Take me away, I don't mind. But you'd better promise me I'll be...

Back, and about time.

Apologies for not posting recently, but things have been very stressful and temperamental recently and only now do I feel like things are settling down the the extent that I can think about my web presence  again. There's still work to be done, but there is a light at the end of this long, bleak tunnel I have been traversing.

After several weeks of the whole situation feeling very transitional and a bit weird, I'm starting to feel a bit more settled in Bristol. The last few months have been a surreal experience, what with unemployment and then relocating, etc. At times it's felt like I've been living in a bubble. It was deliberate - I have consciously kept my life in standby mode while I sort things out, so apologies for maintaining some degree of radio silence over this period - but I'm beginning to feel like the time is nearing for me to wake up and get things back on track again.

I'm sure this weekend will mark the point where I finally start to feel like I live here now, instead of being here on some odd working visit. New job is great (albeit quite busy and stressful.) New house is great, and in a few days I think I'll have everything just the way I want it. I'm waiting on a few deliveries of things, and after that I should be ready to get on with my life.

Relocating was a ball ache of epic proportions, but it's done now and the only casualty of my relocation was my PC's 5.1 set, which packed up completely after the move. Thankfully it's still under warranty so I can get it replaced. Oh, and my pride last weekend, as I stood by helplessly and watched all my well-laid plans unravel before my eyes in about three minutes flat. That was not fun.

All in all, I'm still not sure how to feel about the whole experience. In hindsight it needed to happen, for my sanity as well as my working life, but as I still don't know anyone down here I'm very much feeling that all I do with my time is sleep and go to work. It's peculiar that I should feel so isolated in a city four times the size of Chester.

But that will change in time I'm sure. In the meantime there are still things to do. Changes of address, things I need to buy.

Like additional pairs of shorts and t-shirts that are not black. Damn this hot weather...

And writing. I have done literally none at all for over two months. When I'm in the right head space I will be bombing straight into Hudson Falls with gusto.

Oops, a bit late.

I've slacked off immensely this week.

It was my birthday this weekend, so I was unable to do any writing due to being hungover for most of it. I've also developed a really weird sleeping pattern that doesn't appear to pay any attention to the day-night cycle. I should probably work on that.

So, no progress to report on Broken. I'm getting the first draft finished this week, come hell or high water, so at least next week's progress report will be a bit less sparse.

As predicted, I've been feeling very sorry for myself this weekend, brightened up a bit by seeing some of the finished pages from Bayou Arcana, which looks sensational. My contribution has been pared down to a single preview page, which is a little disappointing, but it can't be helped. I sat around sulking about that for some of this week, mostly because sometimes you just have to let yourself be miserable for a bit. I'm fine now, and I'm looking forward to the launch. Hopefully it will sell really well, rain down money on us all and turn us into superstars.

In other news, I've heard sniffs of Mike Garley's Dead Roots going digital for iOS, and the ball is rolling again on Accent UK's Victoriana book. I'm due to make appearances in both, with two very different scripts. The one for Victoriana is daft as hell, and should be a real challenge for Roland to draw.

There's still been no word from Clint about the submission myself and Jack Tempest sent to them, which I guess means there won't be one. I've had a brief chat with him about its future, and I'll be going to Bristol and Kapow armed with a copy of the submission to see if we can garner interest in it elsewhere.

So anyway, I've got writing to do, and I've got a copy of Mass Effect 3 to try not to play until the writing is done. Wish me luck.

Lost a Luchas de Apuestas against myself

Like Samson and Chris Jericho before me, I have had my hair cut and have thus become lessened. On the plus side, for the first time in many years I don't have to worry about what to do with my hair or become infuriated when I feel the damned stuff tickling my ears. Unfortunately I'm currently suffering Phantom Hair, and the back of my head occasionally feels tight, as if I still have my hair tied back. It's most peculiar.

In other news... oh dear, look like there isn't any other news. Sorry. I've been immersed in literature, classic films and comics recently, trying to get back my passion for writing.

I might have a little more to show for it soon - I've just dived headlong into Broken Smile for Accent again, and not before time. I'm again trying something new - I'm just opening a word document and slapping stuff down on the page, regardless of whether it's a cohesive scene or even a definite part of the story. I'm unconcerned with waiting to feel 'ready' to write, or what sort of mood I'm in. The important thing is that I'm getting stuff down. I can dwell on how to turn it into a story at a later date.

I've written about thirty pages of stuff that's probably never going to go anywhere.

It's an exercise, and if it gets me enthusiastic about writing after this extended period away from it, all the better. I don't think I've ever had a less productive time than during the last eight months. It feels strange to be doing something again...

