And here’s where I jump into the fray. Look away now if you can’t bear brutal displays of marketing and attention-seeking in a bid to get everyone to notice the first Swords of Albion book, The Silver Skull, which is out NOW in the US. You know the one – Elizabethan spies versus Faerie on the eve of the invasion of England by the Spanish Armada.

And look – new reviews are in. Prestigious site Monster and Critics says “In a year of outstanding fantasies, The Silver Skull may just be one of the best.” Which comes on the back of fantasyliterature.com’s reviewer claiming it’s their favourite book of the year. That sounds like a trend.

That provides a slight silver lining to the book not coming out in the UK until April. UK reviewers can now make it the best book of two years. Go on – you know you want to.

And look – here’s another review, this time from also-prestigious magazine Realms of Fantasy: “Chadbourn’s plot moves swiftly, from London to Scotland to Spain, with surprises galore along the way, and with memorable heroes and villains, especially the Faerie prince Cavillex, who is a worthy adversary for Swyfte, and a promising young playwright and sometime secret agent by the name of Christopher Marlowe. Smart, fun, at times surprisingly moving, and occasionally downright shocking, The Silver Skull is impossible to put down.”

Then there’s the recent review in the – yes – prestigious magazine Locus: “The Silver Skull has such an array of complex characters, deeply involved in their interesting times and guarding so many painful memories and secrets, there’s something here for anyone who wants more than a bunch of cardboard figures going through the motions while the body count keeps rising.”

Sick of all this pimping yet? Get used to it – there’ll be more. Much more…

I finished a new short story this evening. Its one of those stories that isn’t so much written as grown. Its been sitting on my desktop for a year. Every so often I add anything from a few lines to an entire paragraph. I think of this as writing by accrual. The story builds up in the same way sedimentary rock forms. Tonight the the story accrued its final layer. Its at the dense, literary and experimental end of my writing style. I am not sure where I will submit it yet.

Went into Waterstone’s yesterday. They have rearranged the store pre-Xmas. A huge stationery section has been added, there are vampire novels everywhere and the sheer number of tawdry celebrity biographies made me feel queasy. If they are setting out to deter customers who actually read books they are succeeding. It all smacks of desperation.

Assorted fancies…

Thrin the gothic fairy shares my feelings about high street book retailers.

Is Gene Wolfe the James Joyce of science fiction?

I’ve been nominated for a Sofanaut award!

I’m organising the second Writing Industries Conference (having organised the first one in 2008). A chance to meet agents and editors and get information from the horses mouth about the writing industries. If you are in the East Midlands region or happy to travel a little way, then take advantage of our early bird ticket offer whilst you can. See you there!

*****

Writing Industries Conference 2010
Saturday 6th March 2010, Loughborough University
A Literature Network, Writing East Midlands
and Loughborough University project.
http://writingindustries.com
Twitter #wic2010

The second Writing Industries Conference will be held on Saturday 6th March at Loughborough University. The conference will bring together writers from across the East Midlands with professionals from the writing industries to share knowledge, develop skills and forge new contacts. 200 writers from the region will have the opportunity to hear from and meet with professionals from the writing industries in a variety of settings:

• Agents and editors in one-to-one sessions with selected writers, giving advice and support in their area of expertise.

• Panel discussions exploring specific areas of writing, from breaking into commercial publishing to working in the community.

• Writing industries fair featuring stalls from local publishers, funders and other organisations involved with the writing industries.

• And of course there will be plenty of opportunity to meet and talk with other writers over a coffee.

The full programme including details of how to apply for agent one-to-ones will be announced soon.

EARLY BIRD TICKET OFFER
The first Writing Industries Conference sold out soon after tickets went on sale. This year we are have increased the number of tickets available and are offering a limited number at the Early Bird Price of £34 (Full Price is £42). Limited availability.

Buy tickets online here.

If you have any questions regarding WIC 2010 or would like further information please contact:

Catherine Rogers
catherine@writingeastmidlands.co.uk

Courtesy of Kaz Mahoney.

I spent most of this Sunday evening planning out a talk I’m giving tomorrow on the subject of The Entrepreneurial Writer. Part of this talk could be called ‘How to get ahead in the cut throat egotistical world game of being a writer’, but mostly I am talking about how writers are important to communities, and how the online world is changing how communities work and how writers contribute to them (for the better in my thinking)

So it was timely to run into Clarkesworld magazine’s call for Citizens. You might call this a creative and original way to raise funds, which of course it is. But it is also an acknowledgement of the role that a online magazine like Clarkesworld plays in forming and maintaining a community of people. Like any community, Citizenship comes with both rights and responsibilities, and those who take on the later get more of the former. I could imagine Citizenship becoming the defacto method of generating support for many online communities.

Writers do not live in sync with the rest of humanity. Normal people have free time. Writers have time when they should be writing. This weekend I have been trying to combine the two. I’ve been on a tour of the new cultural institutions around my city, including the Fabrika independent arts centre, Phoenix Square cinema and The Curve theatre. I’ve drank a cup of tea at each, met three friends randomly I had not seen for some time, and written about a thousand words on the second draft on The Hundredth Master of Ninja Assassin. Both productive and relaxing…the only down side is that my hands are now shaking from caffeine overdose.

Now work with me here. I know its a leap, but I’m starting to think that the hit television show Madmen is a work of science fiction.

I’ve been geeking out over Madmen season two for the last fortnight. And when I say geeking out, I mean obsessing. Having watched season one three times (friends kept wanting to see it, so I had to rewatch it with them) I decided it was time to move on to the second season. Partly its the soap opera aspect of the show, once you get me hooked on the life stories of a good ensemble of characters, I’m likely to keep coming back for more and more. But Madmen goes a long, long way beyond the simplistic writing of most soap operas, and even exceeds the spate of recent excellent TV series including The Sopranos and The Wire. In an era when the TV series has become our strongest storytelling vehicle, Madmen is telling the best stories of all.

It’s on the thematic level that Madmen really triumphs. Through the lens of the advertising industry, Madmen is able to look at individual facets of our modern, ever more materialist society. Each character in the show is in someway complicit in the construction of the amoral society that they are also a victim of. From the lead male Don Draper who harnesses the pain of losing love to sell products even while his own family is slipping from his grasp, to junior copywriter Betty Olsen who understands every sin she is committing even whilst she is committing them. As a beat poet charcater says to draper in season one, the characters in Madmen ‘are making the lie’, and then they have to live in it.

And its because of its critique of materialist culture that Madmen is creeping over some line in my thinking to qualify as science fiction. Not in the rockets and rayguns way of course. No, Madmen is a much more interesting kind of SF than that. Imagine if Philip K Dick had been given free reign to write a television show, with the provision that it had to be entirely realist and mainstream. And imagine that J G Ballard and Harlan Ellison were asked in to consult. They might have come up with something not dissimilar from Madmen. There is a thread of paranoia and hyper-realism threaded through the show, as though the materialist reality the characters are inhabiting is actually some artificial projection a la The Truman Show or a PKD novel like Ubik. In season 2 the show introduces an overt discussion of god and morality, which culminates in the heavy symbolism of catholicism and the tarot playing out to the backdrop of the Cuban missile crisis, as though some greater power is trying to commune with the characters. Its tempting to think of madmen as the most subversive kind of science fiction, one that works by treating reality itself as the biggest fiction we have ever created.

I’m saving Madmen season 3 for a rainy day, so now what the hell do I watch?

Today was the official public opening of Phoenix Square, Leicester’s new independent cinema and digital media centre. As a mobile worker my main demand of any new cultural centre in my city of residence is that it provide a decent place for me to sit and answer emails, and I’m happy to say that Phoenix Square succeeds nicely in this regard (or will do on days when the bar hasn’t been turned into an early 90’s rave). I’m certainly going to love having two well equipped cinema screens showing the kind of movies that don’t make into the multiplex. And the digital art programme seems genuinely interesting, to judge by tasters on offer at launch (except for the 90’s rave DJ’s, who can and must be banned from the building).

If there is a major negative it is that the area around Phoenix Square is truly dismal, but then one aim of the project is to regenerate that quarter of the city, so that is too be expected. Phoenix Square is a tremendous gift to the city, especially after the disappointing failure of the Curve theatre to engage the local community in any meaningful way (lets hope they put that right soon). I will certainly be a frequent visitor.

You should never judge a book by its cover, but should you judge a story by its title? If the recent success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is anything to go by, then for many readers today the answer is yes. Seth Grahame-Smith’s bestselling mash-up of Jane Austen and George A Romero became one of the most pre-ordered titles this side of The Lost Symbol, based solely on a zeitgeist-surfing title. And if those readers came to the story expecting an obvious joke stretched thin over 316 pages too many, they were not disappointed.

Read more on The Guardian book blog

Today I observed a pattern in my writing. I have been working on a story that goes by the working title of Clocks for some months now. It is one of those stories that emerges by accumulation. Every so often I add another paragraph, or a sentence, or even just a word. It is now 1800 words long, and into that small linguistic space I have condensed three point-of-view characters, at least a dozen scenes (some only a few words long) and enough angst to power a small work of literary fiction. Which gives me a choice. I can leave this dense narrative nugget as it is, or I can treat it like a seed from which, with care and attention, might grow a real story. In the case of Clocks, I think I’ll take the second option. But I have realised that I produce these Story McNuggets quite frequently. I know at least one other writer who seems to work this way, but I’m wondering if there are any more of you out there?

Things that I like…

The Guardian interview Neil Gaiman about the experience of being buried alive under a huge pile of awards.

Electric Velocipede announce recent fiction purchases including me and my two Clarion friends Keffy R. M. Kehrli and Monica Byrne.

Also featured on: fantasyliterature.com.

(Usual note: UK publication to follow with a UK-specific edit.)

Sarah Crown over at The Guardian book blog today asks readers for their top books of the noughties. Unsurprisingly my picks are quite speculative in nature, and there are so many that I eventually gave up trying to list them all. It was also complicated by the fact that many of my favourite books read this decade were not published this decade. So here goes my top 10…the first 9 in no particular order (and not all SF!).

• Perdido Street Station by China Mieville – a book with many great parts and more than a few awful ones, but done with such ambition that it has to be applauded.
• Look to Windward by Iain M Banks – the last of the real Culture novels and for my money Bank’s best, especially if read with Consider Phlebas.
• Pattern Recognition by William Gibson – this book had an incredibly profound effect on me. Probably the only book I’ve read that captured the detached nature of being twenty something in the twenty first century.
• Hey Nostradamus by Douglas Coupland – a read this in a night then had to take a sickie from work because I spent all day crying. Darn you Douglas Coupland.
• Light by M. John Harrison – this is the book I give people who don’t think SF can be literary. Or just when I want to deeply, deeply disturb them.
• Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link – if you don’t like Kelly Link then I question your membership of the human race. So there!
• Shriek by Jeff Vandermeer – I just love this.
• Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang – if you don’t like Ted Chiang I question your status as a sentient entity of any kind.
• Micah by Laurel K Hamilton – for personal reasons this will always be in my Top 10 Books of All Time.

