Launching and Radioing. Sort of like NASA, only Cheaper...

Well, Even More Tonto Short Stories is now officially out and things. It was indeed very generous of the Government to throw in a National Short Week to celebrate. I suppose though that only so many of us are bothered about Prince Wills and his soon to be missus (And by the way am I the only one who sees them together and hums this tune?) so really they had no choice but to throw in some kick ass short stories too.

I even got to meet a non grumpy Russian, which was nice. And the Lit and Phil is really quite nice. It's sort of stately but used and tatty and I like that. Oh, and Hi Lit and Phil peoples, thanks again for letting us play.

In other news I was on the radio on Saturday too. BBC Radio Tees. Impressed much? I think you can still listen to me here, if you really want to. I was on in the last five minutes, although I'm sure other, less impressive were also on before that.

So, anyway...

It's snowing and I've already been rescued once by the Consett Cross Country Skiier Pub Crawling Team, I need to see if I can get either a photo or a lift. And a pint obviously.... Will explain more later.

Heads, I Lose.

Today my head hurts. Well no, not hurts. It just sort of - throbs a bit. It feels sort of full but sort of empty at the same time.

I mean it's interesting. I can actually stop thinking. I can actually quieten down all the thoughts that buzz about. It could be quite nice, in a way. Could be quite relaxing I suppose.

Except. Except I can feel something in my chest that is sort of cold and sort of heavy.

It makes the gentle throbbing in my head feel ... Feel somehow possessive, I suppose.

My head is sort of full and sort of blank and what I want. What I really really want. Is just to go to the pub. Or bed.

Either does.

NaNoWriMo & Mo-Vember

Busy month planned.

Novel Writing.

'Tasche Growing.

Inspection at work.

Floor Mopping around the Cat bowl.

'Tasche Maintainance.

Marking.

'Tasche Experimentation.

Novel Writing.

So.

If I can raise a £10 for prostrate cancer research from my lingering blog readers I'll post the 'tasche.

If not then tough.

It's currently very seventies/porn star...

I'm thinking about a Wing Commander Style one though...

With a bit of hard work I'll even get something that curls at the edges...

In the meantime of course it's all about the NaNoWriMo. I've not tried this so if anyone fancies helping out my writing name is NikJ and I'm based in the Durham region. I've got my plan and stuff.

Actually I've got two plans although one may not be enough to see out a whole month. Maybe I'll file it under 'Short Story' for now.

So in that case just the one idea. About an Invisible Man. Sort of. And nipples. Obviously.

Conclusions

So, been a while I know but things happen and things get in the way.

Because obviously you've all missed me geet loads I thought I'd do a quick summing up of stuff. Or a conclusion if you will to the month that's gone.

Conclusion # 1: I May Not Be As Crap I Thought I Was...

Having pondered on it, swore at it, rewritten chunks of it and then swore at it some more I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, Novel No.2 may not be awful.

In fact I even like some bits of it. I like the pathologist and the fact that he hands people bloody scalps and eats his sandwiches as he works. I like furniture melting parts and, actually, I'm quite pleased with the ending too. So, you know. That's nice.

I'm still waiting to hear from Tonto Towers though and that'll be when I decide properly I think. I have faith in Tonto, if they like it then I think that'll be a sign that I've done ok. If they don't... Well... Anyway I even winged it off to an agent for a laugh. Six weeks for a reply? Three months for a reply? Whey nah! Try twenty four hours, oh yes. A response, from an agent, within twenty four hours. Now that was unexpected.

Course, they were writing to tell me that they weren't "100%" confident about it but still. I'm impressed they got back to me that quick.

Conclusion # 2: In Retrospect I May Not Survive The Zombie Apocalypse.

Yes. An important factor that I failed to consider here really and one I should probably put right now in case you were all planning on coming and sharing my tinned carrots come The End.

I live next door to a graveyard.

And there is another one two streets down the hill.

And a massive one across the road from that.

So don't bother, I'll probably be the first to go. Having said that though I do still sport a limp from a cruciate problem I'm having so don't shoot me just cos I'm walking funny, please take a moment to make sure that I'm actually after your brains before you take me out.

Thanks.

Which sort of leads me nicely into,

Conclusion # 3: The Most Lovely Vix Has A Brilliant Brain.

