Book of Lost Nights

So, I went up to Manchester to the see The Stranglers at the Academy with JJ.

It was a great weekend but incredibly strange. The Stranglers were fantastic, and it was the last night of the tour, so they played three encores and the set was composed largely of punktastic crowdpleasers. The atmosphere was astonishing.

I had breakfast with JJ and Marce at Morrisons. There was a trip up into the moors for research but mostly just driving and taking in the sights. I was taught the basics of internet poker, and ate the Cadbury’s buttons meant for chips.

I witnessed a really terrifying car accident and had to wait for the police to arrive, but miraculously, the girl driving was unhurt.

I found a Twitter application that compares who’s following you with who you are following and was amazed as the results were completely different from what I expected.

I completely cleaned the kitchen, and did my domestic tasks, as I thought I would be at Million Monkeys tonight where I intend to take up tools again on the draft, but as it happens once I got caught up with T Party admin, (especially as so many wonderful T Party folk are up for BFS Awards – see ‘s post here for the full list) it was 9pm so it will all have to wait until tomorrow.

I baked bread. It is scrumptious.

So that is all. The cycle begins anew. Tomorrow.

Currently Reading: The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber

No Comments | In: Food, Music, Research, Travel, Weird, Writing | tags: bfsa, games, manchester, million monkeys, saddleworth moor, t party, the stranglers, twitter. | #

So, the first draft of Sleepwalker was finished today. At 4:50am, no less. I felt a bit teary in the epilogue, but that might just have been sleep-deprivation talking.

I now have this vast mass of material to trim down into manageable novel size, but not going to worry about that today. Today is about drinking tea, cleaning hamster cages, and maybe catching a movie.

On the jobsearch front, things have been very active for the past week, with two recruitment agents waking me out of my deathlike slumber this morning alone to ask me if I’d be interested in vacancies (which I am, hell yes) so the Question For The Ages is as follows: Now I have leisure before I start working on the rockface of the Sleepwalker rewrites, should I upgrade my gaming console (I’ve got a PS2)? 

And if I do, what should I replace it with?

a) Wii (so I can do fitness stuff, because I’m a lazy laptop-bothering bastard)

b) Xbox 360, so I can finally play Bioshock, which sounds kind of awesome. Or Dante’s Inferno, which is apparently less awesome, but which involves playing a slash’em up in Dante’s Inferno, which sounds pretty cool.

c) A PS3. I don’t know what games you get on it. Probably something with the Mario Bros. Or Final Fantasy.

d) A PC capable of managing a MMORG like World of Warcraft, because I hate my life and want to experience as little as possible of it going forward.

Any and all suggestions gratefully received.

14 Comments | In: Technology, Writing | tags: games. | #

I’m absolutely snowed under.

I’d love nothing better than to update this journal with how my research trip to the Isle of Dogs went (it was oddly moving and very, very productive) and how another such night trip to Deptford went (Deptford was a sea of council estates, warehouses, tatty pubs where the customers stare as you walk in, navy wharfs, pawn shops and bargain bin stores, circled by hoodied youths on bikes, and scattered with young toughs lounging about whilst being told off by police. The whole area was constantly scored by a cold dark wind whipping through the sixties architecture, and the roads were full of rat-faced boy racers revving their old Ford Fiestas and Corsas past me when the lights changed as though we were doing laps at Le Mans. In short, it was *perfect* for my purposes and I couldn’t have loved it more). And also I’d tell you about how I had a dreadful bullying phone call yesterday at work and I still have lots of copy-editing to do for this guy so as a gesture of hopeless despair and defiance with my lot I ate a vastly unhealthy takeaway on the bed and played “The Hobbit” on PS2 when I should have been doing… something. And I’d go on about how the wind howled so much last night it woke me out of bed, and how my parents are coming over to visit at the end of the month and as much as I love him my Dad is the King Daddy of Back Seat Drivers and last time I drove anywhere on holiday with them I was more exhausted by the end of the holiday than the beginning. And I’d then go on to post replies to the comments people were good enough to leave, and also the comments they post in their own journals, about which I have much to say, if not time to say it in, and in short, I would engage…

But I’m absolutely snowed under.

I’ll get this copy-editing out of the way tonight and hopefully the log jam will start to break up.

One thing I used to do in my personal diaries was to write down what I was reading. I think now is a good time to reinstitute this tradition.

Reading: “The Penultimate Peril” by Lemony Snicket. The fact it’s taking me the best part of three days to get through this tiny volume probably speaks more about my busyness than anything else.

2 Comments | In: Books, Research, Travel, Writing | tags: authors, deptford, games, isle of dogs, lemony snicket, london, the penultimate peril. | #