The Talented Mr Player

The anthology I'm co-editing is dropping into top gear. Yesterday I asked Stephen Player if he could do the cover for BADASS. I expected him to say no - he must be incredibly busy with teaching, book covers, commissions etc. as befits a talented and respected artist - but he said yeah, go on then.

Take a look for yourself:

http://www.playergallery.com/intro.html

We traded emails way back when I was doing a fanzine dedicated to Garry Kilworth (note: back issues of Spiral Words now only 50p). Steve agreed, as the illustrator on some of Garry's books, to be interviewed. He's such a lovely bloke, the genuine article as we say round here, and the interview was a great success. I sent him some books as a thank you. He gave me a painting. We stayed in touch for quite a while. But, sadly, the emails petered out when Heather came along, taking up a lot of my time, and Steve relocated to the US to live with his partner and took up a teaching post. I missed our daily chats.

I'm excited about this BADASS cover. Not just at having someone as good as Steve doing the artwork, although that is great, but at being able to work on something with him again. He's one of those people I can listen to (okay, it's email, wrong verb) for hours and I'm looking forward to going over his ideas for the cover as much as seeing the finished illustration. A definite plus of being an editor.

Bedroom farce (update)

Oh for crying out crap! No sooner had I finished my last - optimistic - blog entry, the phone goes and it's someone from the bedroom people telling me they aren't coming today. Apparently, the fitter's wife had a baby two weeks ago and the little 'un was rushed seriously ill into hospital last night.

So I suppose things here aren't too bad, if I care to look at things differently.

Bedroom farce (final act)

The fitters come today to furnish the bedroom. By Thursday, we will have a proper bedroom again. A place to hang shirts and trousers and drawers for socks and undies, somewhere to put this PC, printer, scanner . . . instead of having to drape stuff all over the bungalow as we've been forced to do these past two months. There will be a few little odds and ends to take care of over the next week or two, like light fittings, wooden flooring, window blinds, coving . . . and of course, paying for it all.

Yesterday the anthology I'm co-editing with Chris Hall seemed to gel into something almost tangible. We now have a publisher, a line-up of eight great stories including a novella from Bram Stoker Award nominee and British Fantasy Award winner Paul Finch, and a rare story from World Fantasy Award winner Garry Kilworth. Chris is selecting an artist to do the cover, and our publisher - Dybbuk - are talking about a December release. We seem to have gone from an embryonic, inchoate project to something book-shaped in a matter of days.

I'd must thank Jonathan Eyers for letting me use that blinking eye you can see to the left of the screen. Neat, eh? Jon's expansive blog is linked a bit further down. Do visit. And I must thank Chris too for doing all sorts of niggling stuff to get the blinking eye to actually fit there. My first attempt at installing it saw that eye taking up most of this page!

So that's that, then

Coming home after what is almost certainly be the last holiday or mini-break of the year is bound to be a bit depressing. That's it now. Summer is officially over in this household. Roll on, Winter.

Llandudno (pronounced Th-lan-tid-no, if you please) was oft grey and overcast, but dramatic with that majestic backdrop of Snowdonia. We all had fun. I bought 11 new books for less than £20, some of them hardbacks too. By Carl Hiaasen, Michael de Larrabeiti, Bill Bryson, David Hood to name but a few. Pondered long and hard over Hal Duncan's Vellum, newly published by Macmillan. Gorgeous cover and excitable burb from the publishers evoking the name of the great Iain Banks, and that's not something to be done lightly. Anybody read any reviews anywhere? Leave comments below and earn my gratitude.

Heather consumed several bags of candy floss while Jill and I watched anxiously for signs of tooth decay. I began to imagine . . . What if . . . What if the British Dental Association got their own way and sugary confections like candy floss were banned. Made illegal. You'd get sugar-addicts buying candy floss at inflated prices from street dealers.

"How much? But that's outrageous?"

"Take it or leave it, man. This is good stuff, pure, uncut."

"I-I'll take it."

Lonely people in dingy flats, dying because the cheap candy floss they are inhaling has been cut with loft insulation.

IT COULD HAPPEN!

Summer? Huh.

Off to Llandudno for a long weekend break. It's okay is Llandudno. It's got two good-sized, sandy(ish) beaches, donkeys, a pier, cable cars and trams . . . Best of all, it has a handful of excellent discount bookstores. Helen and new-fiancee Mark are coming down with us for a day, which is great as we all get along well.

I'll take a Carl Hiaasen, I think. 'Lucky You'. Must remember to pack my Zen Micro too. Sunshine? Who needs it.