I’ve probably left many of my favourites out and will have to revise the list tomorrow when I remember them. And my Number 1? Well it probably comes as little surprise that Neil Gaiman snags that spot for American Gods. I’ve read it three times, and listened to the audiobook twice, so what else was it going to be? It also wins in terms of influence. Contemporary fantasy would be a very different genre today without this book.

A couple of slightly interesting links…

The Everything is Nice blog link to my post on bookshops. I appreciate the detail they have gone to in their response, but don’t agree with their points.

Geoff Ryman edits an anthology of real science fiction, using real scientists and everything!

A research project at medical centres across the UK, US and Europe is examining what happens to consciousness after we “die” (in inverted commas because death is measured by a sliding scale and it’s possible to be brought back, sometimes up to an hour after the heart stops beating). It’s arisen out of numerous reports of Near-Death Experiences, as well as a study that shows 20% of people who have a flatline brain state and are resuscitated, still have lucid memories of what happened around them. Obviously, a lack of brain activity suggests that shouldn’t be the case.

The study could release its findings as early as 2012.

Meanwhile, Critical Care Doctors at the George Washington University Medical Faculty have released a new report which shows that patients “experienced a sudden electrical ‘alertness’ or spike in brain waves in the moments before they died. The spikes came in the same moments just before each patient’s death. They rose to comparable levels and were consistent in duration.”.

Researchers suggest this may be the first scientifically recorded sign of the near-death experience.

The Silver Skull US Edition

It’s worth noting for US readers of this blog that the first Swords of Albion book is now available at the usual outlets across America. Elizabethan spies vs Faerie, in a line.

UK readers have to wait a few weeks – and I hope they do wait. If everyone rushes to import the US edition, my UK publisher (Bantam) isn’t going to be very happy. It’ll be worth the wait – for once, the UK and US versions may be quite different.

For one, the UK version probably won’t be called The Silver Skull (although that’s not yet definite). Secondly, the books have two different editors with different tastes and suggestions.

Often a book is edited and published in one territory first and then re-published in a new territory with minimal changes. But the Swords of Albion books were sold to the US and the UK simultaneously, and instantly went into the relevant publishing schedules with editors attached. The US one just ran through the process quicker. Once I’ve seen the editor’s notes on the UK version I’ll know how different the two editions are.

I have had an advance look at the cover for the UK edition and it’s excellent. Apologies to UK readers for the wait, but I promise for future books in the series the publication dates will be perfectly aligned.

Tell me about South Africa.
What do you want to know
anything, I tell him
whatever I should know.

He’s the friend of a friend
we’ve not met before
we’ve driven to this pub
he’s meeting as a favour

and we’ve sat down
like we’re on a date
him in his work clothes
me in my lip stick

and I have bought him a drink
and thanked for his time
he’s told me no problem
we’ve sketched out our lives
I’ve poured in my tonic
he’s sipped at his tea
I’ve unpacked my notebook
he’s looking at me.

And his hair is a mountain
a black woolen ridge
his shirt’s made from cotton
against his dark skin.

Tell me about South Africa
What do you want to know?
Whatever you can tell me
Whatever I should know.

He comes from Zimbabwe
but he’s lived in Joburg
he’s got family in Cape Town
friends in Soweto.

South Africa is a massive subject
to say it all
we’d be here all night
but he can tell me

he says
as he watches me nod,
something he says
as he watches me write.

You can’t talk about all this
without talking Apartheid
separate toilets for blacks
restaurants, street signs

you couldn’t live in Joburg
your place was in the townships
you couldn’t learn your language
Corsa, Soto, Songa.

and you couldn’t drink their beer
and he gestures to the bar
you couldn’t do their jobs
as the duke box plays guitar

and all this was maintained
by dividing up to conquor
different rights for asians
different rights for coloureds

a homeland was stolen
while nobody was looking
school children were murdered
gunned down just for questioning.

Tell me about South Africa
What do you want to know
Whatever you can can tell me
whatever I should know.

And the rain is on the window
the night outside is drawing in
he gets a pint of Stella
I get another gin.

I could tell you how it’s hard
now everything is better
I could talk about the crime
the lack of education

But South Africa is beautiful
the land goes on forever
it’s hot and flat and dry
but more than just the weather

Spend a night in Cape Town
where the land is on the sea
spend a night in Franschhoek
with it’s cellars and it’s trees

Tell you about South Africa
I’ll tell you what I know
I’ll tell you of our mountains
I’ll tell you of our malls.

And he talks about his uncle
who got rich with a truck
who when apartheid ended
made money with some sand.

He talks about the barbecues
that happen in the townships
how when the weekend comes
everyone goes back there.

It doesn’t matter what your car is
you’ll back to Mzoli
you’ll sit out in the sun
and drink and talk and party.

And as we’re sitting in this pub
he says he’ll never get it
how the English go to bars
and sit inside till closing.

In South Africa it’s different
you’ll drive out to the store
you’ll park up in the car park
you’ll drink out on your car

you’ll sit out on your bonnet
you’ll hang out with your friends
you’ll listen to your music
you’ll watch the sun descend

and as we’re driving from the pub
as he drives me to the station
he asks me what I do
when I go out in Leicester

as Mbira fills the stereo
he describes it’s tiny keys
as the rain falls on the windshield
the music slips, beneath our feet.

Talk about South Africa
I’ll talk about the jazz
that fills the night like hope
that makes you understand.

He asks me when I’m reading
this poem that I’m writing
as I’m walking to the trains
he’ll calls to me -
I’ll come there.

Tell me about South Africa
What do you want to know?
Whatever you can tell me
Whatever I should know.

Zeilinger and others working in the field have shown that widely separated particles can somehow have quantum states that are linked: by observing one, the outcome of the other is affected. But as New Scientist magazine says, “No one has yet fathomed how the universe seems to know when it is being watched.”

Read the full account of questions that keep physicists up at night at the New Scientist site.

For your consideration: the Daily Telegraph is reporting a British policeman had a close encounter of the third kind at a crop circle near the standing stones at Avebury in Wiltshire. His description of the figures he observed – more than six feet tall with blonde hair – is of a recurring type which UFO watchers have christened “Nordics”.

The police officer said: “They ran faster than any man I have ever seen. I’m no slouch but they were moving so fast. I looked away for a second and when I looked back they were gone.

”I then got scared. The noise was still around but I got an uneasy feeling and headed for the car. For the rest of the day I had a pounding headache I couldn’t shift.”

So: crop circles, aliens and standing stones – that ticks three boxes all at once. More to come…

Part of this belief is based on the Mayan Long Count calendar, which, according to some academics, comes to an end on December 21 (or 23) 2012. An End, with a capital E. Typically of the academic world, there is no firm agreement on this, with some saying the calendar actually ends 4.134105 × 10 to the 28th years in the future. Which is what is commonly known as “wiggle room”.

But it’s not just the Mayans. A similar prediction lies in the myths of the Hopi Native Americans, in the I Ching, some say in a code hidden in the Bible, and in the writings of the philosopher Terence McKenna, who created a formula which predicted a singularity of infinite complexity on December 21 2012, when everything and anything imaginable will occur simultaneously. Which seems to happen in my office on a regular basis.

All New Age Nonsense, some say. Well…it doesn’t matter. Much to the annoyance of my arch-rationalist friends, things which don’t exist can often have a greater effect on the world than things that do. If enough people believe we are approaching a time of “spiritual awakening” or “consciousness change”, they will make that happen. Altering patterns of behaviour. Becoming, say, more environmentally-minded. More socially aware, or politically aware. Then, 2012 becomes a focal point for changing the world. Putting it right.

On the other hand, maybe all these predictions are right.

For that reason, I’m going to be documenting here anything and everything which might relate to this. Strange events, odd coincidences, political and environmental acts, UFO sightings, religious phenomena, scientific advances and anything else which might take my interest. Who knows – a pattern might appear – or not? And as anyone who has read my books knows, I’m very interested in hidden patterns.

I’m interested to hear of any links, sightings, bizarre occurrences – personal or global, acts of activism, and transcendence, which may or may not fit into this. You can sign up for my forum and leave a message there, or DM me through that site.

I think we can have some fun with this.

Oh, yes, and as you can see from the cover, World’s End is now The Endless Night.

You can find the podcast here.

HERMAN MELVILLE – MOBY DICK

I have read a lot of books in my life but this was the most miserable reading experience I ever had. There was absolutely no story. It was all about fishing… If you want to be a sailor this might be the book for you but personally I think it is a colossal waste of time. – ONE STAR!

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE – COMPLETE WORKS

Shakespeare may be a genius, but cmon, this is the worst reading material i have ever seen. – ONE STAR!

CHARLES DICKENS – GREAT EXPECTATIONS

after reading this book i think dickens would benifit from very low expectations. and by that i mean a lot of people will be returning this book and giving bad reviews. all the classics always in my opinion, are very bad – ONE STAR!

Booker Prize-winner A S BYATT – POSSESSION: A ROMANCE

Frankly, I would rather read the terms of my home and auto insurance policies than read this book. – ONE STAR!

CHARLOTTE BRONTE – JANE EYRE

I enjoy classic Victorian era romance , and this by far is the worst book I have ever read. – ONE STAR!

J D SALINGER – THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

It’s not that it was above my head, it was just plain old poorly written in my humble opinion. The grammar was beyond horrible. I think my 10 year old son could’ve done a better job. – ONE STAR!

JOHN STEINBECK – THE GRAPES OF WRATH

I should have known that a book you can buy togehter with Cliff’s Notes is going to be boring. I read “East of Eden” and thought it was great. I was hopeful that “Grapes of Wrath” would be just as good. No luck. It’s dull as heck. – ONE STAR!

EMILY BRONTE – WUTHERING HEIGHTS

The book is filled with nasty, disgusting, wicked, cruel people. Every single person, and yes, ESPECIALLY NELLY, hateful, jealous, manipulative, lying, conniving, nasty Nelly, every single one of them are foul. – ONE STAR!

DANIEL DEFOE – MOLL FLANDERS

I had to read this for a book club, and a fifth of the way into it, I began to wish I were blind, so I wouldn’t have to continue. – ONE STAR!

F SCOTT FITZGERALD – THE GREAT GATSBY

If I wanted to read about lame, rich, full of themself people going to parties, I’d pick up People magazine. – ONE STAR!

ERNEST HEMINGWAY – THE SUN ALSO RISES

If you liked Sienfeld but thought it was to funny, this book is for you. A book about nothing, that takes 200 plus pages to get there. – ONE STAR!

