Underword

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

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

Robots Beyond

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.