Blogging On The Run... No Surprise There

If you do happen to follow this blog then there's really no point in me telling you where I've been since the end of September as that should be blatantly obvious. Shadow Cities is out on Monday (and as it is, for the most part, a digital entity, the snow will find it hard to stop this) Nano is complete and the brain is therefore in a little pre-Christmas free fall. No bad thing there.

Over this past couple of years I've had ample opportunity to learn some things about the business of writing in the modern world. I'd already learned all the depressing stuff like how sending your manuscript to agents and hoping that it progressed from there to a publishing house to a book store to a career of bestselling blockbusterdom was a recipe for bitterness, anguish and disappointment. Yes, I'd learned all that stuff pretty well.

What I've learned in the following months that is now nearly two years is that becoming a happy self-publisher is maybe not as lucrative as stepping into the world of bestselling blockbuster authors but it a) can be more fun and b) is a hell of a lot more satisfying.

I look back over three years of Nano where I've got some good solid work done, most of a Levercastle novel, all of a Shadow Cities novel and, outside Nano three RP books contributed to and more than that besides and I realise that as a commercial writer these days there's no chance. No possibility in hell that you could produce that much. Even if you wrote it no big house would be in a position to publish it the way they want.

Anyway, I would like to promise more on this topic soon but who knows when I will next have an opportunity to sit at the keyboard like this? Hopefully soon. But that's always the case.

Goths, Rage and Iron Man all With Chocolate

Off to see Marilyn Manson at the Trent FM arena tonight. First time I've ever been to anything that could be described as a "stadium" gig. I'm expecting a show, Mrs is really looking forward to it as she's never seen Mazza in the emaciated goth flesh. We're going to see Lady Gaga at the arena next March and I'm unsure which will be the most bizarre experience.

Although people's enthusiasm for the RATM against X Factor battle seems to have waned somewhat I was buoyed up by the news that RATM got their performance on 5Live pulled midway when they went into full on sweary mode. It's good to encounter some insurgent and iconoclastic rock'n'roll shenanigans in a world where emotionally incontinent and utterly ridiculous rock'n'roll shananigans are the more common type.

The trailer for Iron Man 2 has spread like a Marvel-lous plague across the movie windows of the Intarweb. I have so far loved everything that I have seen from the shiny new Marvel Studios, although as that stands at Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk I suppose that's not really a big statement to make. Seeing as no one was very keen on allowing me to see Ray Stevenson dig in as The Punisher in Punisher: War Zone I might hate that. But I liked the Tom Jane one everyone else hated so what do I know?

Robert Downey Jr. put in an appearance on Graham Norton earlier in the week and he acquitted himself so admirably that it almost made me want to see the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes...

I think I am getting the idea of Twitter, I think. I guess the fact that I'm not sure indicates that I have some way to go yet. I have initiated my very own topic #withchocolate which came about through the usual "you had to be there" set of circumstances. Once I've been putting various topical things #withchocolate for a few days I'm sure anyone interested will get the idea.

If it ever becomes one of their "trending topics" then remember you saw it here first!

*ahem*

On which final topic it seems that Nottingham is currently all atwitter about the earlier snow flurries, in addition to the whole Iron Man, Rage twitterstorm. Although it has to be said that Trendsmap's geolocation algorithms seem to be a little out when tuned for the UK. I'm actually a little surprised there isn't more Twitter about Nottingham being allowed to represent the UK in a World Cup bid over Derby and Leicester... surprised, but not unhappy.

Until tomorrow mine's a snow-topped robot goth with chocolate!