Live and Dangerous

I had a very pleasant time at my brother's house for Christmas. It was nice to see my nieces and nephews excited by the festivities. I took some care in selecting presents for them. Unfortunately, they didn't seem that impressed. So I expect I failed in that endeavour. No doubt I'm useless at selecting presents. Ho Hum. But they were very happy about Christmas anyway, and their much better presents from their parents.

I gave my brother - a fan of old school heavy rock - 'Live and Dangerous', Thin Lizzy's live double album from 1972, generally regarded as their finest moment. Well, when I say double album, I bought it from iTunes so it's not an album at all, just computer files that you put on a disc, which is not the same at all. You know, the world really was better when you had giant album covers, with pictures and lyrics and stuff.

My brother gave me a book of Pliny's letters, and this was something I really wanted, and is one of favourite presents ever. Pliny the Younger wrote a first-hand account of the eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii in 79AD, and his letters are full of many interesting pieces about life in Rome.

A few weeks ago I took part in a film about Les Carter, a birthday present from his partner Crissi. My part involved being filmed in the rain in front of the Brixton Academy, talking about Les. That went quite well. Well, I hope it did, I haven't actually seen the film. But I was pleased to make a contribution anyway.

I wonder why the Brixton Academy, which is a music venue, chose that name? Academy really means an institute of learning. Every academy takes its name, ultimately, from the school of philosophy founded by Plato around 385 BC at Akademia, close to Athens in Greece.

Plato was a pupil of Socrates. Something that always surprises me is the way that Socrates and other philosophers managed to be so civilised in the midst of continual strife. For instance, Socrates would be wandering around Athens, teaching philosophy, and then suddenly the order would come for everyone to turn up next day with their weapons, and three days rations, because they had to go to war. So Socrates would march off to war, take part in some bloody battle, march back to Athens, and then get on with teaching philosophy. That happened to him on various occasions. Amazing really. I'd have liked to learn philosophy from Socrates, but I'd have been useless at marching off to war.

Kalix. Werwölfin von London

Lonely Werewolf Girl will be published in Germany in June 2009, by Fischer. Fischer is a big publisher, I'm looking forward to their edition coming out. Here it is at the publisher's website and at amazon.de. The title in German will be Kalix. Werwölfin von London. Which, you will notice, contains an umlaut. Umlauts are always cool. It's a shame that in English, there is never the opportunity to put two little dots over a letter.

Under different publishers, The Good Fairies of New York has been continually in print in Germany since it first came out, many years ago. And all eight Thraxas books were published in German too. So I have to say I'm all in favour of the German reading public at this moment.

London has been dreadfully cold. There's nothing else to do except lie in a nice hot bath reading Steel Fist Riku and whatever other manga comes to hand. Leaving the house will soon be impossible apart from the occasional dash to the shops to buy hobnobs. If the temperature drops any further this may no longer be possible, and I'll need people to send me supplies on a sled pulled by huskies, or maybe an emergency airlift.

More of My Backlist Unleashed on the World

The Millar backlist assault on the world continues. I just received the manuscript for the re-issue of Lux the Poet, which will be reprinted some time next year. And only yesterday the postman brought me a box of copies of Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation from the American publisher Soft Skull. This seems to be available on amazon.com already, although it hasn't reached amazon.co.uk yet.

Hmm. Can anyone actually prove I wrote all these books? I could deny it.

