It's been a six month roller coaster, but I think we're finally getting keys to our new flat in a few days' time. This information has come at us at quite short notice, so we won't actually be moving in for a couple of weeks, but... well. We're nearly there.
At which point, of course, we'll lose t'internet for a month or so. And never have any money to go out ever again. But hopefully I'll be able to share some photos in the not too distant future. Buscemi will become an indoor cat, but at 14 and-a-half, I think she's going to be fairly unconcerned about that. I won't be able to walk to work along the river, but I was getting a bit lazy about that in any case. It's all going to be great. I just wish it hadn't taken so long that all the joy got beaten from us halfway through the mortgage application.
I've spent the last few months translating 1920s pulp French thrillers at breakneck speed — my record was 10 days. I've now got five Chantecoq novels ready to publish in English for the first time, I'm collaborating with a friend to bring out a sixth, and I'm halfway through the seventh and eighth. I look forward to finding out whether I've wasted an entire six months of my writing life...
The last few months have been crazy. In my last entry I mentioned The Ladykillers, and various anthologies that were on the point of being released. Since then, Summer's End, Time Lord For Change and A Treasury of Brenda & Effie have all come out and been terribly successful and popular. On top of that, I also appeared in a pantomime as an Ugly Sister, and about a month ago did some professional theatre work at London's Vault Festival. After a busy year or so of acting, I'm currently trying to steer clear of most theatrical commitments in favour of getting more writing projects finished. Well, I say that, but last week I wrote a short play. For a thing.
I finished my cyberpunk novella, which gradually became its own thing far removed from the plot point inspired by Transit. I can't write straight Cyberpunk. Around the time I had to give them some dialogue, my implacable corporation agents suddenly became ageing gamers who were inexpressibly chuffed at the chance to run around tunnels with handguns and EMP grenades. There's a bit where an emergent intelligence turns into Thomas the Tank Engine. Thankfully, the other guys in the project seem to like it. Or if they don't like it, they've at least decided to keep it in the book, which is good enough for me.
So I've gone back to writing my zombie thing, which you'll be unshocked to learn doesn't exactly take that genre seriously either. That may or may not turn out to be a series of shortish zombie novellas wherein various affluent SW London suburbs become the focus of (different) zombie outbreaks. I've got a cover for the first one, it looks like zombie Simon Amstell.
Elsewhere, life continues. The dog is still a lot of work. Mel's working on her dissertation, which eats up a lot of our weekend and evening time. But the end's in sight with a deadline in April, and the evenings are lighter so we can take the dog for more interesting walks and hopefully tire him out...
Married life is really rather nice, especially with a cute puppy to look after. Even though we've had some grief with the plumbing this week, and can't use the kitchen until certain pipes are unblocked, Eccleston still needs walking, so we get out of the house and away from the chaos whether we like it or not.
Last week I saw Red Dwarf being recorded. The week before that I was on stage at the Criterion in the West End.
Next week I have a new book out, a translation of a 1912 pulp thriller. Cashflow being, ah, a little tight at the moment, there may well follow a flurry of self-published novels in the New Year. I have a cache of material that's all about two thirds finished, some of it a few years old.
I've got a series of zombie novellas, of which the first one is more or less written and the rest are plotted. It's the sort of thing you write, knowing it will sell, but sort of dying inside a little bit with every new paragraph.
I've got a series of top secret novels that will come out under a strict pseudonym as they would cost me my day job. They are, quite simply, the most giddily brilliant thing I'll ever write. And no one will ever know.
And in recent months, I've started developing a mystery series featuring Buscemi as a feline detective in my area of South West London. Again, the first book is largely written: Detective Daintypaws & A Squirrel In Bohemia. I'm sure it will be a tricky sell, but I think it's also among the best stuff I've written. Once I'd got the idea of my crime-solving cat, I wasn't quite sure where to go with it tonally. My eventual inspiration was Paul Magrs and his Brenda and Effie series, with its constant juxtaposition of high camp adventure and cosy domesticity.
I've also got material in three upcoming anthologies. In the most exciting one, I've only got 200 words (two drabbles), but I'll be sharing pages with writers including Joanne Harris, and actors including Jane Sherwin (getting her on board was my modest contribution to the party), Terry Molloy and Colin Freaking Baker.
So really, life is pretty good. I just need to find the time to write a veritable crapload more words.
A couple of times, actually. Mel and I had the civil wedding in Wandsworth's registry office at the very start of August. But then we went down to the Dordogne and tied the knot in a tiny French church on Saturday 12 September. It poured with rain until about an hour before the ceremony. Which was actually a good thing, as it meant we had a much cooler afternoon - we wouldn't have been able to wear those outfits for long in the kinds of temperatures Sarlat was enjoying prior to the big day!
And then there were loads of photographs, and food, and drink, and speeches, and a Hebrew video blessing from Christopher freaking Eccleston, and we danced to great effect, having more or less kept our choreographer secret from most of the guests.
After that, we popped back to London to fill our suitcases with fresh clothes, then jetted out to Sorrento, for 8 days of fine food, beautiful landscapes, and general silly fun.
We've been getting on quite nicely without being involved much in am dram for a few months, but after our RSC Barbican adventure, Mel and I were keen to do some Shakespeare. So we went to a readthrough for a semi-pro Much Ado About Nothing, which didn't come to much as it would have been really awkward to get home after rehearsals.
And then we went to a voice workshop looking at speaking Shakespeare in particular, part of the preparation for an am dram production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, the play that seems to follow me around. The upshot is that at the end of April we're going to audition for that production, which will be an open-air show in July, in Chiswick. Mel and I are both incredibly excited, and we're going to do our level best to audition for Hermia and Lysander. The group is close to our old company, and shares a few members, so we already know quite a few people.
Thanks to everyone who commented and sent messages about our RSC adventure. We just heard back and, of course, we've not got through to the final round. With twelve groups there for the weekend and not really knowing what standard the other groups were at, intellectually we of course knew this was the mostly likely outcome through the simple odds. Emotionally, it's a bit of a blow. But we'll always have that amazing weekend of adventures and workshops.
But...
Last week, I finally published a follow-up to 2012's Something Nice!
Something Nicer (see what I did there?) is a second collection of my short stories, written between March 2012 and December 2014. We had a brilliant launch thing on Facebook, and it sold about 20 copies in the first couple of days. Which for a collection of shorts from an unknown author... well, I'm very happy!
The cover design was of course by my brilliant sister-in-law of www.lawstondesign.com fame!
So it's a shame we didn't get through with the RSC... but yay, new book!
As of last Friday night, Mel and I are engaged! There's no date or venue set yet, but we seem to be thinking about next August or September. Both sets of parents are delighted, as are my whole family. Facebook has gone a bit crazy with well-wishers, and I think we're having engagement drinks with various people for the next four years.