Now, before she yells at me, I already knew she had a genius brain. And a crazy sort of brain. And yes, I was already largely aware of the brilliance of it before this. But. But now she's showing it off in new ways and it's really rather cool.

So I hope she won't be too mad at me for telling people to go look at her brain and wonder.

Go Here, Here and Here.

as well as Here

and be impressed. I was.

She be kick ass cool, how.

John Edward Hughes Copeland - Why I loved my Ted

I wouldn't normally do this. In fact I see it done from time to time on blogs and facebook and things and it seems so... I dunno... Crass. I mean I am crass myself in many ways but I'd always supposed that sometimes, somethings, are best left private.

But not this. I won't get a chance to say these things otherwise and so I need to say them here, where someone might read them and yes, probably think I'm a dick or after attention or just spreading the misery about but really, really I just want someone else to know. Not know about me, or how I feel but know about Ted. Because he was a miserable bastard. A wonderful bastard. And, probably, a bastard that you lot don't know.

I got home tonight, late to a pile of messages on the phone. All bad news.

My best friend Ted. Idiot that he is, hit by a motorbike in the early hours of today and... Well, not and. No more 'and'. Just. Finished. A Full Stop now.

I mean, a motorbike? In the early hours of a Sunday night Monday morning? And to be hit by one? I can't quite believe that. It doesn't seem plausible and if Ted were here I know exactly what he'd say, he'd say, "Well. He wouldn't have been expecting that."

But that's not Ted. Ted isn't the guy that managed to be hit by a bike at five in the morning on a Monday.

Ted was... Well... Mad. Wonderfully mad.

He took me to a strip club once, did my manloving friend Ted, at four in the morning - it was the only place still serving. And he was gone half an hour later, taxi into Newcastle and out on the pull. He felt bad afterward, seemed to think that it was his fault that I got punched by a bouncer. Seemed to think it was his fault that I still have the scar tissue floating in my eye.

And the first time he came round to my new house for dinner - I followed him about as he sloashed red wine across the carpet - me scrubbing the floor as he ambled between DVD stands. His eyebrow raised and a 'Really?' look across his face.

And he was there, always there.

I left my fiance a few years back and he was there. He put all his own stuff on hold and he was there, usually with a bottle of wine and sensible advice. And earlier, when my family was pulling itself apart he was there, and we were younger then so there was no wine but I stole spirits and he maintained enough sense to speak sensibly.

And, actually, I'm sort of pleased that this blog has tailed off and has a much smaller readership because I feel proud of my friend and I feel priviledged that he was my friend and that he did give up his time (and wine) for me and I love the fact that I did know him. That I was that lucky. That this, for almost all of you will be simply a sketch of a life that I got to share in.

I want you all to be jealous.

I want you all to wish you had had a friend like mine.

A friend that once had a 'pleasant time' with a Cambridge Don and as a result of which I still recieve SPAM email.

A friend who said the most genuis things about books and film and music and theatre and left my nodding and baffled and impressed but who never judged me for loving Sci-fi pulp novels or films about sexdolls.

But most of all I want you all to know that I miss my friend. And that I had potatoes in and had a vague idea of how to do dauphinoise potatoes and that I was expecting to be able to talk about the History Boys because I had finally gotten around to watching it.

I had a friend with whom I could talk about books and music, even if he did like Kate Bush, and Scandinavian Miniminalist film and Daphne Du Maurier and talk about nothing and about simple ambitions. Proper ambitions. Dreams that went beyond the horizon and that never left the back yard.

He deserved better.

Someone I listen to, someone I believe and trust, told me once that heaven is somewhere built upon every second of every dream and that for each happy moment a different heaven exists. I hope, I demand, that Ted has many heavens and I hope that somewhere, for a second or two in one of them, maybe in a pub in York or Cambridge, I get to buy him a pint.

I've opened the wine Ted, I poured you a glass.

EMTSS?...Ernest & Maud's Tantric Sex Sessions? No. Probably not... Even Monkeys Tango Some Sundays?

... No... Wait:

Even More Tonto Short Stories, that's what I meant.

And it's here.

Or it was.

I'd had it two minutes when my mam came round for tea and now she's gone and nicked it.