According to respected Old Testament and Hebrew scholar Professor Ellen van Wolde who re-analysed the original Hebrew text, the Bible was mis-translated. Instead of “In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth”, it should read “God separated the Heaven and the Earth”. God did not create Earth – it was there before, which is in line with many of the ancient texts on which the Bible was based.

According to van Wolde, the belief was that before God created man, there was only a world of water filled with darkness swarming with sea monsters. Very Lovecraftian. This is going to cause a few headaches for those Creationists who have extrapolated forward from the point of earth-creation in Genesis to suggest the planet is only a few thousand years old.

According to the Telegraph, Prof Van Wolde added: “The traditional view of God the Creator is untenable now.”

The recent discovery is bringing about a major re-think of the entire site. (Thanks to CharlieFarlie of the forum for the link.)

There are three new covers from artist John Picacio too, who did the US Age of Misrule covers. The ones on Amazon are roughs. I’ll post the final ones here when they’re available.

And if you would like to pre-order…:

The Devil in Green

The Queen of Sinister

The Hounds of Avalon

Earlier this morning, I was going through old poems in an attempt to regroup, redraft and see where my work had gotten to. I’ve been finding lots of stuff and reworking or putting aside for later. It’s been like climbing into an attic and discovering a trunk of forgotten clothes. I found this, written about a year and half ago.

Lovers at a Station

He does not wear
a loose gray suit or trilby,
cases are not made
of handstitched leather,
shoes aren’t laced,
or polished brogues.

He wears
trainers. Denim jeans.
An old grey shirt
not tucked in.

I do not wear
a floral dress with short white gloves,
don’t dab my eye
or wave them bravely at his back.

There should be engines
shunting in the dark
pistons, pipes,
air escaping in a bark.

There should be steam,
a drift of smoke,
platform hung with silver mist.

But we do kiss.

And when the 6.15 pulls in
I’m being led towards a chair,
thick blond noose around the neck,
last rites fall from killing lips

There is no smoke, blown across the platform
no shudder from a valve, or man
in flat, blue cap,
leaning from a window,
whistle in a hand, but we do

grab each other one last time
surprise each other with the force,
imagine there’s no audience. He does
prevent the door from closing,
stand inside the opening, tell me:

don’t forget.

And we wave and wave and wave.
We do.
Till both of us are gone.

The Silver Skull

The first Swords of Albion review is in, from US magazine RT Book Reviews. Classed as four-and-a-half stars (dammit, how did I lose that last star?), it says:

”The new Swords of Albion series, set in an alternate Elizabethan England, gets off to a smashing start. The historical detail sets a believable backdrop, and the main character, a spy, could pass for a fantastical James Bond. Chadbourn sets a fast pace, pitting his characters against supernatural threats with a bit of horror thrown in. FANTASTIC – keeper.”

Which gaves a flavour of what’s in there. I should soon be able to showcase the UK cover art, but if you want to put in an advance order, you can do so here:

UK
Amazon.co.uk
Waterstones

US
Amazon
Barnes & Noble

I’ll do more links when other bookstores put them on online, and I’ll include any indie bookstores if you get in touch.

This is the creepiest thing I’ve read recently. David Carradine claiming he’s being haunted by a ghost in a closet. Shortly before he died…in a closet. A J-horror flick in the making…

Antipathy to genre fiction is deep-seated, and goes beyond mere dislike to a belief that it should be despised and derided at all costs as a way to keep up standards. In The Publisher Files, Tim Holman identifies two recent examples of snooty dismissal of genre fiction and very decently attempts to give these people the benefit of the doubt.

There is a line of thought that the majority of literary criticism is a class thing – an unconscious way for a self-perceived elite to control and contain the masses. And to listen to Mark Lawson’s destruction of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol on Radio 4 I can quite believe this – a programme so sickeningly smug, it made you consider a multi-millionaire author, perhaps the biggest-selling author in the world, as the poor underdog.

Many people in genre publishing like to rise above the constant sniping, stating these people just don’t get imaginative fiction. What can you do when they claim there is no good SF or fantasy, just “well-constructed yarns” or “entertaining nonsense”?

But there is a serious issue here. As Tim points out in his blog, it strikes at the heart of any attempt to grow the audience beyond the core readership. The disproportionately loud voice of these people creates a meme that seeps out through the population – that all genre fiction is low-brow, rubbish, not worth your valuable time. It’s corrosive, and it creates an unconscious collective standard. It’s human nature to be influenced by majority view. Buyers make choices based upon perceived value and if they are constantly told something has no value they will choose something else.

That will hamper any attempt publishers make to break fantasy and SF into the mainstream readership. For that reason alone, it can’t be ignored. It needs to resisted, harshly, at all times, and it needs to have the people at the top of the publishing ladder leading the way.

“Beyond its revolutionary technological applications and scientific impact, the evidence of an active role of consciousness in the establishment of physical reality holds profound implications for our view of ourselves, our relationships to others, and to the cosmos in which we exist. These, in turn, must inevitably impact our values, our priorities, our sense of responsibility, and our style of life. Our ability to acquire, or to generate tangible, measureable information independent of distance or time challenges the foundation of any reductionistic brain-based model of consciousness that may be invoked. The lack of notable correlations in the data with standard learning curves or other recognizable cognitive patterns, combined with the repeatable and distinct gender-related differences, suggest that these abilities may stem from a more fundamental source than heretofore suspected. Certainly, there is little doubt that integration of these changes in our understanding of ourselves can lead to a substantially superior human ethic, wherein the long-estranged siblings of science and spirit, of analysis and aesthetics, of intellect and intuition, and of many other subjective and objective aspects of human experience can be productively reunited.”

You know I’ve spent the last nine years writing about this stuff in Age of Misrule, The Dark Age and Kingdom of the Serpent, right?

And then Dan Brown goes and writes about it in The Lost Symbol and gets all the attention. Bastard.

It’s interesting and inspiring research and like Brown says in his book, has the potential to instigate a paradigm shift in scientific thinking.

I want some.

I’ll be signing copies of a new BFS anthology at around 5pm. It features a new short story of mine – Deadhouse Steps - but it’s only available to BFS members – free, by the way – so you’ll be expected to sign up before getting a copy

If you’re thinking of attending, full details can be found here. I’ll be around all day so come over and say hello.

I find Egypt and its history endlessly fascinating. Don’t know how many books I’ve read on the topic, including a load about secrets encoded in the symbols and the landscape. But the fact that it’s still giving up those secrets is a source of great joy.

I recently received a CD from Occasionally David, a band that has been circling the UK music scene since the 70s, heavily rooted in English psychedelia. The core of the band is Clive Whitelock and Ray Bate, who first met in ‘69. Influential British DJ John Peel championed them in 1980 when they released a single, I Can’t Get Used to Losing You (so I’m Coming back).

They sent me Forever Changes, their psychedelic/garage version of Love’s classic sixties album, which was previously only available on limited edition cassette in 1987. And excellent it is too, a lopsided, particularly English take on Love’s material, quirky, trippy and powerful.

As an aside, psychedelia and garage is an area I’m particularly interested in – though I pretty much listen to every genre – and anyone who’s read Jack of Ravens and Wonderland knows of my debt to Love.

You can hear more of Occasionally David’s stuff at their MySpace page.

And any artists reading this, send me something and if I like it I’ll give it a mention. I listen to *a lot* of music, particularly when I’m working, and I’m always on the look-out for something new.

Not only that, but the trend is increasing. With sales of urban fantasy rising, Tim makes the point that it’s only natural that publishers will follow the dollar/pound/euro/whatever and buy less epic fantasy and more of the thing that most readers want.

Genres always move in cycles. Stories get tired and readers get jaded as publishers heap on more of the same. But for me, urban fantasy is really the new horror – the successor to the Stephen King-fuelled horror boom of the eighties, and drawing in some of the same kind of readers who walked away when that cycle died.

Which does cast an interesting light on next year’s World Horror Convention. The convention seems completely to have ignored urban fantasy and opted for a celebration of horror that is rooted firmly in the distant past, if the guest of honour list is anything to go by. At the least it’s a missed opportunity. At the most it’s a comment on why horror is perceived as a dying genre by many in the industry.

And a quick plea to all UK readers, please don’t order the US version, if you can possibly resist. The global market is causing a headache for publishers with staggered releases (it’s not always possible to align publication dates around the globe) – and if everyone orders the US version on import, my UK sales will tank and my editor will give me a good kicking.

Because of You.

I’ve cried in Costa, Starbucks, Neros, Esquires,
The Orange Tree, Criterion, Highcross, O’Brians.

I’ve cried on blue serviettes, stacks of N’s
my friends time, our old bed.

I’ve cried in Top Shop and M & S
where I talked to my doctor, hiding in Mens.

I’ve cried in changing rooms and public loos,
I’ve hidden in cubicles and thought of you.

I’ve cried in parks, on buses, in banks, on trains,
outside of your flat, on the floor, in a state -

like a Queens speech, to a dead door,
you were out, your flat-mates thought.

I’ve cried all the water in Luxor,
all the faucets in Rome,

all the rain in Jamaica -
crying so long I couldn’t go.

I’ve cried like a wolf girl cried too much.
cried like a rain girl, made of mud.

I’ve cried salt and pepper, acid flame,
linen, tissue, tea cups, names.

I’ve cried like Rome
was my heart on a string,

I’ve cried with Johnny, Cohen, Smiths.
I’ve cried for our grief, big as a death,

I’ve cried like our end should be a word
like: Funeral. Obituary. Grave.

But still – there’s no answer.

So here I am in Edinburgh. Ed – in – burgh: a place I’ve never been to before and have sometimes in the past, struggled to spell correctly.

I and Fish, The Book Doctor Poet, arrived yesterday evening to be defeated by architecture. Fish of course had seen it all before, this being her 3rd or 4th visit at least, but for me it was all new.

The buildings are taller in Edinburgh. They’re older, darker. The horizon is wider. As the shuttle bus dropped us by the station and we walked up the steep hill to the station, it felt like we were children walking into a mountain. A bridge hung over head and a double decker bus passed across it: white with coloured triangles, like a seagull flying.

The seagulls don’t sleep here.

Later, after the train station and the cab and the sprawling, bonkers town house (which I’ll tell you about later) after we’d met the land lady and the Americans and put brandy in our tea and eaten dinner and been to our first gig and walked up and down our first Scottish streets, after all that, I saw a seagull circling lazily – back and forth across a lamp lit shopping precinct.

It was somewhere past 2am. It was huge and it was like a piece of moon or somehow flying bone, wings outstretched, like they were drinking up the cool summer night.

It took a left at Grass Market Street.

We got into a cab and climbed up the hill back home.

Imagine, two tiny
turning worlds, floating
just across the way from each other.

There’s you
climbing down
from your tree of a flat,
scaling the walls, landing on our
shared pavement.

