If you're going to get RSA, this is the way to get it

Yesterday I did a mass signing of copies of Constable Colgan's Connectoscope at Unbound HQ. What a joyous job.

And here you can see Isobel and Caitlin working hard getting all of your copies into envelopes ready for posting. Excitements!

It doesn't get any more exciting than this ...

Yes indeedy, those are the trade paperback and special edition hardback editions of Constable Colgan's Connectoscope in the flesh. Well, paper. They arrived in the warehouse last week so they should soon start being posted out to all of you lovely people who pledged on it through Unbound.

The ebook is being prepared as we speak and should be available for release soon. And I start recording the audiobook in a couple of weeks. Good news!

Oh, and if you want a copy of the special hardback edition - get yourself over to Unbound pronto! They won't be around forever and they won't be available in the shops.

Cor! Constable Colgan's Connectoscopic Cover!

Ladies and gentlemen, aliens and robots, may I present the MAGNIFICENT cover of my new book ...

 

Isn't it great? It's by the brilliant writer/illustrator of the popular books Goliath, The Gigantic Robot, Hunter and Painter and You're all just Jealous of my Jetpack, the very splendid Mr Tom Gauld.

I met up with Tom last night to thank him for doing such an amazing job. He's as nice as he is talented.

I must also mention the genius that is designer Mark Ecob who sat down with me to work out what was needed and came up with the perfect cover. Just wait until you see the full wrap-around cover - it's gorgeous! But what do you expect from the guy who was recently entrusted to redesign the covers of Iain Banks' fiction books? With Mark and Tom on board, it couldn't fail.

So, there you go! I've been very spoilt. And we have a cover. And, if you pledged on the book through Unbound, the book will be in your hands soon. It's gone off to the printers and, as they can have up to a six week turn around, it should be ready sometime around late May/early June. The e-book should be ready about the same time and I'm recording the audiobook in June. And then the trade paperback will be in the shops in the Autumn, in time for Christmas!

That said, if you didn't pledge on the book but can't wait until September, you can still pledge here and get a copy sent out to you. However, your name won't now be listed in the back as a funder as there has to be a cut-off point for the print process to start.

Exciting times!

The 22 Golden Rules of Good Story Telling

I'm writing a novel at the moment so I'm always on the lookout for good advice.

It's probably fair to say that Pixar know a thing or two about how to tell a good story. Their movies speak for themselves. Well, for all you budding screenwriters out there, here are Pixar's 22 Golden Rules for storytelling as compiled by one of their former storyboard artists - now writer and director - Emma Coats (she's on Twitter as @lawnrocket).

1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
2: You gotta keep in mind what's interesting to you as an audience, not what's fun to do as a writer. They can be very different.
3: Trying for theme is important, but you won't see what the story is actually about 'til you're at the end of it. Now rewrite.
4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You'll feel like you're losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.
8: Finish your story, let go even if it's not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.
9: When you're stuck, make a list of what WOULDN'T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.
10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you've got to recognize it before you can use it.
11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you'll never share it with anyone.
12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.
13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it's poison to the audience.
14: Why must you tell THIS story? What's the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That's the heart of it.
15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.
16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don't succeed? Stack the odds against.
17: No work is ever wasted. If it's not working, let go and move on - it'll come back around to be useful later.
18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.
19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d'you rearrange them into what you DO like?
21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can't just write ‘cool'. What would make YOU act that way?
22: What's the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

Via The Pixar Touch Blog

Bad, Bad Sex

Nancy Huston has won the 20th annual Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award for Infrared, a novel whose central character, Rena Greenblatt, is a photographer who enjoys nothing more than taking infrared snaps of her lovers mid-canoodle. The award – established in 1993 by the late Auberon Waugh (son of Evelyn) to draw attention to the “crude, badly written or perfunctory use of passages of sexual description in contemporary novels, and to discourage it” – could hardly have had a more deserving victor than Huston. Here is one of her offending (not to say offensive) passages:

“He runs his tongue and lips over my breasts, the back of my neck, my toes, my stomach, the countless treasures between my legs, oh the sheer ecstasy of lips and tongues on genitals, either simultaneously or in alternation, never will I tire of that silvery fluidity, my sex swimming in joy like a fish in water, my self freed of both self and other, the quivering sensation, the carnal pink palpitation that detaches you from all colour and all flesh, making you see only stars, constellations, milky ways, propelling you bodiless and soulless into undulating space where the undulating skies make your non-body undulate…”

Glorious, eh?

Here are the runners-up:

The Adventuress: The Irresistible Rise of Miss Cath Fox by Nicholas Coleridge:

“In seconds, the duke had lowered his trousers and boxers and positioned himself across a leather steamer trunk, emblazoned with the royal arms of Hohenzollern Castle. ‘Give me no quarter,’ he commanded. ‘Lay it on with all your might.’ Cath did as she was told, swishing the twigs hard onto the royal bottom.”

The Quiddity of Will Self, by Sam Mills:

“ … oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, Will, oh, yes, oh, semen-bedizened blood-pusillanimous bed onanistic quiddity fulcrating pelvic thrusts smoke thick typewriter’s click-clack-click Will Our Cock is Spent screaming loving Will is pleased Will is Saved I have done it I have done I am the Chosen One I am his Chosen One oh Will for ever I am yours for ever I am yours for ever I am.”

The Divine Comedy by Craig Raine:

“And he came. Like a wubbering springboard. His ejaculate jumped the length of her arm. Eight diminishing gouts. The first too high for her to lick. Right on the shoulder.”

