Dec 22 2009
Anyone who’s ever owned – or been owned by – a pet has to face these decisions sooner or later. This is the fourth time for me, and believe me it doesn’t get any easier with practice. Knowing it’s the right thing to do helps a bit, but not nearly enough. Gutted doesn’t even come …
Nov 20 2009
Cooper Towers is under attack. The enemy has taken control of the shed, and advance scouts have been making daring daylight raids across the patio for several days. They wear no uniform, operating in plain-clothes, the better to blend in with the civilian population. Modern defensive strategy is useless against this new insurgency. Day 1: …
Nov 15 2009
On Thursday, I travelled down to London to meet my agent and publisher. This, I thought, would make everything official, and I would henceforth be able to call myself a Proper Author. Despite hailing the one and only cabbie in London who *doesn’t* know where the Dickens House museum is, I arrived safely at Ian’s …
Oct 30 2009
To the 9-to-5. The day job (members of the audience heave a collective sigh of relief – all two of them). Today’s my last day at work. After just shy of 21 years, a twinge of sadness is to be expected – you can’t work with people for that length of time and not develop …
Oct 24 2009
The unsung ones, now quietly dropping off their respective perches and we never know anything about them until their obituary shows up in the newspaper. And you read it, and you think to yourself: “Bloody hell!” and sit there, quite stunned. Freddie Spencer Chapman is one such. Worked behind enemy lines in the Malaya campaign …
Sep 30 2009
Quite a lot, actually. A lot of to-ing and fro-ing, trying to find one that looks right, sounds right, balances well on a book cover and isn’t too hard to pronounce (so you don’t end up with lots of confused readers in the bookstore who want to buy your book but don’t know how to …
Sep 30 2009
…but a fortnight is a bloody long time to keep your lip zipped when you’re sitting on astonishing news like this. Lest I get too big-headed about this, I shall let theBookseller.com tell the story: http://www.thebookseller.com/news/98263-gollancz-signs-new-fantasy-series.html Yes, that’s me she’s talking about. Little old me who’s been scribbling away for mumblety-mumble years on a rag-tag …
Sep 13 2009
That’s what the email said. The email just received from my literary agent, currently on holiday somewhere hot with unreliable internet access. The email that said my agent has received a bloody handsome offer to publish Songs of the Earth and the next two books in the Wild Hunt series. Fuck.
Aug 30 2009
On Thursday I had a further phone call from that nice literary agent to see if I’d received the client agreement in the post. I know it doesn’t mean anything yet, in the grand scheme of things, but this is indeed A Step in the Right Direction. On the way home from work I bought …
Aug 25 2009
We’ve got history, my right foot and I. What you might call previous. GBH, ABH, assault with intent. It’s not pretty. Mostly it’s black, purple and a sort of greenish colour. A few months ago, I was trying on some new clothes in the bedroom, and there was a discarded pair of jeans on the …