On the upside though I did manage to read the first couple of stories and they really were rather good, how.

A Shrinking, a Holding Back by Fiona Robyn is awesomely awkward and painful and just... so well ended it made jealously glands swell up something nasty.

Appendage by Peter Parrish is just craziness and comedy and based on such a good character that I read it then reread it and then copied down some of my favourite lines. Which was also bad for the glands.

But, my seething jealously aside, this is looking like being a pretty impressive anthology. It does have some big names in and Amazon seems to think that Matt Hilton has written the entire thing but it's also got some really exciting less knowns and unknowns. Like me.

See?

I'm in it.

You didn't really think I'd be nice about stuff if I wasn't did you?

Anyways - I have to go and order a new copy. My mother is a thief.

Jazz, Nightmares and Reasons Why I'll Survive the Zombie Apocaplyse... Maybe

I don't really like Jazz.

I feel that I should like it, it's suitably odd and crazy and unexpected and that is usually what I like in music. And film. And books. And people. Not in cars so much and certainly not in builders, but anyway. I feel like I should like Jazz.

I listen to music when I write - all the time. Can't really manage it without music to be honest, which is why this jazz thing bugs me.

Weird, disjointed, crazy music is what I write to. Loads of Trip-hop and downtempo stuff. Plenty of acousticy things too (although I tend to save guitars for the pacier sections usually) so it's the oddness that usually works well for me. A mix of bands and sounds over a few hours is almost sort of medative I suppose, I can feel the beat as I write (tosser that I am) and I usually use Last cos I can be quite specific about what sort of stuff I hear (and it's free and I'm cheap).

Truth is, I'm probably listening to crap jazz, or the 'wrong' jazz. It's too quick. Too pacy sometimes and, I suppose, too crazy sometimes.

And that makes me nervous.

Jazz gives me nightmares.

Actual real nightmares - especially if it's on while I sleep, on the radio or as a soundtrack to a film I've passed out in front off.

I think it's the pace of it.

Quick things are scary things. And Jazz is quick. Sometimes.

Sort of like Zombies.

I'm not scared of the old Zombies. Cos they're slow and predictable and walk funny. Not like your Post-Danny-Boyle Zombies. I'm scared of them. They're properly mental and stuff them. And fast. And crazy and aggressive.

Sort of like Jazz.

A Bit.

Anyway, it was thinking about Jazz that got me thinking about Zombies which got me planning for the upcoming Zombie Apocalypse (I've finished the rewrite - this is the sort of 'work' I can do now that the writing is temporally over).

Reasons Why I'll Survive the Zombie Apocalypse:

#1 - I've got double glazing almost everywhere. Not great against the Jazzy Zombies (except that I probably wouldn't be able to hear them playing their trumpets and things) but I'm not planning for them. There is no point. They'd have me dead right quick.

#2 - My street is largely just a narrow path with a high stone wall at one end and so is easily barricadable. Double glazing might not even be necessary - I'm a terrace surrounded by high walls. A few half arsed building jobs should be enough to keep the Zombies well away from my place. My garden would be fine. And I've got a potato and three strawberries growing there so that's an added bonus.

#3 - There's only me here. I've not got any of the following compromising Zombie movie types that you need to watch out for. No scientists, no military/security personnel, no families with small children and pets who might wander off and leave the barricade open or eat my strawberries, no pregnant women who've already been bitten by a zombie and so are giving birth to Zombabies, no rich people who think they're special and, finally, no teenage couple liable to do something stupid whilst trying not to die a virgin. So no-one to mess it up. Although I do have a cat. Still. I think she can fend for herself.

#4 - I've got tins in. So I could not only survive the Zombie Apocalypse but also a Nuclear one, an environmental one, a biological one (thanks largely to my crap understanding of chemistry and building) or the end of the month when I've spent all my money. Which ever happens first.

Reasons Why I'll Only Maybe Survive the Zombie Apocalypse:

#1 - My double glazing is only almost everywhere. There's none in the kitchen, in fact the door and the window are a bit rotten. So they're looking a bit flimsy.

#2 - I can't build things. So barricades could be tricky.

#3 - I would still be here and I am fully capable of committing stupid acts myself.

#4 - I keep losing my tin opener.