Noughties, by Ben Masters:

“We got up from the chair and she led me to her elfin grot, getting amongst the pillows and cool sheets. We trawled each other’s bodies for every inch of history. I dug after what I had always imagined and came up with even more.”

Back to Blood, by Tom Wolfe:

“But then the tips of her breasts became erect on their own, and the flood in her loins washed morals, despair, and all other abstract assessments away in a cloud of some sort of divine cologne of his. Now his big generative jockey was inside her pelvic saddle, riding, riding, riding, and she was eagerly swallowing it swallowing it swallowing it with the saddle’s own lips and maw”

The Yips by Nicola Barker:

“He knows her body now, even tightly sheathed and slippery as it is; a ripe, red plum, its yellow flesh pressing out against the smooth arc of its cool, fragrant skin. He understands the basic groundwork, has visited the orchard like a hungry finch, has gorged on the fruit and rejected the pips, has explored the geography.”

Rare Earth by Paul Mason:

“He switched to some ancient steppe language as he ejaculated, blubbering and incoherent. Chun-li faked an orgasm, keeping her mind focused on an eighth-century lyric of sadness, and her face still as a lake in winter. Khünbish collapsed below the neck of the horse, where he clung now, like a forlorn circus rider, as the steppe cacophony segued seamlessly into the kind of trickling-stream-plus-birdsong music they play in mental hospitals to calm things down.”

First published in The Independent.

Editors! Be vigil, though!

It used to be quite hard to find genuinely bad books. Traditional publishing houses have commissioners and editors and critical readers who sift the wheat from the chaff. The odd corker slipped through now and again but it was a rarity.

But the landscape of publishing is changing rapidly. The arrival of affordable digital printing now means that anyone can publish a book. So-called 'vanity publishing' (I prefer the less judgemental term 'self-publishing') is on the increase and companies like Lulu, Café Press, Blurb and Authorhouse now provide a complete service from manuscript to marketing and can organise print runs from one to a million copies if you’re willing to pay. You can also post an e-book directly to Amazon or iTunes; a fact that's had a huge injection of publicity since 50 Shades of Grey came out. All of which means that publishing is now a realistic and affordable option for everyone. It's a good thing. But it's also a bad thing because the floodgates have been opened and there are no filters in place.

Writers need good editors. Just pick up a newspaper or magazine today and count the number of errors. Mistakes have increased dramatically in the past few years because cost-cutting has led to the laying off of sub-editors in their droves. Without editors, we're utterly reliant on the author who may be a wonderfully imaginative storyteller but doesn't necessarily have a good grasp of proper grammar, spelling and syntax. Without editors the author may miss a glaring plot-hole or continuity error; as I know from experience, it's very easy to become so close to a project, so deeply involved, that you can't see something that's staring you in the face. I once wrote a novel and gave it out to several critical readers who all pointed out the same omission regarding one of my characters. I'd created an entire back story and biography for the character. I'd also had a very clear idea in my head what they looked like but hadn't described them as fully as I should. Consequently, when something happens later that relates to his son having lost an eye as a child, my editors pointed out that I hadn't mentioned that before. It was a silly mistake on my part. Thank goodness for editors.

All of which brings me to the point of this ramble. I know that many people who read this blog are writers or budding writers. What I'm saying to you is, take advantage of new media. Get your book out any way you can. But do let people read it first: people you know who read, who know books; people who are good writers themselves; people with good English skills; people you know well enough that they can be honest and constructively critical with you. I do it all the time and it is invaluable.

But let me show you what happens if you don't.

Back in 1997, I was asked to paint the front cover of a book. The book was called The Wayfarer: Bilbabalbabul and it was by a man called Aaron Jones. How he'd heard of me I don't know. Why he chose me is even more of a mystery. I was a cartoonist and illustrator back then - I've only really learned to paint in the past couple of years and I'm still learning. However, he started talking some quite decent money so I said yes, callow money-grubber that I am. Naturally I wanted to read the book to find suitable inspiration for the painting, so the reclusive Mr Jones sent me a copy of the manuscript via his printers (I never got to meet the man) and a copy of his previous book Souls of the Universe.



The back cover blurb for the book told me this:

‘He had heard of the great immortal city; the citadel of mystery and foreboding. It was the fabulous infamous city all outsiders feared to enter. Yet the bold wayfarer became obsessed by its existence, thus he sought to find it. On his far journeys he would confront all evil obstacles, encounter the wizards of science, the wondrous characters; wild and weird communities. He visited the inns and taverns, braved the deep forests, and he relished the damsels. But he knew he must one day find and behold the phenomenon; thence brazenly enter into the citadel of Bilbabalbabul.’

This was English of a kind I'd not really encountered before. I started to read the manuscript. The book begins with a description of the Middle Earth-like world of Gyral the Tall Elf:

‘This was a world known by so many names in aeons past, whose indigenous life intelligence had evolved through millions of years; through epochs of profound science and technology, through an age when they had mastered space travel; ventured to the far stars and had brought back many alien things. Super minerals and materials, life forms of numerous kinds; thus had created a world of time resilient synthetics; a world of hybrids, of humans; a mixture of countless breeds gone wild.’