There’s me
going for a walk.
You by the prison.
You by the park.

You with your bright red train.
Me with my yellow car,
You with your plastic trees,
Me with my cardboard barn.

Imagine me
holding a small telescope.
I’m holding it up and my whole world
is through one hole.

At the other you’re making
cheese on toast.
We’re turning
round the same news reports

of Israeli bombs
and Iraqi coups,
inner-city shootings
economic boosts.

We’ve the same ceiling
the same clouds,
same mirrors,
same moon.

But you live at the end of a telescope.
I think we can touch.
There’s only air.

For you have said in your heart
I will ascend into heaven

My love, my love,
My god, my god,
I can’t believe you’d take my wings
and leave me here a broken thing
and you up there inside your house
with glowing glass and fire lit.
I can’t believe
you’d see me curled
and see me cry
and not come down
do nothing?
Where is your heart?
was it a tiny clock
I used to stroke?
Where are your hands?
I think somehow
they must have flown
with all the flights
my wings once made.
Where have they gone?
Where have they gone?
Somewhere up inside your rooms
inside a drawer, inside the gloom,
a tiny set of clothes
are they there and made from lace?
folded neatly, put away?
do other angels come to look
do you gently hold them up
then stroke their spines
their spines like cats
then stroke the feathers down their backs
while they glow bright?
I can’t believe
that you could leave.
leave me here
down here like this.
Once my love, we lived with flight
We hung my colours up like blinds.
I slept against you like a bird
I sung to you and once you heard.
Up there I think I see my wings.
I see them bright like shiny tin.
I think I see them dance like fire
Did you put them on a pire?
my god, my god,
my love, my love,
Where have they gone?
Where have they gone?
I need them back.
I need to fly
I need to fly again.

There are footprints on my wings
from where you cast me out
shadow black like coffee rings
shadow black, an admiral print.

There on my back
from where your foot
there on my back
pushed like a boot.

I wear your mud and dust like stripes,
I wrap them round my front at night,
your writing’s on my spine,
your writing’s down my sides,
your cowboy soles are on my mind.
There are footprints on my wings.

You said I was your favourite thing
that night we danced around the clouds,
you took my arms and spun me round.
But there are footprints on my wings.

You said you thought the earth had moved
when I walked in and round a room,
you said I made the heavens sing.
But there are footprints on my wings.

Last week I saw a woman stare
her look like pity opened bare.
I can’t wear glasses on my back
I can’t disguise your blue and black
your footprints on my wings.

There in Sainsburys by the veg
I saw her look and look again
like underneath her clothes
there might be footprints on her bones

I saw her shift away from him
her arms around her fragile wings
and him like you.

But everyday they fade some more
their purple kisses, dimming thoughts
and every night I sponge them down
and water runs like feelings drowned,
your footprints from my wings

I can’t keep coming back for more
now the marks are not so raw.

If she and I could leave today
like all the marks, just fade away
we’d walk with wishbones, never say
that there were footprints on our wings,
they’d be no footprints on our wings,
no more footprints on our wings.

This Tuesday sees the first WORD! since The Lounge – but in light of the festival I’m wondering how different people may find it. Along with possible and very exciting changes, like film visuals and live feed, I’m anticipating a new and inspired energy on the open mike, and not least of all from me.

Throughout the week, Lounge poets have been collaborating like there’s no tomorrow. Workshops (like Lucy English’s) led to groups coming together to produce new work for performance that you’d be forgiven for thinking had taken months to develop. In the bar throughout the day people have been looking over each others work, and riffing off lines – dreaming up new ways to push work forward.

For me, the Tuesday in particular was pivitol for this. That afternoon saw a panel discussion, chaired by me and made up of Jean Binta Breeze (poet and fest patron), Sureshot (poet), Graham Norman (poet and chair of Leicester Poetry Soc) and Alison Dunne (poet and Book Doctor). The subject of the panel was the divide between page and stage and how the exponents of each side could be brought together.

In the course of the debate people put forward different ideas, but one thought that occurred to me was a process whereby poets would kind of buddy up. Ideally, the poets would be of contrasting natures. They would swap skills and rework each others material to develop in new and unexpected ways.

As a trial, I and Sureshot have decided to give it a go…poetry wise you understand. The preacher man of the midlands has given me a poem on the subject of angels, loaded with biblical references and killer rhymes. And I’m trying to rework it. If I get it done for Tuesday, I’m going to compere with it. Time will tell. Meanwhile, I’m sending him one of mine. I’ve no idea what he’ll make of it, but here are my first early lines on his….

‘Fallen Angel’

You have said in your heart
I will ascend into heaven
yet still I am here
like snow on the ground

and each day is a passing cloud
each day is a heaving crowd
of concrete and people and places
each day

is a wing
that has dropped.
You have said in your heart
but still I have not.

Isaiah, Isaiah
where have you gone?

in prog…

As the violin breathes
I have never seen
so much beauty

This man is sitting in a silver chair
This woman is sat on it’s wheel like a stair
This woman is dancing on knees.

As the violin breathes
I have never seen
so much beauty.

And nothing is said
They explain through their arms
Their bodies are movements
They move like they’re stars.

This man is a windmill
This woman a clock
This man is a preacher
This woman undone.

As the violin breathes.

There are eight of them.
They are running like prayers
They are wheeling through curtains
of silken black air.

There is ballet here
I have never seen
There is ballet here
It’s shaking me clean.

As the violin breathes.

And if life was a dance
It would look like these people
pulling apart then melting like treacle.

And the music is saying
there isn’t much time
The music is saying
we’ve got to rewind.

This woman is dancing
she is dancing on knees
she is collapsing and rising
her fingers like leaves

As violin breathes
I have never seen
there is ballet here
there is such beauty

 A huge huge thanks for Frontline books for putting up with me all this time.

 Drew xxx 

a Dadaist

Traces of snow were found in the blood
but the cause of death was heartbreak
not overdose.

He sold the art school to private interests.
Gave his charity away to money,
in a fit of nihilistic rage.

He was so close to his murdered dog
that he would go on all fours
baying at the grave.

A Dadaist, in court
he reversed the charges
and dialled out for pizza.

Naked as rain, I walk my ancient rooms,
a willow-the-wisp or bruise, a sliver of spite
goads me, withers whipped on through my doom,
my body dissolving like another marsh light
with handsaws and hawks, since even soaring kites
are tethered to the wind, wind bubbled in sky
sky just a dreamer’s brushstroke in sight
and every brushstroke calligraphs why?
My provincial ceilings, now raised high
house no answers, there’s just this walk;
this next step kills each step gone by
and love just sits in mirror talk
lips now become a mirrored world
or cushions, where my path unfurled.

    Then the small postman started singing La Traviata. Is this space opera, I thought? For while I have always liked sci-fi I have never been that au fait with its terms and conditions.

    Sci-fi, like masturbating your supposedly straight best friend into an old sock in the gazebo of his house after just having high tea with his lovely family, and your two god children! is something of a guilty pleasure. It is not something you talk of at the literary high table. Well I don’t, never being invited there. My tea is normally eaten at the £15 Ikea table in my kitchen on either my blue or red chair.

    (In an aside and just to set the scene I have the football on behind me. It is Russia and Spain. One of the Russian players is called Jerkov. That can’t be right, can it?

    Oi Jerkov, over here. On the head.)

    (In another aside (for the scientists amongst you who have googled your way to this entry, does that make this blog a triangle?) have you all been following the release of the new Bond book? In my opinion asking Sebastian Faulks to write in the style of Fleming is a bit like getting Posh Spice to rework Beethoven. Anyway, I am sure he is laughing all the way to the French resistance.

    ‘Listen carefully, I shall say zis only once.’

    For those of you who don’t know, that was a quote from Faulks’ book, Charlotte Grey.)

    I’m just kidding. Perhaps Faulks, like Posh, has a handsome young footballer locked up in his cupboard. That would explain his jovial smile, wouldn’t it?

    Asides aside I think I have been thinking about sci-fi for two reasons. The first is I read Damien Walter’s rather fine piece over on the Guardian website. And secondly I bought Star Trek Generations from the new iTunes movie service and watched it last night in my bed on my iPod.

    I was excited. It was like seeing a digital watch for the first time. Mum and dad ran a pub and they took me downstairs to the bar one night. This chap was selling them. Wow, I thought. It tells the time! It doesn’t have hands!

    We all watched the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy on the tv together as a family. (I have all 5 radio series on CD now and listen to them often.) I liked Dr Who, Blake’s 7. I read George Orwell, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clarke, Aldous Huxley and slightly older I found I liked a bit of Dick.

    Who doesn’t?

    When I was living in Australia I read Red, Green and Blue Mars. I think I’ve written about them before. My then boyfriend throwing Red Mars into the sea, travelling almost naked on a city bound bus.

    But I wouldn’t say I was a sci-fi fan. Or more that I know what I’m talking about when I talk about it. I don’t know that I can talk about anything seriously. I’d like to be able to, but writing for me is a bit like running. It’s fast.

    And I’m dumb. But I have passion and I care.

    George Bernard Shaw said the saddest thing was to live and not to have a passion. Or maybe it was my neighbour who said the saddest thing was to have one of those donkeys you get from Spain in your window.

    I get confused.

Currently reading - The Steep Approach to Garbadale - Iain Banks

Currently listening to - The Best of Radiohead

  ]]> Sci-Fi http://endlesslyredonoursnow.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/lone-moon/ Lone moon ripe as belly split birth your cicadas, come rain down the night sweet silver nectars. Come glisten the rivers lone moon ripe as belly; split birth your cicadas, come drink the mystery will rest in their humming. <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=endlesslyredonoursnow.wordpress.com&blog=766259&post=311&subd=endlesslyredonoursnow&ref=&feed=1"/> http://endlesslyredonoursnow.wordpress.com/?p=311 Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:48:47 -0700

Lone moon ripe as belly
split birth your cicadas,
come rain down the night
sweet silver nectars.
Come glisten the rivers
lone moon ripe as belly;
split birth your cicadas,
come drink the mystery
will rest in their humming.

Night and water all the time;
I drink their signs, the redwoods creaking.

Day and day star out of reach:
the lights that teach are constellations,

slight in the glove of a weary mime
who sets them as my sight comes leaking

rills to wend dusk’s perfect breach,
its silver charts bright consolations.

(All writers steal. Thanks to Aliya Whiteley and Neil Ayres who wrote similar pieces to the one below. They also stole it from someone else.)

I was 28 and I had just come back from two years in Australia. I decided I wanted to write. I moved into my old room in my mum’s house. I didn’t work. I wrote. The result was The Brothers Mostecsky. It was hand-written, two hundred and fifty thousand words.

    My biggest fear had been that I wouldn’t be able to do it, to think of a story. I saw that I could.

