… then this weekend, after having spent a fine time with good friends, I’d go back and do the weekend again, this time attending Picocon, where I’d see more friends, hear some great talks, drink cheaply and comprehensively in a student bar, do an SFF pub quiz and quite possibly watch grown men fighting a […]
So, you ask, how was the SFX Weekender? Well, it was a bit like Las Vegas meets Stalingrad, with irony, and geeks. Did I enjoy it? Despite a few small reservations, shit yeah. I spent the first few hours resisting the urge to talk to people I thought I knew (and, there being no name […]
This time next week I should be in Prestatyn, along with 4000 other geeks, for the SFX Weekender. It’s going to be awesome. As well as the mandatory hanging out in the bar (or bars? I’m hoping there’s more than one or there are going to be queues) I’m on a panel on Saturday at […]
January brings a boost for published writers, in the form of our PLR statements. Public Lending Right is the scheme by which, every time you borrow a book from a library, the author(s) of that book get paid just over 6p. Not much, but when you’re talking several thousand loans a year, it adds up. […]
I’m currently trying to write a short story. This is the first time I’ve done this in nearly six months and the last time I tried it was the same story. From this you may deduce that things are not going as well as one might hope. It’s a truism that writing novels and short […]
Remember those pens … ? The ones I referred to a couple of weeks back? Well, I still haven’t got around to buying them. I will though. I don’t know how your Festering Season is progressing (well, one hopes), but my week’s non-hectic schedule includes watching/reading some carefully hoarded DVDs/books, a list of ‘not exactly […]
The Unsilent Library: essays on the Russell T Davies Era of New Dcotor Who I don’t read a lot of critical writing. Perhaps that’s due to having literary criticism forced upon me at college, or maybe I’m just lazy, but it’s a lack I’d rather like to remedy, and this book – slender, and dealing […]
Being the first in an occasional series of musings upon the tools of a writer’s trade, both physical and intellectual. Other writers and interested parties, please feel free to tell me your thoughts on any of these posts … Some writers collect pens. They have special pens for special projects, or find they can only […]
Queen of Nowhere has been delivered unto my editor. I’m experiencing the usual emotions: relief, trepidation, satisfaction, inadequacy, unfocused panic. I’ve also realised that it’s December; I’m sure there’s stuff I need to do in December.
If you’re in central London this Saturday (the 26th), drop into Forbidden Planet on Shaftesbury Avenue between 1pm and 2pm, and you can find me signing copies of Solaris Rising, along with Pat Cadigan, Alistair Reynolds, Lavie Tidvar, Tricia Sullivan, Eric Brown, Ian Whates and Dave Hutchinson. We’ll probably go down the pub afterwards.
… although some of you know already. For those that don’t: the committee of Novacon 42 have invited me to be their Guest of Honour next year. It would be accurate to describe my response to this as dead chuffed, not least because I have fond memories of attending Novacon as a fan back in […]