A brief story about when I was writing Lux the Poet: I was living in a small council flat in Brixton. I shared the flat with a primary school teacher, who was rarely there, and a young man who was a serious alcoholic, as was his boyfriend. They were continually drunk, probably too drunk to have sex, but they were both fond of spanking. Being so drunk, they weren't concerned about privacy, and used to perform, or attempt to perform, spanking sessions in the living room. Meanwhile I stayed in my own room, writing Lux the Poet on an old word-processor. So I could hear the spanking, which would have been strange enough anyway, but because of their extreme drunkenness and lack of co-ordination, it happened at an unbelievably slow rate. I'd write one sentence of Lux, and hear a vague slapping noise. And then I'd write a bit more, and after a few more sentences, there be another spanking noise, followed by some loud struggling as they fell off the couch, and scrambled around for their cans of special brew. And then, some time later, there's be another vague slapping sound. Really, you wouldn't believe that any spanking could possibly be carried on in such a slow and disorganised fashion. Sometimes he'd actually miss the target, which you'd think would be practically impossible. Hours later I'd find them collapsed, semi-naked and unconscious on the living room floor. Both of them by this time quite emaciated young men, from alcohol abuse. I was pleased when I moved out of that flat.

If you're looking for some relaxing viewing - like for instance if you've just taken a rhubarb crumble out of the oven and you're planning it eat it while watching TV - then I recommend not watching 'Happiness', Todd Solondz's grim black comedy from 1999. I found myself doing this a few nights ago, and it was definitely a poor choice. I've rarely seen so much uncomfortable heavy breathing and squirming onscreen, or such a cast of unlikeable characters. But it's a good film too, so I didn't want to stop watching it. It kind of spoiled my rhubarb crumble relaxation though. I hereby resolve never to watch anything serious ever again, and stick to watching Tokyo Mew Mew on Pop TV. Except now it's changed channels to Popgirl TV and I don't have that channel. Damn these schedulers. Fine I'll watch it on youtube instead.

Out of Date

Catastrophe. So far, I've been managing cheerfully enough with my Playstation2. This is well out of date, but I don't much care, because I don't mind playing older games.

However. The new Tomb Raider game is now being released for PS3 and other games machines, but the PS2 version won't come out till January! I really love Tomb Raider. I don't want to wait.

As you can imagine, this is quite a crisis. I'm very unhappy at all this. It feels like I'm being punished for being behind the times. I suppose I could just wait patiently till it comes out. Or wait impatiently, and complain all the time. Or - and I feel this may be the best alternative - use credit card in reckless Kamikaze fashion, and buy a new Playstation, despite the danger that this may lead to total fiscal disaster.

Hmm. It's a difficult dilemma, one which my life experience has left me ill-equipped to resolve.

I recently did an interview for Colleen Mondor, for her site Chasing Ray. This interview was part of the Winter Blog Blast Tour.

I've just noticed that Colleen's site is named after Ray Bradbury, which makes me think that's it's a long time since I read any Ray Bradbury, but I do remember really enjoying his books, so I should read some again.

Lack of Energy

I've been lacking energy for blogging recently, or even for replying to replies to my blog. I don't know why. I must have some sort of blogging fatigue. I mean to write something but then notice that four days have passed, and all I've done is play my SpongeBob SquarePants video game. In my defence, it is a very good game.

Here's a picture from the manga Claymore, which I've been reading quite obsessively. Slender silver-haired women with huge swords, chopping up monsters. What more can you ask from a comic?

And here's a review of Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation, my first novel, which will be re-issued early next year.

Right, that's it, I'm off to watch House. I really like this programme.

Book Stuff

Lonely Werewolf Girl appears in the nominations for the Fantasy and Science Fiction (Young Adult) category in the Cybil Awards (Children's and YA Bloggers' Literary Awards ) It's a very long list, I don't know when it's distilled into a shortlist. I'm very pleased to be there.

Here's a review of the recently re-issued Suzy, Led Zeppelin and Me in The Guardian.

I spent last week checking the manuscript for Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation, for the new edition by Soft Skull. And when I say checking the manuscript, I mean not looking at it at all, and just hoping it was OK. I will just trust the skills of the editors at Soft Skull, who have been doing fine with my books so far.

Hmm. May not be doing a great job of selling my old books here. Will work up more enthusiasm when it comes out. Which is early next year, I think.

When Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation was first published, in 1987, I was working as a clerk for the council, filling in forms for their heating engineers. That wasn't such a bad job.