The Motorcycle Diaries pt. 2

My second bike was Mr Honda's much-lauded, single cylinder, four-stroke C70. Similar in design to the Ariel Leader, which young men of the fifties shunned despite (or because of) its many innovative features, the C70 had leading-link forks, enclosed chain case, sensible legshields and a fuel tank under the seat . . . Yep, the Brits got there first but it took the Japanese to make it sell. And sell they did. Millions of 'em. The promise of 6000 miles per eggcup of petrol helped. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but the C series -- 50, 70 and 90cc -- boasted brilliant fuel consumption and amazing low-maintenance reliabilty that made them a wow with miserly old men the world over.

I was a 6'4" eighteen-year-old and a deadly serious biker. I had all the protective leather gear and read all the magazines. I attended the local training group to improve my riding skills and dreamed of owning a Kawasaki GPz900. But for now the C70 - or Bogseat as it was unaffectionately known - had to suffice.

The Bogseat had no clutch so the first few days of ownership consisted of embarrassingly loud gearchanges. KERRRR-LUNK! But I got the hang of it. Something else that took some getting used to was the leading-link forks. When braking, just about all vehicles dive at the front as the weight is thrown forward. But the effect of leading-link forks is to make the front end rise under braking. Again, it was just a matter of becoming accustomed to it.

That brilliant fuel consumption did catch me out though. Fifty miles from home one evening, on the Derby ring road. I ran out of petrol. And so unused was I to this phenomenon, I had no money on me to fill up. Not even change for a phone call. I ended up pushing it two miles or so in fading light to a friend's house where, as luck would have it, my brother was visiting. And his friend had a Land Rover (now that was lucky!) They chucked me, much chastened, and the Bogseat in the LR and took me home. Oh how we all laughed.

The only time the bike really let me down, unbelievably, was on my test. So confident was I of passing I had already bought a Yamaha XS250, which I couldn't ride on a provisional license. The test was cancelled twice due to bad weather, so I began to depair of ever getting a full license. So the flat tyre halfway round the test course was too much to bear. Too make matters worse, as I pushed the Bogseat home I caught my expensive Belstaff overtrousers on the footpeg and ripped them open. That was it. Love turned to hate. I sold the bike a few days later.

Driving ambition

Jill passed her driving theory test today. 34 out of a possible 35. Pretty darned good. One step closer to independence for this family unit of mine.

Today I got some anti-glare specs from the hospital. I think they are supplied by the RNIB, but I'm not sure. Whatever, they are pretty snazzy. I was expecting some dreadful heavy framed things reminiscent of the 1950s. Instead they are wraparound shades with orange lenses and feature little leather doodahs at the sides -- to block out those horrible stray sunbeams. Things look a bit perculiar through them, but they stop those colours of light that dazzle, while allowing 90% of the light through. Unlike sunglasses which block all colours of light. The result with these lenses is things are still bright but the glare is damped down, although there is some colour migration, if you want to be technical. Like I said, perculiar.

Miscellany, which is a poor heading when all's said and done

I recently came across this site called Flashshot:

http://members.tripod.com/flashshot/

They ask for fiction of less than 110 words. No payment, but 110 words! Heck, I like a challenge, so I scribbled out three stories and sent 'em in. They are pretty darned good though I do say so myself. If you want to read 'em then all you have to do is subscribe to Flashshot. Simply send a blank email to flashshotsubscribe@yahoo.ca and every day a little gem will drop into your inbox. What could be cooler than that, eh? Well, what is cooler is that they print a yearbook featuring 365 stories, too. My stories have been accepted but not yet scheduled.

As you have probably gathered I survived yesterday's bloodletting, which was a relief. Heather took good care of me. Her eyes were glued to the tube carrying the blood from my arm to the bottle under the bed. As we were leaving, we saw one of the staff climbing on his motorbike. Probably finished his shift and heading off home for his tea. But not according to Heather. "He's just taking your blood to the hospital, Dad, It's very important." And d'you know what? She made me feel important.

The author I alluded too in an earlier posting (The arrogance of writers) has backed down and agreed to let Chris Hall and I use the edited version of his story for the forthcoming BADASS anthology. But not without a grumble. He pointed to a change I made -- I cut a couple of words out of a paragraph to make it less cumbersome and a little more snappy -- saying the change "robs the paragraph of its grandeur and sweep". Like I said: arrogant, and pretentious with it. Grandeur and frigging sweep. Give me strength.

Blood

I'm going to give blood in a couple of hours. They hold monthly donor sessions at the nearby Queensbury centre, the former school, I believe, of Reginal Mitchell. He lived in the same house as where I get my hair cut too, by Mr Tony Capper esq. snipper to the gentry and discerning. Tony has Spitfire paintings on the wall, a copy of the census that shows Mitchell lived there for a couple of years and a plaque on the outside of the house that says "Reginald Mitchell lived here, once. Honest, he did!" Or something along those lines anyway. But, as is so often the case, I digress.