    I bought a Brother word processor. It became my best friend. For the next year I typed up TBM. I did three jobs. I worked for a delivery company, I worked in an egg factory, I worked as a teacher. Finally TBM was finished. And much too long.

    Make it simple, I told myself.

    My next book, The Lodger, was simple. A gay man advertises for a lodger, gets one, and then the lodger drunkenly admits he has killed someone.

    I sent it to a few publishers. I’ve never been one to send out hundreds of letters. You read about that. Luckily GMP said they would publish it. It’s not a quick process. Between sending it off and it being in the shops was two years.

    The Lodger got good reviews. I still didn’t have a computer. The first review I saw was by chance on gay.com in Derby library. That was the best thing! The Lodger was a finalist in the Lambda Awards in America. It sold out its print run.

    The Lodger took three months to write. After that I wrote a children’s book called The Fart Club (in 10 weeks). Then a book called Darts in a similar amount of time. The Fart Club wasn’t published, Darts nearly was. That’s a long story.

    I wrote a sequel to The Lodger, called Rising Camp. As I finished it I found that GMP had stopped publishing. (The parent group was instead going to concentrate on the selling of dildos - they have a bigger mark-up). I sent Rising Camp to a publisher in America who said they were going to publish. Then they didn’t. That happens.

    I wrote a more serious book called Zeitgeist. I liked this. Nobody else did. I was working full time now for National Rail Enquiries. I went back to Australia a couple of times. I had a two storey flat above a Chinese restaurant.

    I stopped writing novels. I had found a website called AbcTales. I was writing short stories. Quite a few of them got published, in magazines, in short story collections, on websites. I’d never really sent stuff off to big publishers. I didn’t ever think they’d be interested in me.

    A couple of years passed. I found that I’d written eight short stories about the same people, a pop group called Down By Law. It made a novel, if you squinted. I sent them off to an agent, just one.

 

    I was surprised when they got back to me. They liked it but wanted me to change the ending and cut down one chapter. The now novel went through eight people at the agency. A year passed. They didn’t take me on.

 

    In this time I split up with my then boyfriend. I moved into a house on my own. I was back to not having a computer. I work for the police and a computer is the kind of luxury you can’t afford - or cars, or holidays, or decent food.

 

    A year later I was checking my emails when I found one was from an American coffee shop. They wanted to buy one of my 50 word stories for a coffee promotion. They asked if I had any more. I wrote loads. I used the money to buy a Mac.

    Things started to happen.

    A couple of months after that I was sitting at my new computer and I was thinking I should try and send out the Down By Law stories again. I googled literary agent sites. I didn’t have a printer, live near a post office or have a car so I looked for agents who had email addresses. There were five. I emailed them.

    A few days later one of them got back to me. She asked to read the rest of my book and then to meet me. She took me on. We made some changes to my book, this time to the beginning. It got a new title, Me and Mickie James. We sold it to a publisher, Jonathan Cape.

    That was a year ago. The  book is now due to come out. I also have a story on Radio 4 in August, have just written a play for them as well, have also just had an erotic short story published, have another story coming out in Tell Tales 4.

    I still get plenty of stuff rejected. I don’t know if I’ll ever have another book published. This could be it.

    Or it might not be.

Currently reading -  Boys in Heat

Currently listening to - Fink

]]> Where I'm Calling From http://www.frontlinebooks.co.uk/frontline/viewBlogPost.asp?postID=2146 http://www.frontlinebooks.co.uk/frontline/viewBlogPost.asp?postID=2146 Sun, 01 Jun 2008 10:31:00 -0700

This morning I grew concerned that I was suffering from ADHD. Unfortunately I was not able to sit down at the computer long enough to fully research the matter.

   As it happens I am texting this blog to a small Peruvian lady who offers such transcription services while simultaneously shopping, eating, watching the tennis and trying to read a number of books.

    Reading is most traumatic. I fan books around me on the floor, pick one up, read a few pages, put it down, read a few pages of another, jumping from a novel, to a book on economics, to one on history.

    Perhaps this accounts for my blurring of fact and fiction. Doris Lessing said that fiction allows you to talk about things that you would not be able to in normal debate. George Saunders said the same thing of comedy.

    I can run with it.

    The blog is late this week. Last Tuesday I took my cat to the vet to have a tooth out. At 11:00 I got a call from my ex-partner, with whom I share custody of the cat.

    “Turn the music down,” he said. “It’s H. He’s got cancer.”

    The vet said we should have H put down straight away. He would only live for another week, and then in discomfort. It was a shock, because I had no idea he was ill.

    I wanted to write this whole blog about H, going to get him from the rescue place, worrying about him every time he went out, remembering how he used to grab your feet under the bottom of the duvet, sleeping with his head on the pillow.

    But it’s a bit difficult, all this reality. Enough to say, I loved him. As did Gary, my ex. When we went back to his after, he went and got this black lacquer box.

    “Look,” he said, “I’ve kept his whiskers. Every time one fell out over the years. I kept it.”

    We’ll miss him.

    Doris Lessing has a cat called Yum-Yum, named after a character in the Mikado. She was interviewed by Alan Yentob on Imagine.

    “Watch out for him,” she said, “he’s rather spiky.”

    Rather like Doris herself. I loved watching the interview with her, and the clips from her life. She didn’t want to talk about leaving her children. “Look, I’ve talked about that before” and I loved the way she imperiously dismissed other interviewers.

    “When I took mescaline I rather wish they’d left me alone.” Because it’s all about putting on a face. At 88 she doesn’t have to bother.

    “It doesn’t matter if they think I’m a loony now.”

    Interestingly the warning on the iPlayer states of the Lessing programme ‘Contains very strong language’. For Kiss of Death it states, ‘Contains some strong language’.

    Kiss of Death also contains in the very first scene, a body cut into pieces, later a head full of maggots, scenes of graphic torture, kidnap, imprisonment and murder. And Danny Dyer.  

    No warning for that necessary apparently.

    I wonder if that’s what Lessing means when she decries the death of culture. What comes across though is her love of life. Even going out into the garden her eyes light up as she gazes out across her plants and trees. That was the biggest influence of her life she said, gazing up at the stars (her dad let her stay up to do this). It makes you feel very small.

    Indeed.

Currently reading - The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein

Currently listening to - Catch the Brass Ring, Ferraby Lionheart

]]> H http://endlesslyredonoursnow.wordpress.com/2008/05/30/sheen-2/ Alison paints with a nail brush; the green on her fingernails grows; a lushness spreading like mosses on sand as the glitter-sheen flows from her nerves to the skin on her fingers like streams leaving summer&#8217;s ease, their ripples beginnings of shivers as autumn&#8217;s chill drives the breeze. I uncork a cheap spanish red, the junkie tipple we choose so we&#8217;ve cash left to abdicate [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=endlesslyredonoursnow.wordpress.com&blog=766259&post=308&subd=endlesslyredonoursnow&ref=&feed=1"/> http://endlesslyredonoursnow.wordpress.com/?p=308 Fri, 30 May 2008 07:46:56 -0700

Alison paints with a nail brush;
the green on her fingernails grows;
a lushness spreading like mosses
on sand as the glitter-sheen flows
from her nerves to the skin on her fingers
like streams leaving summer’s ease,
their ripples beginnings of shivers
as autumn’s chill drives the breeze.

I uncork a cheap spanish red,
the junkie tipple we choose
so we’ve cash left to abdicate will
to potions as precious as booze
’cause tomorrow wants us rolled up
in fresh green fifty pound notes
to shoot up the world’s noses,
buy vintage to sap down its throats.

But Alison says we’ve been stifling
our moonbeams in tiny phials;
our angels are freezing in birdbaths
and fainting away on the tiles.
The sheen of her skin is cracking,
my world is ice and sea;
its surface splinters like varnish
as winter sets her free.

Our sky is not a colour like your sky,
it is more like your blood:

not red, but warm, full,
and dangerous to spill.

There is no death here -
we do not lose what we have made.

Moments do not fade; time is embroidered, not passed;
each instant thrives

and life is a fabric of vines. Love is like weaving,
anger like strangling. Seeing is making -

some say we are tricks of the light
but we can touch minds, angle ourselves and become others.

Each of us has one great heart
that floats ahead of us like smoke.

Two hundred feet below the high rise, and soon,
the cars will loose their horns at everything.
Celine Dion offends the French with her Canadian accent -
she’s there on the TV, in a dress like a mirror ball;
you are with me, drinking champagne.

We squeeze lemon juice onto oysters
who tremble in their shells, pale by candle flame.
I am sipping flesh from a crescent moon.

The hours embrace, then expire without protest.
You sit before me, latte skinned
on tight North African curves,
talking to your friends in language I am free of,
relieving me both of silence and the need to speak
though sometimes I do speak, when you stop,
lean forwards on your elbows and explore
or we worry at translations like meat caught in teeth.

Yesterday, Reims cathedral looked about to awaken -
encrusted with statues of the beatified
carved in stone the colour of dirty mustard,
their eyes watering with piety.
Now, at midnight, spirit blows through the walls

like a god cooling his food,
pulverising the shells around them.
Awakened, they must be sounding the horns,
or else it’s city folks begging to be saved
from saints’ swords and angels’ tridents.

Our eyes flicker in time with the candle flame.
The door opens; metal reflects decor and digested skin.

The army of heaven can’t believe that on this day, of all days,
we’re having a dinner party, rather than praying
or gouging out sin with a rusty apple corer.

I smile over my gateaux, tell them:
that’s the trouble with the living,
but the living is good.

We moved to the countryside. The nights were silent.
You dipped your hand in wine and coloured your belly.
We came, shivering. The moon was pale.
We took it in turns to talk to,
to caress. The moon was white.

Seasons shimmered. The telephone
began to look out of place, then later,
like a shell. No one came to stay.
Our house sank a little each day.

We covered it up with turf;
the foundations hit bedrock
and it stuck there like an egg in a pork pie,
and we were a raw yolk, viscous,
sloshing round in a bubble
as the crusted earth turned and we were rocked softly,
while everyone else was kneading and dying like flies in pastry.

The moon was the colour of buttercups,
jeweled fat by a cooker, cratered amber,
a wash of saffron ink on old canvas.

We had a window in our roof,
and we watched the moon for hours,
felt it dragging tides of our bloods,
imagined ourselves shrunk as small as cells,
ebbing and flowing with the circadian spin:
two happy, drowning voices,
conducted by a sweet, fat lunatic,
and we folded our selves into the fabric of the land like haiku.

We kept paying the line rental. One day,
we were phoned by a fax machine,
and it felt as if one of H.G. Wells’ tripods
had hovered above the window
and brushed its nasal death ray past our eyes.
Once we got over the shock
we tried to talk to the machine, we tried to explain
why we couldn’t come back,

as if we were Gaia talking to the human race
or as if we were love trying to apologise,
trying to explain why it hurt and what the easing of it was -

to a fax machine. And it listened carefully,
but we spoke the wrong language,
so it was frightened, and did not speak
or later relay our message to anyone of consequence.