No progress on the naval piercing. Am frustrated by circumstances. Still, nothing bad has happened. However, on the domestic front, my footstool did disintegrate with age, after many years of faithful service. I need a new one, because you cant really slump properly in front of the TV without a footstool, and I need to do that.

Piercing

I just wrote a long and quite tedious blog about my navel piercing. Abandoning that version, and trimming it down to the bare essentials, the story goes as follows -

Navel pierced about 12 years ago
Removed it about 8 years ago
Presumed it had healed
Was surprised last month when the old piercing went gunky.
Apparently it's never healed properly
Seems OK now, but not sure if best thing to do is wait for it to heal, or just put a bar through it again
Fortunately
there is a piercing studio in between me
and the place I go for my agoraphobia therapy
But as it turns out
The studio is closed on that same day every week
so it means making an extra journey
am not sure what to do about this
Get another stud put it
or just leave it to close up
hmm.

* Why do you have your navel pierced anyway?
Who do you think you are, Britney Spears? *

Good question. I got it done on a whim, years ago. I went with a friend to keep her company when she was going to visit a body piercing studio. Well when I say body piercing studio, I mean a man with needles in a squat in Brixton. (To be fair to him, he was good at it.) I was only there to lend moral support. But then I apparently suffered some form of temporary madness, and got my navel pierced.

I was surprised that I'd done it. And quite perturbed when I examined it outside Brixton tube station and discovered that blood was dripping onto my trousers. But it was OK afterwards, and I liked it. I should never have taken it out, really.

Actually, that was all quite a good story. It's a shame my longer version was so tedious.

My agents are negotiating a contract for a German translation of Lonely Werewolf Girl. That's good. Perhaps I could supply the publisher with a stylish author-with-pierced-navel picture for the back cover. Hmm. Am really not sure whether to wait and see if it heals, or put something back through the hole.

Refugee

There have been shocking scenes of misery and deprivation in these parts recently as the heating engineers arrived to install a new boiler in my flat. It meant I couldn't stay home during the day, as they were drilling through walls and stuff.

Now, I could have coped with these two days - organised to visit someone or something like that - if I was not the most hopelessly disorganised person on the planet. And also, the agoraphobia didn't help. Did not really want to go far from home. Which led to me spending one day sitting miserably in the local library, waiting for the engineers to finish their work. I felt like a refugee. All I needed was a blanket. And I had to go to the dentist later. What a lousy day that was.

The next day was my day for agoraphobia therapy so I set off several hours early and then just hung around uselessly for ages. Another very poor day, all in all. Though it was interesting being on a bus at 8.30 in the morning, something I haven't experienced for some years. It was full of people going to work, and none of them looked very happy, which is understandable.

I haven't been to work for many years, though I was employed full-time earlier in my life. My last job was as a clerk for the local council, and before that I was a library assistant, a clerk at the Brixton benefit office, and also a manual labourer.

When my first book was published, Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation, I kept on being a clerk for the council, but next year, 1988, when Lux the Poet came out, a magazine phoned me up for an interview. So I thought, well if magazines are phoning me up for interviews I must be close to being a famous and wealthy author, so I'd better just stop working. Which I did. And that turned out to be a mistake at the time, as I'd neglected to consider that I didn't really have any income, apart from puny royalties of a few hundred pounds per year.

However, have studiously avoided work ever since then. Indeed this is my main reason for being an author, and always has been, so I don't have to go to work. This has gone well, in terms of being able to lie on the couch doing nothing for days at a time, but has sometimes been a problem in terms of income. However, I'm doing better now. There is no need to send food parcels.

My agents are now doing the contract for a German edition of Lonely Werewolf Girl, with a particularly fine German publisher, which is good news. In the next year or so the book will be available in Italian, German, Greek, and French. My werewolves will conquer Europe.

Hmmm. New heating appears to be working well. Will lie on the couch for 48 hours, checking it out. What if they didn't install it properly and there's a gas leak? If you hear news of a catastrophic explosion in South London, that will probably be me. Will just have to hope for the best, because I'm not leaving my flat again ever.