successfully represent". Now we're here in a commercial frame to both make money, but this sounds like "we don't think there's a market for your work". Which is a sobering thought. Of course "this is a personal reaction" and for all I know all agency rejections read like this. However if there is no market I've no idea why - not long enough, too parochial, too many angels, not enough wizards...

On the plus side this is just like the first crit of your work, you have to take the knock and pick yourself back up again. The 'great' thing about writing is you have to have some level of ego to create a universe and survive other people trying to tear it down. The crux is whether that's a 'good' ego or a 'bad' one.

Well no news is good news; I've still not heard from the original agency. Time to send out another round of submissions, reappraise my cover letters and basically try again. Meantime I'm listening to people complain about how crap the DaVinci Code clones on the bestseller list are. Maybe my market is being spoiled as we speak, maybe people aren't that discriminating and summer is coming.

Bloomsbury

2005-04-02T09:49:00.000+01:00

Talking of the Bloomsbury set, the only publisher still taking submissions sent me my first rejection letter today. Apparently the company that publishes books for kids and adults about magicians didn't find Enoch's Vault suitable for their list. Must remember to put more wizards and less freemasonry in next time ;-)

The note was short but nice, and it was a long shot. Surprisingly I got everything back including the small SAE I put in the pack all in a jiffy bag. So at least I have a reusable SAE, not sure about the rest of the submission. While I honestly can't tell if it has been even flicked through it is a bit worn. Should I use jiffy bags too I wonder?

However the most suprising thing of all is that I got a response in under two weeks! I could read a lot into that but I think they just have a highly efficient submissions department.

Back to finding an agent willing to fight for me and lets hope that notices of rejection don't get as dull as those on word count ;-)

First Feedback - Nightmares

2005-03-23T10:55:00.000Z

The first lot of feedback on the book so far is from my Dutch friend. She is enjoying it but has stopped reading it before bed as it was giving her nightmares.

I was quite sure there was no horror in the novel, so this is somewhat perplexing. That being said she had expected knights and elves and goblins. Normally her taste would tend toward the more literary end of the spectrum; Iris Murdoch and the Bloomsbury set.

Nightmares eh? Oddly I'm pleased.

Stop Press

2005-03-15T10:19:00.000Z

A good article in the local evening paper The Evening Times about some of the GSFWC alumni who all have books out this year:

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/lo/features/7017387.html

Time's Arrow

2005-03-14T12:04:00.000Z

Having been practising Kyudo for some months now Saturday was my first chance to actually shoot an arrow. The comparisons to a (male) orgasm were pronounced. A large build up of internal tension and energy, a release and le petite mort - a moment of no-mind which was more profound than my practise had led me to expect (in fact I'd not expected it at all).

Meantime this Dee/Golems thing is starting to come to me as a mini-Baroque/Cryptonomicon type thing. First part in the past with Dee learning of the power of certain scribed words and the second part taking place in some modern world war as the power of prime numbers in hebrew has led to an escalating maths arms race. I might try it as a short stroy first see if there is something more to base a book on.

Research for the street kids is proving rather difficult. The original article not having any citations and no longer papers seeming existing on the kid's mythology. Will continue to look.

Secret Agent

2005-03-11T09:19:00.000Z

I have sent my first pack off to an agent after some hurried help from the GSFWC to whom I am as ever grateful. Fingers crossed. Meantime the search goes on for other potentials.

A throw-away conversation about of all things mecha-Nazis has helped resurrect a seed of an idea I had for a war using prime numbers. A bit more flesh on the bones. It does however bleed out some ideas I had for a John-Dee-as-double-o-seven ripping yarn. Maybe I can find a way of forging the two together.

Desperately seeking...

2005-03-07T13:03:00.000Z

Have finally finished all my final edits, and working on my network of family, friends and writer's circle to give me their feedback. Can think of at least one change I will likely do.

And yet I think my first three chapters will remain after another good edit of chapter 1, so I'm preparing my pack for sending to agents. Having received my Writer's Yearbook this morning I have a bit of reading to do.

The Final Battle

2005-02-15T09:16:00.000Z

It is done. 67,216 words and two years later. The sense of peace is profound, like the muse has made it into heaven and left with a lingering kiss. Sure there is work to do, word count to be massaged, recent 22,000 word odyssey to be edited, the whole to be revised and polished and stupid stuff changed. But this one is done.

Time to start cooking another.

Great Exultations

2005-02-09T09:05:00.000Z

Well I reached 65K last night! I'm into the finale, hoping I'm tying together loads of plot strands I didn't even know I'd written until characters started making revelations and twists. I doubt I'll make it to the hallowed 70K but as I said before I'm sure now I can make up any shortfall in revision.

Mere words

2005-02-07T09:42:00.000Z

I'm sure a running total is not of that much interest (I'm at 62K a herculean task but I'm there) what might be more interesting is that the original ending of my novel is now sooo far gone I would have to write another story to include it. One of the characters surprised me by being someone they were not intended to be and the direction and purpose of the protagonists took on a much clearer aim. It still amazes me when these 'creations' take on their own life.

10% Longer

2005-01-31T10:09:00.000Z

Made it to 55,000 at the weekend. I'm glad my plot is not going to plan, this is a far more interesting and natural progression. I may make it to 65K before collapsing and then I'm sure I can come up with another 5K through revision. 70,000 is the magic number, 4/5 of the way there!

Lacuna

2005-01-26T09:35:00.000Z

...and I saw Angels shooting up on Orichalcum in alleyways...

Barista

2005-01-21T14:42:00.000Z

Now will I regret doing this more than not doing this?

There is a brunette Barista in the Starbucks on Charing Cross, Glasgow, she looks a lot like a healthier PJ Harvey. If you happen to pass by and see her in there, ask her if she'll change her rules on dating customers then point her in my direction.

50,000 Reasons

2005-01-12T09:56:00.000Z

Finally reached 50,000 words last night, this feels like a significant achievement for me. Its the level the write-a-book-in-a-month people have as their cut-off and I think it is the length typically assigned to the 'novella'. My next aim is for 60,000, but I am beginning to fear either the story or my writing style won't carry me that far.

Completion Pts 1 and 2

2005-01-10T09:07:00.000Z

The holiday finally brought me round to reading through Enoch's Vault and making some changes. These are all done and essentially that is now finished. Except it still only clocked in at about 45,000 words. So hopefully Part 3 will conclude the story more satisfyingly while exploring a bit more of the ideas planted in the first two parts.