Having set the scene, Jones then goes on to tell the tale of Gyral the Tall Elf, his flatulent talking mount Lollyvok, and their adventures in the grimly mysterious and extraordinarily named city of Bilbabalbabul. He does so with a disregard for English grammar and punctuation that borders on genius. He sprinkles semicolons around like sawdust on a Hobbit’s floor and happily substitutes synonyms without realising that he’s swapped from verb to noun or vice versa or has used a word completely out of context. The result is curiously mangled sentences like:

‘He climbed the hill for to get a better vista.’

'Thus I reassert you; my house, my ladies, viands and refreshments are yours.’

‘You have style in your mode.’

And the delicious:

‘He is diseased beyond repair’.

The book was an extraordinary read. Among my favourite pieces of prose are these treasures:

‘And one room in his grange was said to be filled with a great jumble of curios, antiques, preserved ancient books of wizardry, incantations, and tales of bygone aeons, and everything.’

'The effeminate albino pursed his thick lips in that certain way to suggest he was male, but homosexual.’

‘Gyral was ever vigil with shifty eyes, hand ready with sword. He then heard voices again and saw something shifting among further Orcle trunks. He just kept walking until he came to a clearing. And nothing happened.’

'He then looked on to his destination again, tilted his feather billed hat, Lollyvok broke wind, and off they shuffled under the frowning red sun’.

And my personal favourite:

‘A couple of pigmy beings then came out from a hut, hobbling in that odd swaying simian manner. In fact they looked like pigmy simians.’

Jones self-published the book and kindly sent me a copy. He later released an expanded second edition with over 10,000 additional words. And then, either because the edition sold out (I have no idea of the size of the print run) or, more likely, he’d given them all away, he ordered a third print run and expanded the book still further. This third edition is twice the size of the first. I suspect that Jones may have run out of money by this time though as the cover of the third edition is monochrome rather than full colour.



You can still get copies of The Wayfarer: Bilbabalbabul through outlets like Abebooks and it still has a listing on Amazon. I was surprised to see myself credited as the illustrator (under the nom de plume of Stephen Meryk Colgan - I was still experimenting) as I only painted the cover. And I didn’t do a terribly good job of that. But it was the best I could do at the time and Mr Jones was massively happy with it, apparently. But I say to you now – buy it while you can. It will become a cult classic I’m sure.

But, to be serious for a moment, as much as I love the book, this episode in my life is tinged with regret. I wish I'd had the balls to tell the man that his book was full of mistakes. I wish I'd known him well enough to point out the obvious flaws. But I was just the cover artist; I didn't ever meet him. If anyone did ever get to read it and feedback to him, he obviously ignored it. I suspect no one but me got to read it before it was published. And that's a great shame. I'm not sure the book would ever have been a good book but it would have been a better book with some editing. As it stands, it's so laughably bad that it's unintentionally hilarious.

If it seems like I am attacking Aaron Jones, rest assured I’m not. I think that the book is brilliant in its naivety. It is apparent to anyone who reads The Wayfarer: Bilbabalbabul that Aaron Jones is not a gifted writer but he loves to write. You can feel his passion and you cannot fault the man’s self-belief. And that’s the whole point isn't it? If you love to write then you should write. If it brings you joy, write all the time. And if you desperately want to get published and can't do it by conventional means, there are more avenues available to you than at any time in history. Just make sure you have someone edit it with you before you put it out.

I hope that Aaron Jones is still writing. I hope that seeing his book in print brought him joy. Because that would mean that, despite all of the knock backs and rejections, his passion is undimmed.

Good for him. There's a lesson there for us all.

For more on the world of self-publishing, see my previous posts The worst book ever written and Naked came the spoof.

The Thursday Guest Blogger - Darren Goldsmith

Welcome to this week's Thursday guest blog, an occasional series of discussions, opinion pieces and reviews. This week, it's writer, artist and bass player for Thomas Dolby, Mr Darren Goldsmith. Enjoy.

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I have observed the reaction to the success of E L James’ ‘50 Shades of Grey’ with fascination. Can’t say I’m surprised, however. I’ve been around a bit and I’m big enough and hairy enough to know how people can behave. For the most part, this is nothing more than sneering and snobbishness.

I do wonder how many of the nay-sayers have read it. Not many, I suspect. At least, not more than a passage or two, to confirm what they already know; this is a terrible book, terribly written. How can it have sold so many copies? I blame the hype. Etc.

I’ve not read it either. It doesn’t sound like my cup of tea. But I have no problem – none whatsoever – with the author’s success. I wish her only the best. Seriously, has she killed someone… or dined on kittens? Perhaps people are so enraged because this is the death of literature itself?

Right.

In a conversation on Twitter yesterday (which I backed out of), I made a comment that people liked the book and it made them happy. It doesn’t really go any further than that, does it? Sure, a large percentage of sales will be down to curiosity, based on the news of its success, but that’s how hype works, folks. I understand the book was already selling thousands of copies before the media got a hold of the story anyway, hence their interest in it. But if the concept of hype puzzles you or annoys you, you might need a reality check. Or more time away from the internet/TV.

OK, perhaps the book is badly written (I have no idea) but so what? Really… so what? For the people sneering (mostly writers, I have observed), how the hell does it affect you? It’s probably safe to assume those who read ‘50 Shades of Grey’ are unlikely to be in the market for your work. So don’t worry, your ‘tightly plotted prose’ and ‘brilliantly realised characters’ are perfectly safe. And the book isn’t dragging the publishing industry through the mud, is it? A single book isn’t going to topple (or significantly boost) an industry that’s going through so many changes right now anyway.

