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Meme Attack

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I think anyone who read my current book-in-progress would considerably disagree, but apparently…

I am:

Olaf Stapledon

Standing outside the science fiction “field”, he wrote fictional explorations of the futures of whole species and galaxies.

Which science fiction writer are you?

And if that wasn’t enough…

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is:
His Most Serene Highness Lord Saxon the Lachrymose of Wimblish upon Frognaze
Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

And, just for its head-scratching value…

saxonb’s Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 9
Average number of words per sentence: 21.84
Average number of syllables per word: 1.38
Total words in sample: 4564
Analyze your journal! Username:
Another fun meme brought to you by rfreebern

TV Eye

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Okay, this is the beginning of a rough end-of-year round up. I’m not dealing with Torchwood as I’m lagging behind a couple of episodes (not that I’m too upset about that), but otherwise this is where most of my American TV viewing has got to. Mucho spoilers (and a rather lengthy Galactica talk) follow…

The New Year beckons…

The Wanderer

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Theoretically, yesterday morning should have gone fairly smoothly. All I had to do was get up at 7AM, have breakfast, get my stuff together, and ensure I was ready to leave at about 7.50AM to be picked up by George’s Mum and taken to the station at Alton. Instead, I woke up, saw the alarm clock was saying 7.49AM and had singularly failed to go off, and then spent the next five minutes sprinting around like a madman. Thankfully, George made me some sandwiches for the train, which I was exceedingly grateful for, but the whole thing was rather intense- underlined by the fact that I was actually going to be away for nearly three days.

Last night was my first stay on the sofa back at the flat. It would have been a little easier if I hadn’t forgotten my iPod (meaning I couldn’t continue the unabridged audiobook of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell I’ve been listening to), but it actually went pretty smoothly. I had already seen A PRARIE HOME COMPANION earlier that night- a strange, enjoyable yet melancholy film- and had stayed out long enough so that I was nice and tired. Being back there was like being in an alien environment, and really brought home exactly how much personality George and I tend to imprint on a place. The sofa was comfortable, though, and I awoke refreshed at 6.55 this morning, and was out of the house by 7.30. I’m aiming for a repeat tomorrow, as I need to check my PO Box before I head back to Hampshire- and then after that, it’s time for a week in Wales, and hopefully a minimum of stress.

Echoes of the Past: Adventures with Camcorders…

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My friend Tris has once again been busy with YouTube. Now, I can premiere- in three chunks- the fabulously daft amateur spoof that I appeared in at the tender age of 20. It was a different time, my friend- the world was young, the future was bright, and ramming a cushion up my jacket and running around pretending to be Ernest Borgenine seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea.

I present, for your delectation and general confusion, the Eighties action series spoof:

THE NEW AIRWOLF: THE NEXT GENERATION

(Warning: Contains severe overacting. View at your own risk!)

Part 1:

Part 2:

and, the action packed, climactic Part 3:

And, for more details on the story behind this grand folly, vist my friend Tris’s website here.

Enjoy…

Administratum

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This blog is bizarrely useful for keeping in contact with people, but often while people can keep track of me, it doesn’t always mean I can keep track of them. Therefore, with my new and exciting move to the wilds of Hampshire happening, if there’s anyone out there who would like my new home address (or would just generally like to say hello in the spirit of the season), go to my website, click one of the ‘e-mail me’ links, and send me a pithy comment of your choosing (You can leave me a comment, but I won’t be able to e-mail you back…). I lost quite a few of my e-mail records thanks to a computer-related disaster a couple of months back, so the more, the merrier.

Touchdown

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It’s done.

The move was painful, stressful and generally one of the more difficult experiences I’ve had for a while, but now it’s done. Thanks to the delay, I had to come back to London almost immediately- and I’ve now hit the fact that day returns at pre-9am peak times are double the price they are at any other point. £25.00 rather than £15.00 was an unwelcome price to be greeted with this morning. This means I’m going to be staying overnight at the Bounds Green flat tomorrow, as well as Wednesday night, and also opens a whole other can of worms relating to timing, transport, and the changes I’m going to have to make to my life in order to get this all to work…

…and yet I’m not regretting this. Sitting in my office last night, assembling my computer and sorting out a few Christmas presents, I felt more at home than I have done in months. I’ve wanted to get out of London for a very long time- and this doesn’t feel like a mistake. It feels like I’m in the place that I need to be- my life is going to change significantly as a result of this, but I can’t help feeling that it’s going to be a good thing. I slept well last night, and while I’m only going to be spending minimal time there over the next few days (and then off to Wales for a week), this isn’t feeling like a mistake. Yes, I’d rather we weren’t having to do this with a gigantic financial burden hoverring over our heads… but when I think about the alternate universe where we didn’t do this, and are stuck in London for another Christmas, I really don’t like the idea.