Blood. There's a question they ask you when you go: have you ever bruised or bled after a previous donation? Well this time my answer will be "Bloody hell, yes." Last time I went, I was sitting having my tea and biscuits in the rest room when Heather (the heiress and minder) pointed out that my arm was bleeding. I looked down to see blood pumping out of my forearm. A small pool had formed on the floor under my chair. I held my hand up and, apologising (why do we Brits apologise in situations like this?) to the nearest nurse, said I had a little problem.

While I sat there with several pairs of hands clamped around my forearm to stanch the bloodflow and someone mopped the floor and chair, Heather basked in all the extra attention. She got extra stickers, a balloon and sweeties. I got a wad of paper towels to dab at my blood-soaked trousers. Good job they were black, really.

Heather's at a party right now, at the playgroup Jill helps to run three days a week. I asked her if she wanted me to pick her up on the way to giving blood. Her eyes lit up. "Yes, please, Dad!"

I think she's hoping for a repeat performance of last time. I'm hoping she will be disappointed.

The Motorcycle Diaries

Realised today that it's more or less 5 years to the day I parted with my last motorbike, a Yamaha TDM850.

When ever anyone asks why I no longer ride I usually tell them it was so we could start a family. This satisfies most folks. Kids and bikes don't go together. Kids and MPVs, yes, kids and bikes, no.

My first bike was a Yamaha FS1-E, affectionately known as a Fizzy or Fizzer. A 50cc, single-cylinder 2-stroke moped. The colour was called Popsicle purple. This was the 70s after all. I bought mine in '83 off a lad named Dave I worked with during a period of YTS work in a local ironmongers. He wanted £60, which I thought was a bargain, so without even looking at it properly I bought it. What a wreck!

At seventeen I was already 6'3". My knees were inches from the handlebars unless I sat on the pillion portion of the seat and to make matters worse I bought an enduro-type helmet two-sizes too big, all beck and goggles. I must have looked a tool.

The bike became even more of a wreck 4 days later after I tried to jump up a kerb (polite note to US readers: yes, we can spell curb like that) at 40 miles an hour. I'd been watching the speedo in rapt fascination and forgot the wide sweeping bend outside the local pub. I glanced up, realised I was never going to make the bend, and thought "No bother, I'll just bump it up the kerb".

I may have had the presence of mind to brake or shut off the throttle, but I doubt it.

The bike moulded itself around the kerb and I went wheee through the air, landing on my back several yards away. Unhurt, but -and I'm being brutally honest here- feeling a right prick.

The Fizzy was garaged for ages until my brother Steve straightened it out. I resprayed it from a tin labelled Vauxhall Viva Red, but it looked more like a shade of beer vomit.

The Fizzy used to cut out and tip me off in the wet and, come to think of it, it used to cut out and tip me off in the dry too, but it was my first means of independent transport so I loved it . . . a little bit.

I cut my motorcycling teeth on that bike. The bug had well and truly bitten, and deeply. There could be no turning back. But I wanted something bigger, more powerful . . .

Coming soon in the Motorcycle Diaries: My Honda C70 and I

Jill to the rescue

Sunday's blog (okay, whine) was premature. Jill took up roller and brush and set to with a vengeance. I went out window shopping for bedroom furniture with Heather, Helen and Mark. When I got back, rather than interrupt Jill, who was in full flow, I caught up on several of my writing projects. Behind every good man is a good woman, spattered with paint.

Syd the builder is coming round this evening to help me pour the floor. Then Ken the glazer is coming over to finish the windows and fit the skirting boards (he was a joiner in a previous life, you see), and suddenly I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. And it's pretty large, so it must have been hidden just around a bend. Two or three weeks and it will all be over.

Wheel spinning

This morning I'm faced with several choices as to what to do with my day. Heather's bedroom needs another lick of paint on the walls and skirting boards. Our bedroom needs several licks of paint, ceiling , walls and skirting boards. The insulation that me and Jill started putting down in the attic needs finishing off. I've got several stories for the BADASS anthology I'm co-editing with Chris Hall to work on as well as several of my own clamouring for attention. Also I should really be critting a story today to keep my Critter ratio in good standing so I can put another story -- The Devil's Fauna -- through the queue. So much to do I don't feel like doing anything. Having too much to do is almost like having nothing to do. I've got that feeling of "Sod it all" coming on. S'tempting.

What I would really like to do is just spend the day with Jill and Heather, a day with the family. It's been so long since we had a day to ourselves - but that's looking pretty unlikely. Better make a start with something, I suppose. If you've got to eat an elephant, just get on with it, a steak at a time. It will all be done eventually. But I know one thing, this is the last time I do anything like a house extension again. The kitchen extension was a nuisance, the conservatory slightly less so. The bedroom extensions though have been grinding.