So the days suffered like they always had, but more,
and that beautiful bastardbitch of a moon drew great tides of blood,
and waves crashed and threw up great gouts of it that splashed on our high window,
soaked the tiles and the wars went on and on and on

and no one told anyone;
no one told a soul
that you can only see what’s real once you realise you’re dreaming.
No one told a soul

or they screamed it from the rooftops
then the beacon hills. And maybe we did
and maybe our house never sank
and we died with you, as you, screaming for you,
as we pinched ourselves, each other,
harder and harder

to wake others up from their dreams,
to live in ours, which was not a dream -

and kept pinching till we were crabs
shuffling and duelling, shuffling and duelling,
shuffling and screaming for beheadings
as flimsily as we turned against the wind
to be spun and scattered like sycamore down
into blood and the dizziness of spirals.

So we never moved to the countryside;
we talked about it for a few months
but your tests kept showing negative.
I got worse and worse and the meds
just made me fat and slow witted.

But the wars were real
like nothing else. Unless pieces of shell.

The stained-glass saint has a beard
and behind his head is a tendrilled sun.
He thinks he looks like God. They all do.

I think of the cross
how its wearer’s blood dried to ink
then black wire.

The sky is fierce with clouds.
Angels turn to silt in their guts, cast themselves
to the pavements, the gutters.
I move to shelter through my thoughts

of America, wishful,
imagining a pulsing bag of chrisali. At Beltane
a girl wove me a circlet of twigs and flowers
and I dreamt I was a summer of love.

It’s been a good week all round. Which is disconcerting. Weeks aren’t normally round. They start on Monday and head in a straight line through to Sunday. Then it starts all over again. Until you die.

    I didn’t need any fake breasts after all. This was on Monday when I went to London for my photo shoot in the glamour palace of Bethnal Green.

    “I’ve seen this nice tree,” was the first thing the photographer said to me. “Then we can go to the park. There are some really big slides.”

    The park was great, enormous. I imagined myself running to the centre of it and disappearing like that character in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up. I wondered if it was shot there. Then I walked through some trees.

    “The light is great.”

    It is, I thought. Sunlight, what would we do without it? Then I sat on the promised slides. They really were big. Everyone has nice memories of slides but my favourite one was Aqualand, South of France, zipping down it, laughing.

    There is something very Zen about having photographs taken of yourself. Perhaps that’s what all those Buddha statues are about. A statue being a more concrete representation than a flat image. Therefore more Zen.

    Everyone has their favourite Buddha statue. Mine was in Japan, Daibutsu. You could walk inside him if you wanted and there was enough room to spread out a picnic blanket. That day I ate potato ice-cream and my Japanese gave me this small bottle to drink out of. It was supposed to give you special powers.

    (I didn’t hold out much hope. I had had my fortune told to me in a Japanese temple - ‘You won’t die in a car crash’. Goodo!)

    “You seem relaxed,” said the photographer.

    Clickclickclickclickclick.

    On Wednesday I received four nice emails. 1) From the BBC, the studio script for Teeth for me to check. It’s being recorded on 5th June. I also found out who’s going to read it. 2) From the editor at Gaydarnation re my interview with them. 3) The editor of Tell Tales who have accepted my story Gus. This will be published in October. 4) From my publicist at Random House to say the finished copies of Me and Mickie James are in.

    My copies are in the post. So I am going to see the final finished thing. Next it will be in the shops. Then people will be able to buy it. Or not.

    Now here’s the caveat. You work for years for this. Then it happens and you realise it doesn’t change your life. That crap job you are doing is still crap when you have a book published. That view of the housing estate outside your window doesn’t change.

    I have decided to change my life.

    Yesterday, I bought a Neil Diamond song for the first time. It’s good. But is that enough? I went to see Persepolis. It was great. I read another Albert Sanchez Pinol book, Cold Skin. This is great too, like HG Wells. 

    But I wish I had lived in the Enlightenment. London is destroyed in the Great Fire. I, astronomer select, give up gazing at the stars and design a new city. There will be broad boulevards, temples, no skip that, Big Buddhas. There will be potato ice-cream for everyone and water slides. Everyone will write books and read them. There will be public libraries on every corner. Music will play everywhere and everyone will get chance to be mayor even if you are a buffoon.

    We will all change our jobs every two years and when bad things happen we will all pull up our socks and dig in to help. We will study all our lives and pass on our knowledge to our children. Or not if we don’t want.

    And so on.

Currently reading Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine

Currently listening to Neil Diamond

]]> A Perfect Boob http://morpheanramble.blogspot.com/2008/05/culture-what-culture.html <img style="width:400px;" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v259/dark_ophidian/blog_morphean/blogtext_080513.png"/><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/34459514-1901700298938693083?l=morpheanramble.blogspot.com' alt=''/></div> morphean ramble tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34459514.post-1901700298938693083 Tue, 13 May 2008 03:41:00 -0700 http://www.frontlinebooks.co.uk/frontline/viewBlogPost.asp?postID=2143 http://www.frontlinebooks.co.uk/frontline/viewBlogPost.asp?postID=2143 Sun, 11 May 2008 03:59:41 -0700

Tomorrow I am going to London to have my photo taken for Dazed and Confused magazine. In an effort to get myself in the right frame of mind I went into my local Sainsburys and perused the magazines on display.

Jordan seems to have the right look and one that the camera obviously loves. Should I get myself some enormous fake breasts? Could I do this by tomorrow morning? And where would I keep them after?

Actually I am not maintaining the right tone of gravitas. You see, in essence, this week I have decided I wanted to be a major economist.

I admire Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel prize winner, greatly. His new book The Three Trillion Dollar War looks at the opportunity cost of the Iraq war. Could three trillion dollars have been spent more wisely than on lots of weapons and blowing lots of people into small pieces? You could have bought the country lock, stock and barrel for that amount and still got change for a new bathroom he writes. It’s a winning argument.

(In a brief aside I received a letter (a physical letter although they do have my email address - they provide me with an email service) from Virgin Media. They asked me if I would like to go over to paperless billing for the saving on £1 a bill. I was straight on the phone. I wondered if they would like to go over over to paperless letters. And had they ever thought of bill-less billing? I’m all for that!)

The next book on my list of books to read is Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine. This is about the economics of disaster management, i.e. the global business that have sprung up around managing disasters.

Say, for example, a former superpower engineers a war in a middle eastern country, blows it to bits. Imagine the money to be made from reconstruction! What a brilliant idea!

At the same time we live in a world seemingly incapable of pouring money into where it is really needed. Shell this week pulled out of the Thames Estuary Wind Farm project siting limited opportunities to make a really incredibly enormous pile of money for their already super-rich shareholders.

Jeffrey Sachs was on the Start the Week was talking about his new book Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet. He said the money involved in making a difference would be comparatively little. America under the Bush administration has failed to build even a single carbon capture coal fired power station.

(They have spent billions of dollars going to war. See above.)

In the same period of time Kennedy decided that man would go to the moon, sent them there, and brought them back in time to see his brains get blown out because someone didn’t like what he’d done in the Bay of Pigs.

Actually that might be all wrong.

What it needs is someone to take matters into their own hands. Sometimes I feel like putting everything I own into a kit-bag, setting off to China, become a leader amongst men (think Mao with a heart), engineer a war with a former superpower, and then rebuild the world in a more sensible image.

But I probably won’t.

For a start would my orange Ikea Klippan 2 seater sofa fit in a kit-bag? And I, like Nicholson Baker, am a pacifist.

Baker has just written a book, Human Smoke, about Hitler and the Second World War. He forwards the argument that if we had made peace with Hitler things would have been pretty bad on the continent but Jews would have been allowed to leave. America and England didn’t want this, they didn’t want more immigrants.

Baker was the same radio programme as Jeffrey Sachs who took exception to this argument.

Fight, fight, fight said Andrew Marr banging the desk with a clenched fist. It took Sarah Walker, there to talk about Chopin and his lover the French novelist George Sand’s stay on a windswept Mediterranean island to sort the whole goddam mess out.

Actually that might not have happened.



Currently reading - George Saunders, Civilwarland in Bad Decline

Currently listening to - Kula Shaker, Strangefolk

Joseph Stiglitz talks on Globalisation

]]> Unhappy Funny People http://www.frontlinebooks.co.uk/frontline/viewBlogPost.asp?postID=2127 I g http://www.frontlinebooks.co.uk/frontline/viewBlogPost.asp?postID=2127 Sun, 16 Mar 2008 04:32:08 -0700
I hadn’t. Because I was floundering in a sea of ignorance. I had done an eleven and a half hour shift at work and I think I’m exhausted anyway. I’ve edited one book in the last year, written a new one, work full-time, go to gym and so on. I’ve never felt like this.

“The proofs of Me and Mickie James are ready!!”

The proofs apparently look exactly like the real book, and are used to send out for review. So I’m going to see my book, much sooner than I thought I would. She told me they looked fantastic.

Then I realised I had a missed parcel delivery leaflet through my door - 2 parcels it said. So that must be it.

Suddenly I had energy.

I was told copies had been sent out to Nick Hornby, Roddy Doyle, Alex James, William Sutcliffe, Dan Rhodes. Who else did I want it to go to?

Of course, all those people probably get loads of books and it doesn’t mean they will read mine but still...

I’m proud even to be thought worthy.

“You don’t seem to lack confidence,” someone said at work.

It’s not a lack of confidence. It’s more complicated than that and I don’t know that I can explain it. You dream of certain things and you think those things are dreams.

I didn’t sleep that night, much. The next morning I made my own list. I put on people who would be my ‘dream quotation’ for my book. I sent it off.

Then I cycled off to the parcel collection office. Two parcels. One must be my book. I cycled home. Opened them up.

1. A double pack of Jia Zhang-Ke films I’d ordered from Amazon. (On Sunday I’d gone to see Still Life at the cinema - a brilliant film about the Three Gorges Dam.)
2. The latest copy of McSweeneys from America.

I was pleased to see these things but they weren’t my book.

McSweeneys this month is two pocket-sized books like they used to send out to troops in WWII and a larger hardbacked book, “Who Shall We Invade Next?” with an American flag on the front.

(On the inside flap of one of the smaller books apparently the Pentagon have said modern troops no longer have time to read so there are no funds allocated to send them books.)

Other good news. There may be article about me in trendy magazine. Note to self, trim nose hairs.

I have been invited to read / appear at the Lowdham Book Fair. Note to self, don’t get drunk on train on way.

Not that I would. But it’s always best to remind yourself of certain things just to keep your feet on the floor.

Currently listening to: new Elbow album (not exactly true but should arrive tomorrow and then I will be)

Currently reading: Submarine - Joe Dunthorne (I would have finished this but as I have been oscillating between high exhaustion and high excitement I haven’t had much time).

