The Love Reaction Revolution

It's my first proper day driving the Skin Deep tank today. Shoot - if I thought I was busy before, I didn't know what I was talking about but that's maybe because I need to squeeze three weeks into one. Anyway, so far so good and all going according to plan.

What can I tell you without blowing the whole shooting match? Earlier today, I had cause to make a phone call to Mark Manning - yeah, that Mark Manning... the Zodiac Mindwarp Mark Manning. I'm working on a new short feature called "The Back Piece" which is some irreverent questions either about tattooing or people with tattoos who are pretty well known for having them. How could I resist calling on the original tattooed beat messiah for some wise words? Actually his words were a lot wiser than mine at the end of the day, but who else could I have a conversation with about Loki, Odin, Latin and whether or not rock stars should ride horses? For those thoroughly not paying attention, there's a new album out soon - We Are Volsung - and it's good. Real good.

I finally got a hold of Chuck Klosterman's Eating The Dinosaur yesterday - well, Eleanor got it for me as a leaving present from "other job". They probably all thought she'd lost it a bit, but there's no point in having a leaving present that you hate and bitch about. Not only that, there was also a replacement for the Kiss mug I smashed the handle off one morning and a copy of that very sexy Doctor Who notebook... the one that River carries around with her - very cool it is too, complete with text and drawings. There's a lesson in here somewhere for everybody. If you're on the move, make sure somebody that likes you is in charge of getting your leaving present...

Finally, for now, I picked the old Saab up from the first service it's had in years yesterday - only to find that there's nothing wrong with it all that a bit of a rub down didn't cure, but the garage guys had also put new number plates on it for no reason at all. Is this normal behaviour for car servicing? I've never known that before. I thought they might have smashed one by accident but they're new on front and back. Curious but a nice thing to do... it didn't go unnoticed.

Smoke and Mirrors get in your eyes

I took the girls to see The Last Airbender yesterday - a snap decision as we were originally going for The Sorcerer's Apprecntice but I don't think any of us could take yet another Nicholas Cage paint by nuumbers project. The initial reviews were bad - but then, the initial reviews of Lady in the Water, The Village and The Knowing have all been dreadful but I've really rated all of them.

Seems to be that the aforementioned critics have a really blunt axe to grind. Maybe they got fooled by Sixth Sense. Maybe they simply didn't get Unbreakable. Was Signs too much to bear? Like Hitchcock, Shyamalan is a genius storyteller. Fact. Critics appear to be waiting for his movies to come out only to slate them now for not having diabolical twists when the man is only trying to tell a great story. Tell me, what's not totally fantastic about The Village?

Anyway, nice job on translating an awkward sprawling animated series into something coherent. It's not too sfx heavy and I have to say, this is maybe the only 3D movie I've ever been to see where the 3D didn't annoy the hell out of me. If I have a gripe it's that my options to see a movie in good old 2D are becoming extremely limited these days. 3D as a general rule of thumb, sucks. Stop it now. 

For more televisual treats, forget Granma's House that (the same?) critics are dribbling about. Instead, check out Pete Vs The World and VEXED which are both far superior.

Things accomplished in fiction:

I'm a hair's breadth away from finishing up The Ballad of the Goat Faced Boy. Is it good? Yeah - it slays. Really looking forward to seeing what Dennis makes of it. We're behind schedule but hey, I guess nobody is expecting it yet. As Morrisson once said, "How can you be late for your own show?" BROKEN continues to shape up despite both of us being incredibly busy. Check out the sketch.

Things accomplished in real life:

Lots of tattoo magazine related items - no surprise there. More than pleasantly surprised to find most professionals are wise to the fact that submitting images in a high resolution format greatly increases your chances of being worked with. You'd think that this was common knowledge these days but apparently not. Other industries: get your shit together. 

Also going to book the car in for a service later today. Maybe, just maybe, I'll hand it over to some trained professionals to clean it inside and out as well. It is, quite frankly, a dirty beast of a thing right now.

One stormy night...

...the wind from hell swept in from the Channel and totally wiped out my WiFi connection - which in turn meant I couldn't post the Holmes story. So apologies to anybody that was following it and even further apologies as I'm going to kill the project as of today. Reason? Well, I got to the end of the story and found I actually had rather a lot to say. Enough to make it into a decent short story - a decent long short story even. This is a good thing.
More later today...

The Big Bang

Sheesh. Where to start? At the beginning is always a good place. As of this past weekend, I find myself the editor of Skin Deep, not only the biggest selling tattoo magazine in the UK, but also the best. Make of that what you will but I'm really stoked about it. It's good to be back on the shelf (now there's a bad turn of phrase) after such a long time and I hope I can bring something new to the table that everybody will get into.

In the coming weeks, that will have its own blog, so I probably won't touch on it too much here unless there's a nice big juicy cross-over... like the news that the Tattooed Beat Messiah himself - Zodiac Mindwarp - has just signed a new deal with an album in the pipeline. That big enough for you? Anyway, I'll let you know where that blog will be and also the facebook, twitter and other assorted paraphernalia that goes along with it.

Meantime, Mr Bevan is making some great headway with Broken. This is coming along just fine. I can't wait to get this one out and about. I'll be posting some of the initial sketches tomorrow.