E L James was rejected by agents and publishers alike when she first sent the manuscript out. She invested her own money in editing and a decent cover, and word of mouth (the best hype there is) did the job instead. Now those same publishers want a slice. This doesn’t necessarily mean the industry was mistaken regarding the book’s quality, or the author’s ability, but they sure as hell were wrong about what the public want.

One responder to my ‘people like it/the book makes them happy’ comment stated yesterday that she would prefer people to be happy reading better material. Fine. But perhaps those who read ’50 Shades of Grey’ will make that very decision for their next book. They might not. They may never read another. It’s not up to us to judge or enforce.

Another responder claimed my argument was shaky, saying ‘heroin also makes people happy’. What the f**king f**k? I understand that heroin (up to a point) makes people happy… but it’s not harmless. Far from it. Books about soft porn/erotica aren’t addictive and don’t kill people.

Anyway, this last response was why I had to back away from the conversation. My cousin, who would have been 40 this year, died of a heroin overdose when he was 19. I only wish he had been into something as innocuous as ‘50 Shades…’

Keep quietly creating, folks. Don’t sneer. It’s beneath you.

Cheers, Darren.

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The content of gust blogposts do not necessarily reflect my views (although they often do) and are the views of the writer alone. Fancy being the next Thursday guest blogger? Drop me line at stevyncolgan@mac.com or tweet me @stevyncolgan.

No signal? No imagination.

I was watching an old Amicus horror film today; they don't make them like that any more. Amicus, if you don't know them, were a rival to Hammer in the good old days of 1970s British horror. They are most famous for their portmanteau fims - a series of short films strung together by a central overarching storyline - and they include Asylum, Tales from the Crypt, Dr Terror's House of Horror and The House that dripped Blood. Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee were in most of them but they did also boast stars like Donald Sutherland, Terry-Thomas, Diana Dors, Ian Carmichael, Roy Castle, Herbert Lom, Tom Baker, Burgess Meredith, Joan Collins, Jack Palance and many others.

However, what struck me about the film was the use of telephones as a dramatic device - something that we've now lost to some degree. For example, in one scene, arranging to meet someone at a call box results in a murder. In another, a predatory Britt Ekland snips someone's phone line prior to killing them. Does anyone do that any more? Or do they just unplug the router?

In these days of instant global communication and mobile/cell phones, it must be increasingly difficult to isolate the heroes from any chance of help. Writers have to include some artifice (radio mast hit by lightning) or a line like 'No signal!' in every such screenplay. Sadly, however, far too many opt for the latter rather than the former, as you can see in this excellent  'supercut' by blogger Rich Juzwiak..



'97% of the country has signal. We managed to find ourselves in the 3%.'  Yeah, you and just about everyone else, apparently.

'No signal' has quickly become a movie cliche; as boring and predictable as using air ducts to escape (there's a great rant on that very subject here), or using the hatch in the ceiling of a lift (have you ever been in a lift that had one??), or rubbing two wires together under the steering wheel to hot-wire a car (complete arse gravy - you try it). You can do better. And we deserve better.

Saying that, where's the consistency? Apparently, you can't get a signal in most open spaces in the world but you can get a signal in a bomb-proof bunker and accept a call from your daughter? That was the one irksome thing in the Season 1 finale episode of the otherwise excellent Homeland. And don't get me started on the iPhone that still had a charge after several years in a box in the Dirk Gently pilot ...

In Sky's drama Mad Dogs, the four stars agree to put their phones in a safe because they won't have a proper break 'if the office can get hold of us'. The subsequent murder of the safe's owner (and loss of the combination) means that they are truly isolated. That's infinitely better than 'No signal' isn't it? As you saw in the second half of that video just now, there are other, more inventive, ways to cut people off from civilisation.

The arrival of new technology means that, as writers, we have to be more inventive in finding new ways to circumvent it. So I think it's fair to say that the day I put 'No signal' into a book or script is the day I should probably hang up my writing hat.

Of course, I love new technology and don't really miss the old analogue phones on a cable. However I do miss the ability to slam a phone receiver down on the cradle in anger or frustration. Pressing the red disconnect button to the sound of a gentle beep just isn't the same, is it?

Unbound Live 3

Le Baron at The Embassy Mayfair in London was the venue last night for Unbound Live 3; an evening of readings, talks and general tomfoolery by a bunch of authors who all have books either funded or part-funded with Unbound Publishing. You get to Le Baron by walking through a set of plush leather-covered doors and descending a staircase. Once you get downstairs, you find a cosy cellar club - very cool, very sophisticated - the kind of place where beat poets have throw-downs and B-list celebs hold birthday parties for their chihuahuas. The first thing that greets you as you walk in the door is a six feet tall sculpture of Mickey Mouse in bright pink fibreglass. Good grief. I'm told it's a Jeff Koons (it doesn't look like it to me - it kind of looks more like a Ron English - but I will track down the artist). All I know is that it's very very scary. And just a little bit humbling.

The second thing I spotted was this notice behind the bar ...

... which I immediately took a photo of. Many private clubs do, of course, have a no photo policy. It's nice to have little havens where the paparazzi are politely invited to feck off. However, because this was an organised event and not a normal members night, I could snap away with impunity. So I did. And here are a few of the pictures I took.

