... a picture. Specifically the cover for Guardians of Paradise

This also serves as a way of testing whether I can drive the new and improved blog editor, and it seems I can. More pictures may follow.

In other news, I'm now half way through a packed week. I've already drunk my weight in champagne and hob-nobbed with proper writers at the Orion Author Party at the Royal Opera House (I could get used to that), and now it's time to actually work. Not work as in writing (no time for that!), but work as in giving a talk and reading. Tonight I'll be at the University of Herts SF Soc (PSiFA) and on Saturday I'm first on the bill at Picocon.

Next week I plan to get some actual writing done.

A good question to ask, I always think. In fact, I once embroidered a sampler of those very words for a fellow writer as her NaNoWriMo ‘prize’.

King’s ‘On writing’ isn’t a book I actually own but it’s one I would recommend. It isn’t a ‘how to’ book so much as a collection of memoires and observations taken from his writing life. 

It’s a couple of years since I read it but I do remember being gratified to discover that, like me, he writes to loud, fast music. However, we do differ in other ways, such as, now-lemme-see, he’s an internationally renowned bestselling author and I’m … not. And he writes every day. Even, he says in a tone somewhere between embarrassment and pride, on Christmas and his birthday. I don’t. I write most days, but I need the odd day off. And I try to schedule a couple of weeks in the year when I’m not obliged to write.

These weeks off tend to coincide with going away, partly for purely practical reasons like luggage allowances, and partly because I've decided that working on holiday is a sign of Not Having a Life. Ideally I aim for such spells out of t’garret to come when I'm shifting gears, writing-wise, such as between drafts, or when a book is in the planning stage. Holidays are a chance to let possibilities ferment in the subconscious without regularly sticking in the mental equivalent of a slotted spoon to fish them out and expose them to the air.

Allowing yourself the freedom not to write (or rather not to feel guilty about not writing) can be an excellent way of getting the ideas flowing. Although I may not turn on a computer during a ‘holiday’ week, I’m likely to write plenty of notes. I need to work this way, because there comes a point, if I really am writing every day, when the words run off the end of the inspiration, and that’s bad. Geniuses like Mr K might be able to turn out quality prose 365 days a year, but us lesser mortals need occasional breaks to let our brains cool down.  

After some months with no news on the short story front, I’m pleased to announce that I’ve got some short stories coming out in the next few months.

The first one is in the March edition of the critically acclaimed US magazine Aoife’s Kiss. ‘King of Pain’ is actually – shock horror! – a fantasy story, though it’s somewhat twisted, and a little dark in places. It’ll be available from March 1st.

The second is ‘The Weakest Witch’, one of my rare attempts at humour, which will be appearing in a forthcoming issue of the literary e-zine Wild Violet.

I’m also hoping to see another story of mine, ‘Twilight at the Change House’ in the final issue of the now sadly defunct US ‘zine Aeon; they ‘re putting it in their wrap-up ‘End of an Aeon’ issue, though there have been some hold-ups. Obviously I’ll pimp it here when I know more.

In other news, I’ve just seen the cover for Guardians of Paradise. It’s something of a different look to the first two Hidden Empire books, but I really like it. I’m hoping to put it up on this blog once I’ve got to grips with the ‘new & improved’ blog editor, but I you fancy a look it’s already on Amazon.

In a couple of weeks I’ve got my first two proper speaking engagements. I am, if truth be told, a bit apprehensive. Whilst I can hold forth at length over a glass or two of merlot, talking to a room full of strangers is rather more scary.

The first is on Thursday 25th, when I'm speaking at a meeting of PSiFA, the university SF society in which I miss-spent part of my youth. I helped organise some of their Shoestringcons and edited their newsletter/fanzine, Hypo-Space. Hell, I even spent a while as society president, gawd help me. Or possibly them. In some ways I’m not so worried about this gig as it’s not for paying punters. In others I’m more nervous, as PSiFA was a massive part of my life during my college days and I remember dreaming of the day I'd be the guest, rather than the person who looked after the guest. (BTW, I have scurrilous stories featuring well-known figures in the SFF world which I'm not going to recount in print, but which I'm happy to tell in con bars if plied with drink.)

A mere two days later on Saturday the 27th, I’m a Guest at Picocon, at Imperial College London. I share the bill with Alistair Reynolds, someone I have both personal and professional respect for, and Amanda Hemingway, who I must confess not to know either as a writer or a person, but who I look forward to meeting. I think between us we've got the whole spectrum of fantastical literature covered.

My intention is to cheat by basically doing the same presentation twice, to whit, about forty minutes of (hopefully) entertaining waffle, with the provisional title of 'Three secrets and a reading'. The reading is, well, me reading something I wrote. The 'three secrets' are writing-related.

In thinking about the talk I also considered how I got to be a pro writer, so while I'm doing some 'parish notices' here I'm going to use this chance to tout the services of Liz Williams, a far more experienced writer who helped me on my way. She's currently offering one to one creative writing tutoring, and a two-day course in genre writing. Follow the links for details and ways to contact her.

No, not my characters. Spammers.

I'm pleased to report that turning the 'comments' facility on has resulted in actual comments, and almost no spam. However, this blog also allowed 'trackbacks', and this has led, over the last few weeks, to an ever-increasing volume of notifications of trackbacks regarding the efficacy of dodgy pharmaceuticals. As with comments, I need to approve or delete any trackbacks, and whilst the choice is pretty obvious, I really don't have time to go in and individually remove several dozen of the little f*ckers every day. I have therefore asked M the Uber-geek to disable all trackbacks, in the hope that this will stem the tide. Comments should still work as they did.

I have no idea what the interweb drug pushers think they'll gain by tracking back to an obscure SF writer's website, but the ways of spammers are strange. I'm increasingly coming to wonder if the spoof article in Fortean Times a couple of years back might be true after all, and most of the spam we receive is in fact a virtual manifestation of the psychic emanations of a dying sex-starved galactic consciousness.

Obviously, any real people out there who want to link back to this blog are most welcome to do so; you just can't use the trackback facility to do it.

At the risk of being pretentious and/or presumptuous, I think I've come up with a mission statement. No, really. It occurred to me as the latest plot tsunami rolled through my brain. Here it is:

I’m trying to write stories which have the tension and intrigue of John le Carre, but where the characters get to really live their angst. In space.

I know: no chance. But it’s something to aspire to.

This one’s really more of a ‘livre de bois’ ('Prententious? Moi?'). Given how little time I have to read, I probably wouldn’t have tackled Neal Stephenson’s latest doorstop if I haven’t read – and loved – Cryptonomicon. Because I’ve also read – and not loved – the Baroque Cycle (that’s two months of my life I’ll not get back…) I was ambivalent about Anathem, but it was an Xmas gift, and I started it in the holidays when I knew I’d have more time.

I’d say my time was well spent. I can’t remember the last time a book so comprehensively took me to new and alien places – though not so alien that we can’t relate to them, which is part of his genius. Journeys like this are one of the reasons I read SF. Having said that, the journey does meander a bit; with my ‘craft head’ on I suspect Mr S outlines his world meticulously then lets the plot just happen. Also, I probably shouldn’t admit it, but I got a little lost round about page 865. Up until then I didn’t pretend to know what was going on, but I was happy to be along for the ride. Then the ride turned out to actually be a toboggan run, or possibly a car crash and …

Yes. Not sure about the ending.

Overall verdict: magnificent if ultimately incomprehensible to us lesser mortals. Beloved has just started it, and he’s a trained mathematician, so I’m rather hoping he’ll be able to explain the ending to me some day.