The links effect

Below are links to websites selling The Teddy Bear Cannibal Massacre anthology, to which I am a proud contributer. For UK buyers, the best option is probably Amazon.co.uk where some enterprising souls are selling it at a few quid less than the cover price. You see, Tim Lieder, the editor, made a balls-up when converting the US price into £ sterling. . . which is how the UK price came to be a ridiculous £9! Anyway, do us a favour and buy a copy, buy your friends a copy, leave favourable reviews (unless of course you hate it, in which case I'll thank you to keep you thoughts to yourself).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0976654601/qid%3D1123881854/202-5210046-8171034

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0976654601/002-5011450-1280803

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=ER6IZ2yBO4&isbn=0976654601&itm=1

http://www.projectpulp.com/item_detail.asp?bookID=-1155030699
(which has the best description)

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?dest=9999999997&product_id=4066124&sourceid=0100000030660805302498

http://www.booksamillion.com/ncom/books?id=3238774790479&pid=0976654601&rate.x=281&rate.y=6

It should be on shocklines shortly.

The arrogance of writers

A good while ago, I was asked by Chris Hall to co-edit an anthology called BADASS HORROR. He'd already selected a few stories, would I take a look? This I did. The first story was by . . . someone who shall remain nameless. I found the usual handful of typographical errors that slip through the net and saw fit to change a few sentences here and there. Nothing much. I was conscious that this story was someone's baby: not for me to reshape.

Chris emailed the author the revised story. And the author threw a little tizzy! We either use the story as he submitted it or not at all.

"What do we do?" asked Chris.

I thought about this. "Well, we could point out that while every effort was made to retain the author's voice, certain changes had to be made -- as well as correcting typos -- to ensure readers could more clearly share his vision." Signed, Pompous Shite-talking Editor.

"Or we could tell him to **** off, Mike."

"Yes, Chris, we could do that."

We've taken the middle ground, asking the author exactly what it is he objects to. He has to accept some corrections, if not he's out. Have yet to hear from him.

Okay, an artist needs to be arrogant. What else makes one write a story and then send it to a publisher. Not only is he/she claiming to possess a certain amount of talent, but that other people will enjoy sharing the fruits of this talent. And by the way, where's the advance?

Heck, what is this weblog if not a conceit. I may justify it by saying that it's a way of keeping in touch with friends and a legitimate way of exercising my writing muscles, but really it's just a conceit. I like to write and want other people to see what I've written. A form of arrogance, surely?

Maybe I should sympathise, even admire this nameless author for his stance. But I don't. Only a fool refuses to take advice now and again. He should join a writers' workshop. Speaking of which, my story 'Pretty Useless Says' rises to the top of the Critter queue tomorrow. I am bracing myself for the usual plethora of odd comments among the helpful ones.

Pink & Purple

Spent three solid evenings painting Heather's room, trying to get it done as quick as possible. And when it's bare plaster it takes a lot of covering. Heather chose the colours, which is why the ceiling is 'warm lilac' and the walls 'baby pink' (she's into Barbie, say no more). In B&Q Heather pointed to a tin labelled 'sexy pink' but we deliberately misunderstood her. After all, she's far to young for 'sexy pink'. We also bought a load of Barbie stickers with which to adorn the walls. Oh well, a few years from now and Barbie will be the enemy and I'll be asked to paint it all black, I suppose.

Fie the disbelievers!

I should have seen this coming. Metaphorically speaking.

For a few weeks now, some of my *ahem* colleagues in the mouldmaking department have had to work upstairs in the main body of the factory. This is because a) there are too many moulds in stock, and b) they are short staffed upstairs. In the past I've done more than my fair share of this moving around departments. I once calculated that I spent 11 months out of 36 working at another factory in the group. But now, cos of the peepers, I cannot be asked to work anywhere but the familiar environs of the mouldmaking shop. Upstairs the lighting doesn't suit me, there are too may people dashing around and there is a lot of machinery. I'd be a hindrance up there.

But this is causing resentment. Certain of my *ahem* colleagues seem to think that now I've had the cataracts sorted I'm okay and that it should be me doing the crappy stuff upstairs. Not taking it in turns mind, just me doing the crappy stuff, as I did in the past. Kind of 'last in, first out'. Rumblings are reaching my ears. I'm swinging a leg. Putting it on.

"There's nowt wrong wiv 'im really."

I have even heard that one of them is determined to catch me out. That bothers me. It could be humiliating if they start switching lights off, moving things from their familiar places . . . or it could be downright dangerous. People can be so thick. They can't get their tiny brains round the fact that I've got several visual impairments, and that even though the cataracts are gone, I'm still muddling along with approximately 50% sight loss. Tunnel vision. Blinded by the slightest glare. Slow to adapt in changes to the light. Severe night blindness . . . Yeah, sure. I'm putting it on. *Sigh*

If things escalate then I will have to go see the Personnel manager and ask her to have a word with the numpties.