Scenes from Still Life

]]> Me and Mickie James: Review Copies http://www.frontlinebooks.co.uk/frontline/viewBlogPost.asp?postID=2126 Yes http://www.frontlinebooks.co.uk/frontline/viewBlogPost.asp?postID=2126 Sun, 09 Mar 2008 05:23:28 -0700 www.drewgummerson.co.uk. In the future when my many fans flock towards me (Note from the editor - ‘Can one person truly be said to ‘flock’?’, ‘Or be ‘many’?’) I will no longer have to cast my hands novelistically in the air and say, ‘Just Google me’. Meaning my old website address was a few cats and a rabbit short of the Magna Carta.

For those of you who are interested and I didn’t know myself, it is very easy to buy a domain name (i.e. www.drewgummerson.co.uk). I did it from here, but there are loads of others and it cost £5 for two years. All web traffic to your chosen domain name is then sent to your old website (if you have one).

It’s been a good and busy week so why I found myself at one o’clock this morning sitting on the side of the bath sobbing I don’t know. I’d just been watching Michael Jackson perform Billie Jean at Motown 25 and I think I was reminded of the time I’d first watched it with my mum, my dad and my brother, all of us together. Or listening to Thriller on the bus to France on holiday and thinking it would be great if I sat upstairs right at the front. And then the sun came up and up and up.

That’s the thing about past. It is always behind you.

And I was emotional anyway because I finished the third draft of the Penguin Variations yesterday. When you get to the end you always think, ‘this is shit. I’m rubbish. I’m stuck in a call centre till I die with a phone welded to my ear’.

Then this morning I got a call from the BBC as you do at 10:30 on a Sunday morning. They want one of my stories. Woo hoo! If you read this blog you know I love the BBC. So woo hoo!

I’d sent them the story a couple of years ago. The person who read it originally liked it but was told to send it back. She has since left that post, returned to a position of more power and this time it’s in. Or on. It’s not signed in blood yet, but it should be ok.

Also this week I was proof-reading my story ‘Intimacy’ which is going to be in ‘Boys In Heat’ out in June. So for those of you who like hot boy on boy action (and who doesn’t?) note it in your diary. Actually my story is about a policeman who is sent to train a Polish bicycle task force, there is a serial killer cutting off penises, some stuff about the Catholic Church and Al Qaeda. The usual.

And finally this week I was at a photo-shoot for Leicester’s What’s Your Favourite Book. You can see the damage here. Nice to see everyone dressed colourfully in complete black...

Currently reading - Submarine by Joe Dunthorne

Currently listening to - Duran Duran, Red Carpet Massacre, Sweeney Todd, and Michael Jackson, Thriller.

Rik Mayall reading George’s Marvellous Medicine:



Kenneth Williams and Jackanory:

