ScotRail song.
Friday, April 28, 2006 , 6:46 PM
I’m on a train, heading out to Carstairs Junction to hang out with Patrick. Outside the window, the landscape is a stretch of bright green fields under a soft, low-hanging sheet of grey clouds. The sun bursts down in staight rays from a hole in the clouds, and along the horizon it paints the sky yellow.
When the train stops at a station — as it does frequently along this route — it makes sounds like those ambient radio stations (which have names like “Cryosleep” and “Particulate Solids”). There’s a musical chord as the train sits still, then as it starts to heave its metal bulk forward, it makes complementary or atonal notes. The bell and the horn punctuate this rail-song.
Hello, Thursdaylings!
Thursday, April 27, 2006 , 1:16 PM
Hey there. I’ve not much to report: been working away, day and night*, putting together a press release as well as doing work-work. Phew! I’m almost finished the e-mail series to accompany The Laws of Lifetime Growth. The book has even enjoyed some time as a #1 bestseller on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca!
Oh, and there’s now a copy of Idea in Stone available through the Edinburgh public library system. I regularly donate books to the library when I’m finished with them, but I was beaming like an idiot yesterday when I gave them that one.
~
I’ve added a comments feature to this blog. Forgive me if I forget to check them at first, as I need to get used to this extra form of communication.
~
I just answered a query I got in response to the DIY press article I wrote for NoMediaKings.org. Someone in Texas wanted to know what glue I use for perfect-binding. It’s Bostick’s All-Purpose Clear Adhesive. It’s pretty potent stuff, and every time I’m leaning over a book I think, “I probably shouldn’t be doing this.”
Maybe there’s a market, though, for the huffable novel.
* I must watch this tendency, because I came down with a cold while I was in Italy. I hate how my body knows when I’ve got time off and chooses then to get sick. I’d love to find a way to buffer myself against this before travelling.
Idea in Store
Thursday, April 20, 2006 , 7:36 PM
My novel Idea in Stone is now in stock at Word*Power, Edinburgh’s radical independent bookstore.
Thanks to Flatmate Geoff, it’s now gone through anotherseries of copy-edits. One great blessing of being a DIY publisher is that each copy can be a slight improvement over the previous one!
Apologies to those whose copies contain typos. If you buy a copy between today and May 5 and find a typo in it, I’ll buy you a beer!
Practice.
, 8:39 AM
I made a couple of wee hardcover books yesterday, just to keep my hand in, and ’cause I was inspired by all the paperies I saw in Italy. I bought the paper that I used for the covers while I was there, including some hand-made marbled and block-printed sheets.
Despite the fact that I conduct so much of my activity using digital equipment, there’s nothing like a book in your hand, or writing on paper.
I don’t know why I’m fascinated by seeing and making miniatures.
Three fingers bad…
Tuesday, April 18, 2006 , 8:31 PM
I’ve been drawing cartoons since childhood, and the whole time I’ve been participating in a wanton act of illustrative anatomical ignorance. That’s right: I’ve been drawing characters with three fingers! It’s just not on because human beings have four fingers. (Well, except for my late grandfather, but there was a war involved in that.)
So I’ve made a pact with myself: I will draw four-fingered humans from now on. I started today with an illustration I did for the e-mail newsletter series I’m writing for work:
Now when we get into mice and dogs who wear trousers, it gets a bit confusing. I don’t see that coming up anytime soon, though.
~
I went to bed early last night, having taken some time to unwind first. It was really worth doing, and I had a restful, quiet sleep because of it. I popped out of bed this morning and dashed out to a cafe, where I wrote two versions of an article and drew some illustrations to go with it. Then I came home and cleared away a bunch of niggling grown-up life-admin stuff. Good day!
~
I got an e-mail from my folks last night, telling me they’d arrived back in Charlottetown. I miss them
Finished roamin’.
Saturday, April 15, 2006 , 7:29 PM
[snip snip snip]
I posted a bunch of stuff over the past two days, but I’ve just removed it. I’m not quite sure how to articulate this, but there are times when I’ve post thoughts, then afterwards they just feel like too much blather, words that didn’t need to be said. There’s stuff that circulates around my head, but that doesn’t mean it needs to get posted here. I feel a bit overexposed when I post stuff like that — not in a publicity sense; more like a photograph.
I’m not trying to be stingey with details, shut anyone out, or be reclusive. And it’s not that things have to be big and important to be posted here. It’s just that sometimes nothing needs to be said.
~
Like Italy…
I’m not going to write about it. That was part of the point of taking a break: no writing. Also, it was about being with my folks and our friend Olivier, not gathering material. That’s just for us. It was a perfect getaway, and made me love my parents even more, if that could be possible. Olivier was also the perfect guide — a role he naturally gravitated to, for which we were grateful.
I took hundreds of pictures, though, which you’re welcome to look at, if you want.
Life around the flat.
Saturday, April 01, 2006 , 5:54 PM
I went out last night with Flatmate Dave and his mates Erol and Frank. It’s been really easy to stay indoors lately; although winter is essentially over, the last two or three weeks have been real soul-suckers. So I gave myself a shove and left the house. Gotta hang out with Dave while he still lives here, too, though we both agreed that we might do more social things together when we have to make a conscious effort.
We didn’t do anything big, just went for dinner and to the Regent pub, but wherever we went we ended up chatting with strangers, which I always love. And there was no smoke! I’ve stepped into some Bizarro Scotland where the air indoors isn’t blue, and I like it. I keep rediscovering places I would have liked, like the back dining room at The Elephant House.
Tonight I’m off to a party where I’ll just know one person, my mate Arthur, and I’m looking forward to it. I’m feeling ‘on’. Arthur is a bookbuyer at Ottakar’s (at least for now), and suggested that they could carry my book. That would be cool. The launch is on 5 May, and I still have a lot to figure out about how I’m doing it. But tonight there will apparently be a bunch of writery, publishery people at the party, so perhaps I’ll get some good suggestions from them.
The lovely thing is that I don’t need to schmooze anyone, since the path I’m on now is an autonomous one. I like that.
~
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p>I need to pack tomorrow, ’cause I’m off to Italy Monday for nine days. I can’t wait!
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