The evening started with a rousing introduction from Unbound co-founder John Mitchinson followed by Mr Robert Llewellyn reading from his Utopian novel News from Gardenia. It's a lovely book - I've read mine already - which has a genuinely positive view of the future. Robert gives us a story in which a chap from the present day is thrown 200 years into the future but, rather than the usual post-apocalyptic or dystopian societies so beloved of Hollywood and sci-fi novelists, in this future we got it right. The book shows us how things could be if we make the right choices now about technology, fuel, even how we choose to live our lives. As you'd expect from someone with Robert's CV, his reading was funny, animated and great to listen to. But could I wheedle any snippets from him about the new series of Red Dwarf? Could I smeg.

 

Then it was me, doing my bit to convince people to fund my new book Constable Colgan's Connectoscope. It seemed to go okay. No one threw anything anyway. Well, nothing too hard or spiky.

I was followed by the always entertaining Adrian Teal with a pitch for his excellent Gin Lane Gazette. His lurid tales of Georgian debauchery were hilarious - even more so because they were all true. I was particularly amused by the tale of how John Wilkes hid a baboon in a trunk and smuggled it into a meeting of the notorious Hellfire Club. During a mock black mass, the animal was freed from the box, causing many there to believe that the Devil had made an appearance. It just so happens that I live about three miles from the Dashwood estate and the Hellfire caves so it's a story I know well. I've rarely heard it told so humorously though.

We then had some spirited poetry from George Chopping's Smoking with Crohn's anthology and a musical interlude from the very talented Miss V. George had even gone so far as to write an anthem for Unbound which he sang with some gusto and in a variety of keys. Miss V, thankfully, was very much on key and has a glorious voice. She serenaded us beautifully as we scrabbled at the bar during the intermission and tried to avoid bumping into Mickey's nob.

Part Two kicked off with Keith Kahn-Harris plugging his book The Best Waterskier in Luxembourg. It's a wonderful collection of big fish in small ponds celebrity stories. Don't you want to meet the best heavy metal band in Botswana? Or the most powerful politician on Alderney? I know I do. I'm really looking forward to this book. Then comedian Katy Brand took the stage to read - for the very first time anywhere - an exclusive chapter from her first novel Brenda Monk is Funny. It's clearly semi-autobiographical in nature and the extract we heard gave some idea of the trials and tribulations of being a female stand-up comedian. I'm delighted to reveal that Katy is appearing in the new series of QI that starts recording shortly.

The performances ended with comedian, chef and ranconteur Hardeep Singh Kohli telling us all about his book A Month of Sundays; a celebration (with recipes) of the sadly disappearing tradition of getting the family together on a Sunday to eat, drink and be merry. Here he is - the only man cool enough to wear shades in a darkened underground nightclub - and demonstrating why he's kniown as the Chic Sikh. Or will be from now on.

Hardeep said something quite profound during his talk. Well, he said a number of profound things but, having drunk much of central London's Cornish brewery beer supplies, I can only remember the one that struck the deepest chord with me. It went something like 'Unbound is publishing the books that traditional publishers are too arrogant or too short-sighted to publish. This is the future. We've seen it happen with music, now it's happening with books; it's the consumer who should be making the decisions, not the accountants.' I couldn't agree with him more.

It was a very entertaining evening and it was nice to meet people who, although they weren't speaking, also have some great projects on the go. Joel Meadows was there, whose Tripwire at 20  is a wonderful anniversary book for one of the best - if not the best known - genre magazines on the market. Legendary 80s clubland photographer Graham Smith was there too and I did make off with a signed copy of his We can be Heroes. I also met up with old frends and Twitter chums Mo McFarland, Steve Hills, Terry Bergin, Stuart Witts, Xander Cansell, start up genius Robert Loch and film director Richard Butchins.

A great night out - roll on Unbound Live 4. And if any of the books I've mentioned sound like something you'd want to read, follow the links and pledge!

  

The 10% Milestone Drawing Draw

Note: Since I wrote this post (below) not only did I go past the 10% mark but beyond it. Therefore, the cut off date and time is Midnight (BST) TONIGHT, the 11th May. Good luck!

My new book, Constable Colgan's Connectoscope, is rapidly approaching 10% of the pledges it needs to become a reality. To mark the occasion I'm going to run a prize draw.

At Midnight (BST) on the day that the 10% is reached, I'll put the names of everyone who has pledged into a hat and draw one out. The winner will get a brand-new, hand-drawn piece of bespoke original artwork from me - and they'll choose the subject matter. It'll be around A4-sized and black and white. Something like these ... but with the winner telling me what to draw:






Want to be in with a chance of winning? Pledge now! It's the best chance you'll have because there will be more and more people in each draw as we pass 20%, 30%, 40% etc ...

Visit Unbound and pledge!

Constable Colgan's Connectoscope is here!

In 2008, I published Joined-Up Thinking (Pan Macmillan) - a series of mad circular journeys through the world of trivia. Now, four years later, I'm back with Constable Colgan's Connectoscope. Bigger, fatter, madder and more entertaining than ever. And so is the book.

I'm publishing the book with Unbound because, in this double-dip, austere, money-is-all-that-matters economy, they are doing something new and exciting and, in my opinion, right. They're putting the power to decide what gets published back into the hands of the readers, rather than company accountants. With Unbound, you get to decide whether my new book becomes a reality. Yes, it's a gamble for me. But I believe in my book and I believe in what Unbound stands for. And I'm not alone. In this past year they've published the likes of Terry Jones, Jonathan Meades, Robert Llewellyn, Kate Mosse and Mrs Stephen Fry. I'm proud to be joining the list.

So, if you want to see my new book become a reality visit Unbound now and pledge. You can pledge at various levels for the e-book, the physical book or for some other tasty treats and enticements I'm offering. Even at the lowest levels you'll get your name in the book and have access to my 'Author's Shed' where I'll regale you with content that the rest of the public don't get to see.