]]> www.drewgummerson.co.uk http://morpheanramble.blogspot.com/2008/02/in-defiance-of-coanda.html <img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v259/dark_ophidian/blog_morphean/blogtext_080229.png"><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/34459514-535615995007741395?l=morpheanramble.blogspot.com' alt=''/></div> morphean ramble tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34459514.post-535615995007741395 Fri, 29 Feb 2008 03:32:00 -0800 http://morpheanramble.blogspot.com/2008/02/incremental.html <img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v259/dark_ophidian/blog_morphean/blogtext_080211.png"><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/34459514-6156270411679087227?l=morpheanramble.blogspot.com' alt=''/></div> morphean ramble tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34459514.post-6156270411679087227 Mon, 11 Feb 2008 04:55:00 -0800 http://sabrinameilismith.blogspot.com/2007/11/my-blog.html has been an absolutly fantastic way to document and has been a foolproof way to gather info for my novel, but i will com to a point where i delete it . ive got to that point where a website will be up and running soon and have been out with prof photographers trying to make my ugly mush sellable. just so ya warned!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/30984092-3371624799254344372?l=sabrinameilismith.blogspot.com' alt=''/></div> Sabrina Mei-Li Smith tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30984092.post-3371624799254344372 Mon, 05 Nov 2007 21:49:00 -0800 http://sabrinameilismith.blogspot.com/2007/10/start-wearing-purple-wearing-purple.html <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://uk.images.search.yahoo.com/search/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fuk.images.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fei%3DUTF-8%26p%3Dgogol%2520bordello%26fr2%3Dtab-web%26fr%3Dush1-mail&amp;w=250&amp;h=250&amp;imgurl=www.rhino.com%2Frzine%2Fimages%2Fgogol2.jpg&amp;rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rhino.com%2FRZine%2FStoryKeeper.lasso%3FStoryID%3D539&amp;size=23.1kB&amp;name=gogol2.jpg&amp;p=gogol+bordello&amp;type=jpeg&amp;no=1&amp;tt=23,570&amp;oid=bf246764698c266a&amp;ei=UTF-8"><img style="FLOAT:left;MARGIN:0px 10px 10px 0px;WIDTH:320px;CURSOR:hand;" alt="" src="http://uk.images.search.yahoo.com/search/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fuk.images.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fei%3DUTF-8%26p%3Dgogol%2520bordello%26fr2%3Dtab-web%26fr%3Dush1-mail&amp;w=250&amp;h=250&amp;imgurl=www.rhino.com%2Frzine%2Fimages%2Fgogol2.jpg&amp;rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rhino.com%2FRZine%2FStoryKeeper.lasso%3FStoryID%3D539&amp;size=23.1kB&amp;name=gogol2.jpg&amp;p=gogol+bordello&amp;type=jpeg&amp;no=1&amp;tt=23,570&amp;oid=bf246764698c266a&amp;ei=UTF-8" border="0"/></a><br /><div><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://uk.images.search.yahoo.com/search/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fuk.images.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fei%3DUTF-8%26p%3Dgogol%2520bordello%26fr2%3Dtab-web%26fr%3Dush1-mail&amp;w=355&amp;h=500&amp;imgurl=www.idixon.com%2Fmusic%2Fmusic89.jpg&amp;rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.idixon.com%2Fpages%2Fmusic89.html&amp;size=44kB&amp;name=music89.jpg&amp;p=gogol+bordello&amp;type=jpeg&amp;no=10&amp;tt=23,570&amp;oid=45d96ae28ae463c0&amp;ei=UTF-8"><img style="FLOAT:left;MARGIN:0px 10px 10px 0px;WIDTH:5px;CURSOR:hand;HEIGHT:251px;" height="379" alt="" src="http://uk.images.search.yahoo.com/search/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fuk.images.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fei%3DUTF-8%26p%3Dgogol%2520bordello%26fr2%3Dtab-web%26fr%3Dush1-mail&amp;w=355&amp;h=500&amp;imgurl=www.idixon.com%2Fmusic%2Fmusic89.jpg&amp;rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.idixon.com%2Fpages%2Fmusic89.html&amp;size=44kB&amp;name=music89.jpg&amp;p=gogol+bordello&amp;type=jpeg&amp;no=10&amp;tt=23,570&amp;oid=45d96ae28ae463c0&amp;ei=UTF-8" border="0"/></a><br /><br /><div>wow! Gogol Bordello are playing rock city! I'm so exited!!! </div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>seems like every weekend is so totally busy for me at the moment. I'm rusing around all over te midlands all the time for all sorts of random obligations and its tireing. im so knackered! </div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>Moley is being lovely and he *bless* wants to take me to see <em>Beauty and the Beast </em>(Disney version) at Dmh for my birthday (well, not actually on my birthday). On the big Sabrinamass day itself I'll (hopefully) be going to latasca for a spanish meal with Mole (if he can make it), morph, Lucy W, Lucy H, Flippyflop, Angie, Nick, Helena, Weird Al and Josh. Fabby! (charisse and Edgar - if you can make it tell me and ill book extra seatage)</div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>on a less apeasing note, im pissed off because the disco (who invented this stupid usb???) is non-compatable with htis computer and im now going to have to bugger off and find an ipod, download the stuff onto it and email the latest version to stephen lowe. grr. hassle that i can do without. </div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>I NEED THE INTERNET DAMMIT! </div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>its soooo inconvenient! </div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>on the writing front the sector story is going well with the planning, starchild is going well with redrafting and the novel is actually being inbetween play fun for me to play with. </div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>on the devlopment side ace-semper is still ongoing, and allthough its slow i fel that its coming. a laboured process! waknham-ace is also simple enough to start when i have a free moment (if i ever do) and artspartnership-semper is going ok in some ways, allthough im less encouraged, as ladyfest seems to have not had much sucess with them. </div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/30984092-1078669088626946090?l=sabrinameilismith.blogspot.com' alt=''/></div> Sabrina Mei-Li Smith tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30984092.post-1078669088626946090 Tue, 30 Oct 2007 03:46:00 -0700 http://sabrinameilismith.blogspot.com/2007/10/sorry.html I’ve not been here for a while its cos beta is GAY and won’t let me long on at work!!! I have to snatch internet moments here and when I can and often my mind is pretty blank when I think “oh must update blogger”<br />Well I’m actually working on a few things as writers semi-block has lifted and I’m feeling pretty prolific at the moment. I’m doing the damned novel and its going well. My collage technique seems to be providing the much needed structure that I was requiring and I’m enjoying it loads!!! The only downside is that it’s going to take a lot longer than I once thought...<br />In other news I’m doing good on my 3rd draft of starchild and the cave that too seems to be melting into place and is totally being a proper joy to write!<br />And just as a capper I’ve started on the piece for the long awaited simper project that we are all waiting with baited berth for!!! It’s a 2 hander set in a club that was very dear to my heart for many years and (I hope) a few other people enjoyed as well and its more comic and realistic (apart from the mannequins) it’s also kind of for a girl I once knew and all the others who were emotional casualties of the 90’s that didn’t quite survive<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/30984092-1159819029202519167?l=sabrinameilismith.blogspot.com' alt=''/></div> Sabrina Mei-Li Smith tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30984092.post-1159819029202519167 Wed, 24 Oct 2007 03:52:00 -0700 http://sabrinameilismith.blogspot.com/2007/10/oh-dear.html Moleboy and I have moved house to somewhere that has no internet and its also somewhere that is very small with a weird little gremlin-man in the front room that we will be trying to remove as he has no idea about the difference between Amy Winehouse and Lilly Allen (oooh! crime!)<br /><br />Anyway - Its hard for me to access the net at te moment and to have the coherent thought to do some type of bloggymcblogblog post. Im getting very odd about the house and have started making compost, while the mole keeps saying that a man needs a lawn to mow and that he wants a dog. He's 2 mins away from a flat cap and sheepdog. Too many HE Bates novels.<br /><br />University Challenge just had a run of questions on "Semper Eadum". I think thats a sign.<br /><br />I cant access blogger at work. the computer there just wont let me and I dont know why. I've tried to put myself on some type of "dont eat chocolate and get off lazy arse" type diet and have failed on te first day. had a banana for breakfast, peach, pear, cob and cold pizza for lunch, countless little dimebar chocolates throughout the day, salad, potato salad and old lazagne for dinner and im hungry again. i wish i was like the mole and just "forgot to eat" how the hell can you forget to eat? What type of person does that and how do I become one??? at least there is no wine involved. Anyway. I'm going swimmin tomorrow with weird Al so that will at least make me fel better about the ever expanding gut.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/30984092-6802850434785692477?l=sabrinameilismith.blogspot.com' alt=''/></div> Sabrina Mei-Li Smith tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30984092.post-6802850434785692477 Mon, 15 Oct 2007 05:16:00 -0700 http://morpheanramble.blogspot.com/2007/09/blog-post.html <img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v259/dark_ophidian/blog_morphean/070928_1.png"/><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/34459514-2744338632858396262?l=morpheanramble.blogspot.com' alt=''/></div> morphean ramble tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34459514.post-2744338632858396262 Fri, 28 Sep 2007 04:43:00 -0700 http://sabrinameilismith.blogspot.com/2007/09/im-dying.html i feel ill. sure im coming down with bronchitus or some type of terrible lurgey...<br /><br />so anyway, it looks like i may not have home tinternet access for teh newst few months (dammit) cos ive moved house and there is some wack deal on that means i cant actually do my work with BT (who are useless). what is on my horizon i hear you all scream in anticipation?<br /><br />Ladyfest is on the 6/7/8th oct so get yo asses there.<br />im being interviewd at some point by ed stillard for 69 mag with the publicity specilist from the semper project<br />im dying<br /><br />yes. actually dying is going to take up most of my time and my main intrest will be lemsip...<br /><br />gak!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/30984092-609976978284789955?l=sabrinameilismith.blogspot.com' alt=''/></div> Sabrina Mei-Li Smith tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30984092.post-609976978284789955 Wed, 26 Sep 2007 02:11:00 -0700 http://morpheanramble.blogspot.com/2007/09/unnecessary-pessary.html <img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v259/dark_ophidian/blog_morphean/070925_1.png"/><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/34459514-4215460603666146320?l=morpheanramble.blogspot.com' alt=''/></div> morphean ramble tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34459514.post-4215460603666146320 Tue, 25 Sep 2007 03:08:00 -0700 http://nearlygood.blogspot.com/2007/09/newsflash.html Hello regular blog readers ...<br /><br />and to those who are searching google for answers to questions such as 'Why do ferrets tremble uncontrollably' ...<br /><br />the fish blog has moved ...<br /><br />it will be available in the other place soon ... and if you'd like to read it ... drop me an email<br /><br />ivoryfishbone at yahoo dot com<br /><br />and i'll tell you how ...<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7552084801832274355-2389470416966047361?l=nearlygood.blogspot.com' alt=''/></div> ivoryfishbone tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552084801832274355.post-2389470416966047361 Thu, 20 Sep 2007 06:35:00 -0700 http://sabrinameilismith.blogspot.com/2007/09/tears-dry-on-their-own.html <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://galleries.lycos.co.uk/d/17056-2/amy-winehouse.jpg"><img style="margin:0pt 10px 10px 0pt;float:left;cursor:pointer;width:320px;" src="http://galleries.lycos.co.uk/d/17056-2/amy-winehouse.jpg" alt="" border="0"/></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB">Have you heard the new Amy winehouse song? I’m not generally a big fan but I do like it and it made me actually listen to <i>Back to Black</i> (song not album) and download some of her stuff cos it’s pretty interesting. I like Amy Winehouse now, actually for the music as opposed to the tattoos and fact that she scares Hoffmole half to death! </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB">Anyway – Looks like I’m conducting the Ladyfest theatre writing workshop on my own! Eek! What a scary thought! I’m gonna have to dig out all those Emma Rosoman exercises and try to create some purpose in 2 hours. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB">Today someone at work wanted to buy the cardigan that I’d scavenged from Nunu the policewoman’s eBay pile… </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB">It’s green. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB">Anyway – Semper is taking shape (in my head and on paper if nowhere else) and some bloke from the secular hall called Wilfred Gaunt (great name) keeps missing me (and I keep missing him). I’ve been a megalomaniac and: </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <ul style="margin-top:0cm;" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="" lang="EN-GB">Split people up into teams (we should really actually have a bit of a discussion regarding what EXACTLY each team does)</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="" lang="EN-GB">Got the ACE form nearly completed </span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="" lang="EN-GB">Done the budget (briefly – we need to speak about this also) </span></li></ul> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB">But it makes me feel that I've had some type of progression rather than just mellowing around in circles. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB">In addition: </span></p> <ul style="margin-top:0cm;" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="" lang="EN-GB">The while room theatre company have been in touch and I’ve been briefing them about what Semper is all about </span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="" lang="EN-GB">There is a youth-at-risk arts group in Loughborough that want to take part </span></li></ul> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB">Also there are 2 ways my life can go at the moment… </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36pt;"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"><span style="">1)<span style="font-size:7;"> </span></span></span><span dir="ltr"><span style="" lang="EN-GB">Uni – do I want to go back to uni? I would like to be a student again. It was fun. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36pt;"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"><span style="">2)<span style="font-size:7;"> </span></span></span><span dir="ltr"><span style="" lang="EN-GB">Trainee Housing Adviser – I stop the evil council evicting people. Nuff said. </span></span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/30984092-8185565756476460186?l=sabrinameilismith.blogspot.com' alt=''/></div> Sabrina Mei-Li Smith tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30984092.post-8185565756476460186 Wed, 19 Sep 2007 03:08:00 -0700 http://sabrinameilismith.blogspot.com/2007/09/black-butterfly.html <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/757/299930.JPG"><img style="margin:0pt 10px 10px 0pt;float:left;cursor:pointer;width:320px;" src="http://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/757/299930.JPG" alt="" border="0"/></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB">The black butterfly symbolises the malfunctioning nature in modern society. It creates and harbours the illusion that butterflies are an infinitely feminine and beautiful creature. Moths are not beautiful, indeed some people are petrified of them, so to make the butterfly black is to shift the focus away from beauty and simply add it into the Addams Family-style dimension of the sinister and bizarre. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> Surely, to shift a motif of beauty into the area of gothic fantasy (with or without a sense of humour – I haven’t decided yet) is to replace the meaning of beauty. Replacing the meaning of beauty then in turn questions the area that made the original meaning. And that throws the original premise swiftly down to the abyss of anarchy. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> It devalues and fucks up meaning, it highlights that nothing is stable. The black butterfly is here with us to stay. Not so much a moth, not so much a butterfly, not a caterpillar anymore, nothing. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> But it is something. I’m not existentialist enough to simply say nothing. Simply the black butterfly <i>exists</i>. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> And thank God it does! If everything was as simply defined then we’d all be out of a job! It then symbolises something <i>more</i>. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> What is this more? What? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> It now becomes a symbol of the dysfunctional, the cynical and the depressed. It is a manifestation of what is seen <i>beyond</i> reality. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> The butterfly hovers like a humming bird, but makes no noise. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> It’s the newspaper article that accuses another mascara brand of using fake lashes on airbrushed models; it’s the pyramid scheme, its “earn £200 extra per week” cards in the post office. It’s an ASBO awarded to the poor family that do not have a garden for their kids to play in so they kick a ball about in the street. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> The black butterfly is the un-squashable feeling of the alternative. It’s the marginalised feeling. It’s not being able to cope with what you are <i>supposed </i>to be, it’s a manifestation. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> Its Frauza Balk going from Dorothy Gale to </span><span style="" lang="EN-GB">Nancy</span><span style="" lang="EN-GB">, its Sylvia Plath’s corpse hanging out of the back of an oven, its Amy Winehouse <i>singing</i> about Rehab and then <i>going</i> to rehab. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> It’s what Beth Ditto wants to be but sold out. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> There is something just not right with a world that prides things that <i>don’t really matter </i>over shit that does. Really. What are you more worried about? The double chin? The size of your penis? Those new shoes in Topshop or the twelve people who were just killed in some foreign war-torn country halfway across the globe. Honestly? For me it’s those shoes in Topshop. I’m just as bad as the rest of them. I’m just as conditioned and exposed to modern society. If I wasn’t I wouldn’t by clothes from Primark, have a freezer or shave my legs. We are all conditioned into this false economy. False. That’s what it is. Takes a special person to stop and really look. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-GB"> Plato banged on about caves and images and prisoners. It’s the modern world. It’s any world, but then the butterfly shakes my argument with its dark wings fluttering at the back of my mind. <i>What is real?</i></span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/30984092-9091152094454309221?l=sabrinameilismith.blogspot.com' alt=''/></div> Sabrina Mei-Li Smith tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30984092.post-9091152094454309221 Sun, 16 Sep 2007 02:25:00 -0700 http://sabrinameilismith.blogspot.com/2007/09/headache.html oh ive got a headache. ive been doing my dasterdly deeds all weekend regarding a certain semper project and its given me a headache.<br /><br />just wanna say a big fank yoo to alex walsh for helping sort this pigsty out.<br /><br />went over to my mate nu's ebay corner last night. it was pretty brill. got some brown trousers and cardigans and tops and a necklace. got some stuff for charisse as well.<br /><br />And something AMAZING happened on the way over there... Hoffmole actually said "you look nice" thats the first time EVER he's said that!!! its usually insults masqurading as compliments from that one. i was (as usual) head 2 toe primark clasics (got a dress £3 the other day when i went shopping with angie)<br /><br />Mole said we could watch 2 movies tonight and he'd cook stir fry and I'd make a trifle. So far I've made a trifle and he's played video games. Some things never change.<br /><br />I'm gonna do an MA next year in playwriting. I've got the cash secured now. Where is good to go?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/30984092-4582361419806154644?l=sabrinameilismith.blogspot.com' alt=''/></div> Sabrina Mei-Li Smith tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30984092.post-4582361419806154644 Sun, 16 Sep 2007 02:09:00 -0700 http://sabrinameilismith.blogspot.com/2007/09/time-2-write-few-tips.html <h3>How to Find Time to Write</h3><p>For most of us, making time to write will always be something of a struggle. With friends and family, financial obligations, and emotional issues all vying for our attention, it takes determination to make a writing schedule and stick to it. I've come to the conclusion that there is no easy answer, but there are concrete things we can do to make time to write. </p><div class="lsItm"><h3>1. Pinpoint the issues that keep you from making time to write.</h3>If you've always wanted to write and aren't doing it, invest some thought in figuring out the source of your <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/writingroadblocks/tp/block.htm">writer's block</a>. Is it a fear of failure, a longstanding tendency to procrastinate, or just basic everyday obligations that get in your way? If it's no