Behaving like a four year old

I have spent today being cheerful for a change, mostly fuelled by my love for goofy looking animals. I have just spent the best part of three hours watching videos of hippos, elephant seals and penguins to name but three as they flop about the place, making the world look untidy.

But the king of all stupid looking animals is easily the manatee. Truly it is the lord of the funny-looking. I can't even look at a picture of one without giggling like an imbecile.

Of slightly lesser entertainment value is its cousin, the dugong, which may be less funny to look at but has the advantage of having a more amusing name. It's a name that is fun to say, and to type.

Dugong.

Duuuuugong.

Try it. It might liven up your day as well.

Clueless

I'm not very knowledgeable about politics, and I'm probably a bit naive about social issues, etc, having lived a relatively snug life in a series of small to medium-sized towns. I guess I'm generally not very aware of what's Really Going On, in title case. But I probably don't need to be to think that the rioting that's been going on has been a bit mental. Scary stuff.

I'm not really equipped to discuss it, and I'm aware of how much of a spazzy blowhard you can sound like if you start talking about things you know little about, especially on the internet. So moving swiftly on...

...not much to report. Still trying to stay away from writing, and succeeding. I think I've needed this. I've gotten so little done these last few months - and it has been eating me up so much - that actually doing nothing on purpose has seemed like a holiday. I shall hopefully be back into it next month with a brain full of new thoughts and ideas, once the show in Birmingham has been and gone.

If it's still coming at all, after this week's ...trouble.

Nothing Important Happened Today

Really, nothing at all. Nothing has happened all week, and I'm keeping it that way.

I'm considering it medicine. I'm spending a little time kicking back and relaxing, doing things I enjoy. For a change, however, I'm not feeling guilty about not doing any writing. Writing can bugger off for the time being.

Roll on the Akira Kurosawa movies and martial arts flicks. I'm spending my weekend eating pizza and watching people get kicked in the face.

The therapy of experience

I am now on the path of recovery. I didn't manage to do anything tonight, but in a peculiar sort of way I think it was good for me.

My new treadmill arrived, so my evening program of exercise can now begin properly starting tomorrow. I also decided to start surrounding myself with things that illuminate and transfix me, to hopefully get my mind working creatively. I read a little - something I don't do anywhere near as much as I should these days - and I avoided my usual time wasting exercises. It occurred to me as I did so how many of my evenings I must have lost in some sort of torpor. How many hours I've wasted on pointless rubbish that led nowhere, night after night. Online gaming, I'm looking at you.

I watched a documentary on the works of Van Gogh and a couple of episodes of Simon Schama's History of Britain. For some reason I was feeling historical. It helped. Hearing stories of how colourful figures from the past lived their lives set something off in the fog behind my eyes. Made me feel awake for the first time in ages.

I was doing something that was engaging my imagination, which almost felt like a new experience in and of itself - I was taken aback by how bright it made everything around me. I guess I've spent so long with my head down and in a funk that I haven't set out to experience anything to stir me to feel anything else. 

That doesn't seem like much, but the last six months have, with few exceptions, been spent miserably sleepwalking from day to day. Tonight felt important and valuable. Even though I didn't do anything but set up a treadmill and watch some telly. I suppose sometimes it doesn't matter whether what you do is new as long as it feels new at the time.

And yes, I'm well aware of how self indulgent this all sounds. And I don't care.

...and I just thought I was a miserable bugger.

Guess what? I'm suffering from depression, or so says my doc. Go me.

Hearing somebody say it actually made me feel bit better. I've been slouching languidly around for a few months now, accomplishing sod all, and I've felt really guilty about it because I thought I was just being listless and lazy. I've been giving myself such a hard time over it, thinking I've been letting myself down. It's been like being stuck in a feedback loop.

But when he said it, I felt a bit less wretched. All those times I've been slumped in my chair, lacking the will to do anything but waste my time and think dismal thoughts; all those times I felt like caving my own head in, hunched over a keyboard, frustrated that I wasn't able to see anything past the tips of my fingers; it fell into focus somewhat. There is Something Wrong With Me, and I need to work on getting better.

I'm not taking anything for it. And shrinks are for assholes, as Jesse Custer once said. So I've listened to some advice and I'm going to try the old self help option. Keeping this blog updated more regularly will probably help. There are a few more things I'll be trying out, too. Hopefully if I can keep to them I'll begin to feel a bit better about myself. Might even have the added bonus of living a slightly healthier life, too.

In any case, it'll be good for me. I think I've been crying out to make some changes to the way I live my life for some time. Perhaps this kick up the arse is one that's sorely overdue.