Still not sure? Then try Joined-Up Thinking first. It's a few years old now and you can pick it up dirt-cheap on Amazon and other book sites or, of course, in a book shop. Or look at the reviews posted over in the right hand column of this blog. I've never had a bad one. Which is nice.

Damn you're a hard sell. Okay then. Watch this video. Then click HERE and pledge! Pledge like the wind!

Seventh time lucky?

It's never fun when reality smacks you in the face. It can be painful. It can be humbling. It can knock you down, puncture your ego and stamp all over your dreams in hob-nailed boots. With spikes on the bottom. But, if you take the hit, rub your jaw and are strong enough to stand up ready for whatever comes next, then reality can also be a powerful way to get your life in order; to work out what's wrong and to figure out how to put it right.

Take my art, for example. Over the past few days, lots of people have told me how much they like the Bagpuss/Jabba the Hutt crossover painting I just did (see a couple of posts back). Someone asked me if I planned to have it made up as a print for sale. So I cavassed opinion on Twitter. Would anyone buy a print? And, out of my 3000+ followers, six said yes. Well, actually, two were maybes. Which was pretty much what I expected. You see, the reason I gave up trying to be a pro artist last year is the uncommercial nature of what I like to paint. If I'm brutally honest, I wouldn't hang any of my paintings on my wall. And that's not me being hyper-critical. I can honestly say that if I saw that Bagpuss picture, and it had been painted by someone else, I'd like it, I'd laugh at it, but I wouldn't buy it. So why would anyone else? If I compare it to the work of a popular artist such as Paul Slater (see previous post), I can see what I do wrong. His colours are much more subtle and considered. His humour is mature. Galleries love him. No galleries want my stuff. I'd love to be as good as him. But I'm not. Maybe if I keep on practising I'll get close. But the point I'm making here is that when the reality hit me that I will never earn a living as an artist it wasn't a bad thing. It made me realise that art should just be a hobby for me. And it will be because I like painting and I like what I produce even if it isn't commercial. That reality slap made me focus on the things I am good at.

I know that I'm a  better writer than I am an artist. People do like my stuff - I've just had a terrible run of luck. As I've reported before (here and, in more detail, here), I have had several close calls with success, including having a Doctor Who script accepted by the BBC and co-writing two episodes for Gerry Anderson's revamped CGI Captain Scarlet series that would have been used if the show hadn't been cancelled after season one. I've had near misses with novels too. I've written five books - yes, five - that, I was sure, all had great central ideas. And I was right. I know I was right because five other books with the same idea beat me to publication, rendering my books forever unsaleable. It's just cruel coincidence of course but it stings like battery acid in a cut and there's nothing you can do about it.

I turned to non-fiction and, many would say, finally found success with Joined-Up Thinking. It's true that I got a book deal with Pan Macmillan. It's true that I got a terrific advance because everyone - from The Bookseller to The Telegraph and The Times - reckoned it was going to be a massive hit. Stephen Fry did a cover quote. I did scores of interviews. I had a launch party at the Phoenix Theatre in London. The book has never, to date, had even the hint of a bad review. But it bombed. A combination of factors - most notably the loss of almost every major high street bookstore chain in the months leading up to release - meant that the book got no publicity whatsoever. It came out amid a huge raft of highly-publicised celeb biographies and no one knew my book even existed. To date, it has still not made its advance back. All of which means that no traditional publisher will now touch me - I'm a 'bad investment'. My agent has not been able to get me even a nibble for nearly four years.

Slap! Reality check!

So yes, I've had a shit time of it. And yes, I'm pretty toxic. But that means that other avenues are ripe for exploration. Crowd-funding is one such avenue and I'm delighted to tell you that I have a new book coming out very soon with Unbound (Even that suffered a slight hiccup as it was meant to come out before Christmas but a book with a similar format and an almost identical tagline came out just before. Again! Aaargh! So I had to go away and re-think the structure). But we're ready to go again now and I'm hoping I don't get gazumped for a seventh time!

Reality does suck sometimes. And life isn't fair but it's no use whingeing about it. There will always be people who seem to get every advantage, deserved or otherwise. And there will always be people like me who, if they fell in a barrel of boobies would come out sucking their thumbs. But there's strength in adversity. It's made me leaner (not physically obviously), hungrier (why I'm not lean, physically), more determined, more focused. I've stripped away the stuff that will never earn me a living and concentrated on what I'm best at. And if this new book does okay, it'll go some way towards 'clearing my name' with the publishing world. I'm ready for the next punch. Bring it on.

I'll be pimping the book like a madman very soon. Watch this space. x

Red-faced with humble appreciation

As an author, the release of any new book has you rushing to read the reviews in the hope that they've been kind. As I've said before, I don't necessarily believe that reviewers' and critics' opinions are any more valid or important than anyone else's, but they do influence the buyers so you hope that they like it. Thankfully, I've not yet had a bad review. It's all been deliciously nice and ego-boosting (a bunch of them are over on the right hand side of this blog page).

However, what really matters is reader feedback - they're the people whose views count the most. And, again, I've been very lucky here because it's all been very kind. And so, with a new book on the horizon, I thought it might be nice to include a few reader reviews for the 'What people said about the last book' page. And I suddenly realised that I'd never looked to see if I had any reviews on Amazon.