Life is going to change. Plus, I’m going to have to write like hell- and that can’t be a bad thing.

We apologise for the delay. Coffee and biscuits are being served. This is your auto pilot speaking. Please return to your seat….

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Apparently, my best laid plans had not quite gang a’glee (or whatever the phrase is) enough, as our aim to move today was sadly curtailed by George’s Dad being ill. Hopefully it should be going ahead tomorrow- but, for the moment, it’s meant cleaning at a slightly more relaxed pace, and even more feeling like we’re hanging in a kind of strange, surreal limbo. Just to make things weirder, I’m actually going to have to stay overnight here on Wednesday, in order to make sure I can get to a screening of INLAND EMPIRE, the new David Lynch film. There’s little time left, and things are feeling just a little on the tense side.

Accelerando

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I’d love to document the last two weeks. I’d love to go into details about how much I’ve acheived, and how it feels to be on the cusp of one of the biggest moves I’ve ever attempted. Trouble is, there’s no time, and a thousand and one different things to do. The move happens tomorrow- and I’m also going to lose net at home for at least a few days. I am, however, subbing next week, so hopefully I will catch up. Life is deliriously complicated at the moment- but I’m almost to the next stage…

Staying the Course (Don’t Panic….)

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I had a brainwave today relating to the book- there’s a set of scenes that introduces one of the main bad guys, and I knew instinctively that it wasn’t working, and I’d been trying to sort out a way of making work. Suddenly, on a walk in the woods today, I saw a way of doing it, which would involve some major shuffling around in what I’m referring to as the cliffhanger to part 2 of the book, leading into the final act. I saw it, and suddenly realised that it would read better, and be much more ‘novelistic’- alot of my storytelling devices are actually hi-jacked from television and comics, and there’s times when that kind of thing doesn’t work. So, I had a solution- trouble is, I couldn’t come up with a way of shuffling around the cliffhanger that wouldn’t suck the drama out of the scene. At the moment, it has a couple of clunky sections, but part 2 of the book ends on a genuine “Holy Crap, what the hell’s going to happen now?” moment that will hopefully have people screaming to get on to Part 3. I could change that to something more ‘literary’ that might have better technique- but I think it’d lose the storytelling energy that it’s got at the moment. I’m not saying there isn’t a way of doing it and not losing the energy- but I really think that unpicking a major chunk of the story, at a time when it’s actually starting to feel like it’s fitting together, would be a bad move. If I’d had this idea much, much earlier, I might have been able to do something with it- but it’s not the kind of idea you can introduce into a story without damaging the framework that’s already built. I’d rather concentrate on getting the story as it is to a standard that I’m proud of, rather than spend the next few months trying new configurations of plotting, and ending up essentially chasing my tail. This is a lesson for the next one- it’s too late for this one. I’m going to get this thing into shape, and I’m going to be proud of it…

This is the End, Beautiful Friend…

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It’s come around again- I’m sitting in the study in my Dad’s house, typing on the laptop, and I’m going to be heading back to London tomorrow. Once I’m back, I’m straight into four days of subbing (the traditional Christmas issue brain-mash), and also into a two week countdown to the point where my life completely changes. There’s an awful lot to do- I’ve placed myself in charge of ‘shutting down’ our life in London, so there are people to call, things to cancel, things to transfer… the list is going to be pretty big. Hopefully there’s going to be lots of chance for social interaction as well, and I don’t want to let the stress get the better of me. Change is good. It may be scary and tumultuous, but it’s also good.

A phase of my life that’s gone on for an awful lot longer than I ever expected is going to be ending soon. I moved to London in November 1995 with a rucksack on my back, a suitcase, and two weeks worth of accomodation sorted out. I didn’t really have a choice at that point- I had to make it work. It was very, very tough, but I’ve made it through the last eleven years- and I’ve had a wider variety of adventures than I was expecting. I went to America. I became a freelance writer. I got married. None of that was stuff I expected to happen, and I don’t know what the next decade or so has in store for me- but as long as I can keep myself and George as happy as possible, and I can keep writing, that’ll be enough.

Last time, when I left here and went back to Cornwall, I instinctively knew that I needed to get out of London. This time, when I go back, we’re actually going to be doing it. It’s going to be financially very rough for longer than I’d like, and there’s a whole host of problems facing us as we try and set ourselves up down there… but I know that this is what I want. The timing may not be fantastic- and I might be the kind of guy who’d rather wait and avoid stress than have to face it- but I know that this is what I want. All that remains is to do it.

Gulp…