And talking of getting things out and about, yesterday I finally got around to publishing Gelert: The Faithful Hound. For those of you who don't immediately know what it's about, it's a retelling of an old Welsh myth/legend and so happens to be the first story I was ever told. It's still sad now. You can read that in the digital bookstore here. See what you think. Artwork of course by the inimitable Charlotte Rose.


Things accomplished in real life: Started looking at the editorial and design direction for Skin Deep and noting down some ideas. Man, they just keep on coming. Seriously looked at the Great Dane Rescue website and am pondering the logisitcs of taking on a monster dog. Note to self: get car serviced. Soon. Really soon. You're gonna be on the road somewhat...

Things accomplished in fiction: Nothing whatsoever today - I've kind of got my mind inside re-engineering a magazine. Wait! That's not true. I filled a few notebook pages with the beginnings of a new Kang story by murdering somebody from a great height quite nastily. That counts, right?

When Lightning Strikes...

Things accomplished in real life: Mr Smith has a new job and is very excited about it. Official announcement soon - if the grapevine doesn't get to you first!

Road Trip!

For your amusement, please allow me to share my venn diagram with you. This is what happens when you help your kids with their homework.

I love a good road trip. This weekend it's up to North Wales - if you're following this on lame-ass facebook that doesn't feed it through for 24 hours, I'm already there. In fact, I leave in about 3 hours. Whether or not there will be time for posting while I'm gone is another matter.

I've even managed to clear the desk of everything outstanding apart from the last few "chapters" of the Sherlock Holmes story. Technically speaking, I could do that when I get back as those parts aren't due until August 27 but more importantly than that, I must remember to take it with me as August 1 is Sunday. Again, technically speaking I could do it when I get back but if I don't do it first thing in the morning, I'll probably forget.

Talking of twitter accounts, I had a look at some of my settings today and worked out that by the end of the weekend, taking into account my PR efforts for The Case of the Dead Messenger, I should be scoring well over 200 following the story. I kind of thought that wasn't bad until I got curious and flipped over to Neil Gaiman's feed and saw that he has over a million and a half hanging on his every word. Given that he's got a few more years in the field than I and um, that he's very good maybe I should give myself some time with this.

I'm not actually that big a fan of twitter but it serves a purpose and I have no doubt whatsoever that if you were sitting around a table with HarperCollins and were able to say "Yes, I have a quarter of a million people on my mailing list" - which is effectively all it is - you'd be in a far better position than if you were starting from scratch. On the other hand, if I go down the self publishing route, a quarter of a million people is music to my ears as well.

Shit, 200 people is more than I had on the list two months ago, but I'd still rather all of those people signed up to my RSS feed so I had some modicum of control over it. If twitter went bust (it happens), you basically lose one of your mailing lists.

Anyway... back to StrutterRadio... 

Dog Day Afternoon

Have you ever been really close to the edge of something awesome only to find your brain couldn’t navigate its way around the finer points of it? That’s where I am tonight. I am so close to finishing Fox On The Run but in the time that’s still available to enter it, I don’t think I’m going to do it justice. Fear not though, I said to myself. You already have a completed script – why not dig that out and enter that instead. At least you won’t be cross at yourself for the rest of your life, and besides, this one has been edited to within an inch of its life.

So that’s what I did. I dug out Too Hot For Dogs (the screenplay version, not the comic book – they are very different animals) and I’ve spent hours on end making sure that it’s just “so”. I’ve always thought it was a really good script anyway, so I have no qualms at all about shipping her off to a potential new home. This turns out to be a great idea because as 2H4D gets shipped out tomorrow morning, I can turn my attention to The Case of the Dead Messenger and make that about as good as it can be. Then I can finish off Fox On The Run knowing I didn’t do it an injustice by rushing it in the wrong direction.

Thus from the jaws of death I have rescued the week. Oh, there are lots of things that have gone on in the last seven days that you will be mightily surprised at in the long-run but alas, I am sworn to secrecy. I think that’s one of the signs that you’re getting somewhere – when you’re not supposed to tell anybody what you’re doing. And that’s fine with me. A) it stops me from looking stupid, B) it sounds quite mysterious and C) I feel a whole lot better about not posting because I’ve been working on “very important things”... but we’ll see about that later.

A quick catch-up on some other things whilst this particular piece of paper has my attention. I have more books to read than I know what to do with as usual. Maybe I should stop looking for them but they keep mounting up – and in the most curious of places as well. The Passage is still captivating me. It’s so big and I have so little time this week that I’ve had to switch to the audio book version of it and listen to it in the car or in bed. On the music front this week, if anybody is looking out for something hot to listen to, the new Switchfoot album – Hello Hurricane - is damned good. Did I say that in a previous post? I may have...

Things accomplished in fiction: If I’m going to keep this up I’m going to have to stop talking about it in the bit before, but I did set two men in a graveyard with one telling the other to start digging. I’m not quite sure exactly what it is that they’re digging for though. It will come...

Things accomplished in real life: Made a list of a stack of people I needed to email this morning and actually got through the whole list by the end of the day. Miracle. That never happens. Also remembered to give Johnson a jolt about submitting his script as well. That’s one in the plus column for me I think.

Other: I might have to stop this “other” part. What exactly could it contain that doesn’t fall into the two categories above? I suppose I could write that I was so tired this evening that I actually sat down and watched Holby City for the first time in maybe 20 years. Do I really want to be admitting that sort of thing?