They're great! There's a very clever review that mimics the internal structure of the book by a Mr William J Pope that goes:

'I'm sure you've done that thing during a rambling conversation when you wonder how you ever got to, say, the Large Hadron Collider, when you began talking about, for example, the smell of a dry cleaners. It happens when you are truly comfortable with your companions and feel so light and happy just being together that no subject is off limits and no link is so tenuous as to be considered off the conversation. You laugh at the shared silliness and creativity as you try to recall the paths you've wandered together.

Uniquely, at least in my experience, Stevyn Colgan conveys that same sense of easy, jamming fun in print. He makes you feel you are in good, bright, welcoming and very entertaining company.

But he isn't rambling. Far from it.

Instead of chapters, the book is organised into rounds, beginning at a seemingly arbitrary point and ending up right back there, in Finnegans Wake style, despite meandering and exploring the unlikeliest of back lanes and byways. Every topic is linked somehow, and always remarkably, to the next. And along the way you find yourself being enjoyably guerrilla educated, as if by a really good episode of QI. It is rather satisfying and consistent that the author is connected to the show, and the elves to his book.

As you read you occasionally become aware of other connections that could spin you off at tangents and at the end, as you meet again the opening sentence of the round, you really appreciate the author's craft in leading you in just the direction he did.

Then, when you think, a little sadly, that you have come to a natural close, there are more treats in store. Not least among which is that rarest of literary delights, a truly entertaining index. So that you are not left wondering how you ever came to this unexpected place from page 1, it cheerfully guides your recall and all the amusing digressions and serendipitous links you have enjoyed.

It's a feeling that's familiar to us all.

I'm sure you've done that thing, during a rambling conversation ... '

And I didn't pay him or anything. I don't even know him. But I thank him dearly as this kind of feedback means more to me than any amount of professional reviews. I also loved this comment by Martyn Davies:

'Colgan is obviously deeply disturbed, and I commend him for it.'

And the gloriously informative words of Mrs Jana Faris:

'Bought it for a friend, very fast delivery, book looked new, very happy with the purchase.'

With my new book soon to be launched, it's encouraging to see that, so far at least, I've apparently kept the readers happy. Long may it continue!

Albert Unbound

The Albert Memorial is one of those things that I've often seen while passing by in a bus or a taxi. Or it's been there, lurking in the corner of my eye, while visiting somewhere nearby like the Royal Albert Hall or the various museums in South Kensington. Despite having lived or worked around London for more than 30 years I'd never actually visited the monument before. But today I was due to film a short video with the publishers Unbound in Kensington Gardens and they'd decided to rendezvous at the memorial. And I'm glad they did. I got there a little early and had a chance to have a damned good look at it (click on the photo to see larger versions):

It's an extraordinary, completely over-the-top, Gothic Victorian explosion. And it looks beautiful having recently undergone a massive restoration. There's gold everywhere, most notably covering John Henry Foley's and Thomas Brock's sculpture of Prince Albert which, for many years was black. All around the base there is the 'frieze of Parnassus' depicting 169 individual musicians and poets on the south side, painters on the east, sculptors on the west, and architects on the north. Henry Hugh Armstead carved the figures on the south and east side and John Birnie Philip carved the others. At the four points of the monument are magnificent group sculptures built around a large animal and representing the four great continents of the British Empire: Africa, Europe, America and Asia. Australasia doesn't feature as modern Australia only came into existence in 1901.

There are additional allegorical figures around the central 'Albert' area that represent agriculture, commerce, engineering and manufacture. And then there's that amazing, church spire-like ciborium that sits over the top of it all, decorated with beautiful inlaid Italian mosaics and even more friezes. Above that there are gilt statues of figures representing the sciences: Astronomy, Geology, Chemistry, Geometry (on the four pillars) and Rhetoric, Medicine, Philosophy and Physiology (in the four niches). Higher still there are eight figures that depict the moral and Christian virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity, Humility, Fortitude, Prudence, Justice and Temperance. Then, right at the top, there is a large  gold cross and a gang of angels raising their arms heavenwards.

Following the restoration, the monument has been fenced off from the public but even the fence is a thing of beauty with golden curls and finials that mirror those on the monument.

The Albert Memorial is probably the closest thing we have in the UK to the Taj Mahal; a huge public statement about love and loss. Victoria commissioned Sir George Gilbert Scott to design and organise its construction in 1862 and it took 10 years to complete. The cost was around £120,000 which would equate to something like £10 million today. And yet the whole thing was paid for by the public. This was a nation mourning the queen's consort. Can you imagine that today?

Now, the reason I was there, as I said at the start, was to film a short video with Unbound. I won't reveal too much yet but, suffice to say, I will have a new book out shortly. As a teaser, here are a few photos from the day.

Watch this space for more news ...

It might have been Catch-18

I'm just going through the agony of coming up with a title for the new book. It's such an important part of the overall packaging and having the right title is crucial. Occasionally, I get it right after much deliberation. Other times the title jumps instantly to mind and fits the book immediately. I have an unpublished novel called The Dysfunctional Strippers Club and it's the perfect title for the story within. I wish this new book was as inspired.