Ain't got time to bleed

I was a little silly with booze last night, and as I am officially Too Old for that sort of behaviour any more my entire weekend is now a bust. I made a list of all the writing I'm now not going to do because I am so poorly. I'm a dimwit. It was a good night out but now I just want to crawl under my duvet and quietly expire with dignity. Hopefully not covered in sick.

I have, however, learned an important lesson, and that is not to watch films with sad bits in them when hungover. My hangover cure would be, I decided, to order pizza and park myself in front of the TV to watch my new Blu-ray boxset of the extended editions of Lord of the Rings. By the time I got to the end of Fellowship of the Ring I realised that I was blubbering like an infant, face streaked with tears and gasping for breath between deep, guttural sobs.

I'm not sure why. It seems hangovers now make me emotionally sensitive, as well as physically delicate. Who knew that could happen.

I can only hope that tomorrow when I'm feeling better I shall be back to my big, manly self and that this brief flirtation with girly sniffles is just that. I may have to hand in my testicles if it becomes a habit.

I'm sort of afraid to watch Two Towers now. Maybe I'll watch Predator instead and butch up...

Is the verb 'to chillax' in the dictionary yet?

...It should be, for that is what I have been doing.

Occasionally I like to reaffirm my right to kick back and do sweet FA, and to that end I have been spending my time sat around eating Doritos, watching TV, playing video games and reading books. Bliss.

I am awash with information. I've been watching lots of BBC documentaries - and nobody does documentaries as well as the BBC - including a classic: Simon Schama's History of Britain, which aside from the unconvincing low-budget recreations it spews forth every now and then is pretty faultless.

Also been trying to get into HBO's Game of Thrones, because Sean Bean is The Man, but I'm not sure I like it very much. Having read up a little on the story arc of the books, I don't think I'll like subsequent seasons any more, either. It seems that the entire series is nothing more than a procession of unnecessarily horrible things befalling House Stark, who are the only likeable characters in a cast of contemptible bastards.

Contemptible bastards seem to be a recurring theme in the fiction I'm subjecting myself to at the moment. I'm currently reading The Picture of Dorian Gray, which features such a shower of repugnant, self-indulgent arseholes I feel like I need a shower after finishing each chapter. I'm not usually a fan of stories where the main characters are such unapologetic cocks, but I'm enjoying it a hell of a lot more than Game of Thrones. I'm guessing it doesn't have the ending I feel it deserves, and that's to have a Predator land in the street, gut everyone and steal their spines.

Maybe that should be the next project for the "Pride & Prejudice & Zombies" gang.

Tonight was the first night this week I opened up OpenOffice and started writing a bit, this time working an a little short for Mike Garley's Dead Roots anthology (http://deadroots.blogspot.com/) before I get cracking on 'Broken Smile' once again. The first draft of this short should be finished by Friday, and it should be ready to go by Monday.

Settling Down

After a month or two of tension and rigorous house hunting, I'm finally set up in my new pad. It's nice, my new housemates seem like good people, and I'm keen to get stuck into this script for Accent now that things have settled down a bit. I'm hoping that this weekend I can finally get it started after so many delays. I have a nice dramatic opening in mind, and I'm looking forward to writing it.

Looking forward to just writing, really. These last few months I've been letting myself go and feeling increasingly out of the loop regarding the whole comic book thing. I'm missing Bristol (the relocation expenses ate my Bristol money...) but I'm going to the Comics Launchpad next month, which I'm hoping will revitalise me to some extent.

All this time away from writing has given me a good opportunity to take a step back to reflect on my current plans. I'm now a good couple of months behind schedule this year, so I've made the decision to postpone the comic book project with which I was originally planning to follow the current script. Instead, once the Accent script is finished I'm going to hammer straight into my novel. I've been putting off writing it for years, and I figure with two full-length comic scripts I'll have enough to keep myself busy with on that front while I spend my time on that wee beastie.

I'm trying not to think too much about writing it, as I want to give the Accent script all the attention it deserves while I've got that on the go. Also, I'm feeling rather ambivalent about the idea so I'm trying not to dwell on it too much. It's been ages since I wrote anything that wasn't a comic script so the very thought makes me a bit nervous, but on the other hand it really is a bloody good idea and I've been desperate to get stuck into it for years.

So after the current script is done I'm diving in. The comic book stuff will still be going on - I'll still be shilling Hudson Falls to whoever's around, and I might even find time for another few short stories here and there. But mostly, I'll be working sans-artist in the world of text.

I'm quite excited. But one step at a time, eh?

Annoyed

God, I hate idiots.

As it has been such a nice day, I decided to go for a walk a little earlier this afternoon. Sadly, as I was meandering around town minding my own business a pissed up man with greyed hair and an inability to walk in a straight line barges into me. Because, let's face it, I'm not a small chap, he bounced off me like a kid on a trampoline and fell flat on his arse.

I would have hoped that when a passerby approached him to help him up it would have been the end of the story - no. Unfortunately the drunk old fool decided then would be an appropriate time to start yelling, trying to tell anyone within earshot that I'd barged into him on purpose, specifically to knock him down. This guy was so hammered that his memory's revisionist history kicked in the instant the collision occurred.

For my part I just rolled my eyes at the lady walking alongside me, who had seen the entire episode, shook my head at the sozzled geezer and went on my merry way, trying to ignore his slurred ramblings as they faded away behind me.

I wondered how anyone could be that drunk at 2 in the afternoon. It genuinely baffled me until I remembered it was Grand National day and then it all made sense.

People like that really piss me off.

Stuck in Limbo

In more ways than one.

The house hunting continues to go poorly. I still haven't found a new place - I'm looking at house shares now because all the decent solo-occupancy flats in Chester are annoyingly juuuuuust out of my price range - and I promised myself I wasn't going to pick up any writing projects until I got that sorted out. I don't work well when I'm ill at ease in my working space. I'm itching to get started though, so I feel like I'm stuck with the handbrake on, revving the engine. Self-imposed schedules are a right bitch.

In order to take my mind off how pissed off and frustrated I am, I think I may have slightly overspent on goodies this month. I've blown maybe more than I should have on books and video games; and definitely more than is healthy on takeaway food; so about a week out from payday I'm practically skint already. I have not been clever.

On the plus side, I've been distracting myself from living in Limbo by playing Limbo on XBLA, which is a beautiful little platform/puzzle game I can't recommend highly enough. In many ways it's quite similar to Braid but with an added pseudo J-Horror feel to it that makes it one of the most atmospheric games I've played in a while.

I'm also cheerfully chugging through Valkyria Chronicles, an old game plucked off the top of my Pile of Shame, although 'cheerfully' is probably the wrong word to use. It's a confusing game - by turns unremittingly bleak and cloyingly twee, it often seems that by playing it you're volunteering to take part in some experiment on the effects of severe mood whiplash. Either that or I'm suddenly bipolar.

Other than that, water is still wet, the sky is still blue, I'm still wide awake later than I wanted to be and it's too late at night to start doing anything new. As a result, I'm surrounded by things to do, and I'm bored witless.

That's how I spend most of my evenings at the moment, and it's more than a little depressing. God, I need to get into a new place as quickly as possible. I think I'm going slightly round the bend.

Unforeseen Events

Not a great deal of progress is going on at the moment. Regrettably, real life has reared its ugly inconvenient head and thrown a bunch of awkward and time consuming bloody problems my way, which means that I will be temporarily suspending all writing activity.

Long story short, my housemate is selling his house to move in with his missus, so I need to find a new home. On my salary, and where I live, it's easier said than done. My employers were good enough to let me take today off at short notice, so much browsing of letting agencies has been going on today, with some encouraging results. But mostly disappointment and incredulity at the prices round here.

To be honest, I've been thinking about relocating for a while - I've been getting a bit weary of Chester. It's nice but there's not much in the way of activities or venues for people of my admittedly narrow set of interests, and it's only my small circle of friends in town that make the place worthwhile. They're top notch people, but I feel the lure of the south tempting me and I've realised how little there is stopping me maybe for the first time. There's a greater likelihood of chumming around with artsy types down south than where I am currently, which can only be good for progress into professional writerdom, so it seems to me that my impending homelessness might end up being a blessing in disguise.

Not that I've found a job down there or anything, and I'm going nowhere until that changes. So I'm also looking for a new home here. I'm hoping I can get somewhere decent with an open contract, so if the opportunity arises I can sod off down south at the first opportunity, but can happily stick around if that takes a while to come to fruition.

In addition to that, I've begun the slow, steady process of learning Dreamweaver so I can make some changes to the website to get it looking extra-swanky for this year's batch of convention attendings. I figure if I'm a bit more hands on and creating the content myself there will be much more of me online, so when people visit my site they will feel like they are staring STRAIGHT INTO MY BRAINS!

Plus i can finally get rid of the WIP next to it in the links section of the old blog here.

See? Lots of things rattling around in my head, and sadly this current script is going to have to wait until things settle down again. Once I get myself sorted in my new digs I can knuckle down to the big 2011 website redesign/writing extravaganza. I've only got until July to finish this current script and the next one. After that I was hoping to put comic books down for a while and start writing my book, so I'm already pretty badly behind schedule.

Maybe a new home in perhaps a new hometown will be the kick up the arse I sorely need. Creatively speaking.