As you may know, I don't believe we got it right with my first book, Joined-Up Thinking. When I wrote it, it was actually called The Six Degrees of Rick Wakeman, which nicely brought in the idea of 'six degrees of separation' and echoes the title of one of Rick's best-known solo albums, The Six Wives of Henry VIII. Why Rick Wakeman? Simply because he is the most connectible human on the planet (apart from Kevin Bacon) and he kept turning up with alarming regularity as I researched various topics. Quite apart from his digital virtuosity with bands like Yes and The Strawbs, he was a prolific session man and, famously, is the piano on many hit songs such as David Bowie's Life on Mars and Cat Stevens' Morning has broken. Plus he does TV and endless charity work, owns comedy clubs and was a notorious hellraiser before alcoholism and several heart-attacks set him on the path to a better lifestyle.

However, the marketing people - mostly in their 20s - felt that it was 'too obscure' a reference and would affect sales within the demographic that they were aiming at. Given that my cover quotes were by Stephen Fry and John Mitchinson - one of the creators and writers of QI - I was pretty sure my potential readership were smart-enough and well-informed enough to get the gag. But it all turned out to be academic anyway as Rick was launching the first volume of his memoirs around the same time as me and his management people wouldn't allow me to use it. And so, at the 11th hour and with no better title in the bag, we went with the wholly inaccurate Joined-Up Thinking.

I wrote a sequel last year and, once again, started going through the motions of finding the right title. I did consider using the original title and contacted Rick who was up for it and even agreed to write a foreword. But then his management people pointed out that the latest volume of his memoirs was due out ... and history repeated itself. Eventually, and after much deliberation, I settled on the title Thought Circuits: Circular strolls through a world of connectible trivia. I found a publisher, work began to prep the book for a Christmas 2011 release but then, extraordinarily, I was kind-of gazumped.

In November Icon Books released The Etymologicon by Mark Forsyth (also known as The Inky Fool) which went flying up the non-fiction book charts and was made BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. The Etymologicon's strapline was 'A circular stroll through the hidden connections of the English language' and the format was almost identical to that of Thought Circuits and 2008's Joined-Up Thinking; a chain of facts, each connected to the fact before and the fact after, and with the final fact looping around to connect to the first. It's just a coincidence of course but it kiboshed my release and we were forced back to the drawing board to think about re-packaging. So that's what's going on at the moment. We're hoping to get the book out in the next month or so.

But all this talk of book titles and how important they are did make me remember a list I saw once of the provisional titles for now famous books and I thought I'd share some of them with you.

H G Wells The Time Machine was originally titled The Chronic Argonauts and D H Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover might have been called Tenderness. John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men was once called Something that Happened and Gone with the Wind might have been called Tote the Weary Load had Margaret Mitchell not reconsidered. Peter Benchley's Jaws was first called The Terror of the Monster and The Summer of the Shark, and F Scott Fitzgerald had a flurry of ideas before settling on The Great Gatsby. They included Incident at West Egg, Among Ash Heaps and Millionaires, The High-Bounding Lover and Trimalchio in West Egg. Jane Austen's masterwork Pride and Prejudice is all the better for not being called First Impressions, and if Joseph Heller had stuck to his guns we'd now be using the phrase 'Catch-18 Situation' instead of Catch-22.

I'm pleased they all found their perfect title. I hope I can too.

Unemployable

Like many authors, I'm finding times hard. The publishing industry has become very scared of anything that isn't a populist sure-fire hit (invariably celebrity-based or TV tie-in) and advances have shrunk so drastically that many writers simply can't make ends meet. While the likes of Pippa Middleton are landing advances in excess of £400,000 for writing a book on party planning, the pot for those of us with slightly less impressive buttocks and in-laws is getting ever-smaller. The average advance is currently something like £1000-£5000 and that simply isn't enough for an author to live on while they write the book.

But I'm better off than most; I at least have the safety net of a police pension which means that the mortgage is paid and so are most of the bills. Most, but not all. I've had to tighten my belt and lose some luxuries. I drive a beaten up old estate car instead of the nice BMWs I once had. There are no HD TVs or iPads to be seen and I'm seriously considering ditching Sky TV. I haven't had a holiday in a number of years and I have to think twice before going into London to see my friends. But there's food on the table and hot water in the pipes so I am thankful for what I have. So many are worse off than me. I mustn't grumble.

Tomorrow marks my 2nd anniversary as 'self-employed', which, in my case, actually means 'unemployed'. No book deals have been forthcoming and the art work completely dried up. So, about 18 months ago I thought I might try for a job; maybe something part-time, just to give me a little bit extra for when those unexpected car repairs come in or to cover the vet's bills when Farty Dog swallows something angular and indigestible. After all, I thought to myself ... I'm smart, I'm trustworthy, I'm a hard worker, I've written books and stuff. How hard can it be?

I can now officially reveal that the answer is 'Bloody'. I cannot get a job. I've applied to work in an art gallery, at a local theatre, at three different schools (and three different jobs at one of those schools), a museum, a farm shop and a butchers. I've talked to the local police and fire service, the library and the local university. About the only thing I haven't tried yet is stacking shelves in TESCO. But they'd say 'No' anyway as I have two prolapsed discs in my back that precludes a lot of lifting (and I could NEVER work for a company whose morals are so lacking). Am I really so unemployable? Apparently so. I don't even get to the interview stage.

The latest application came back yesterday as 'thanks but no thanks' because I didn't have the qualifications they required. That was the only reason given. It was a job archiving some books and film. The qualification they asked for was a non-specific degree. This is indicative of the whole 18 months experience. Let me tell you something about me:

I was, for some time, part of the Met Police's Training Design Team. I was joint lead of the project team that completely revamped police diversity training in the wake of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. I helped to write training programmes for an organisation bigger than the Royal Navy. I wrote and directed training videos. I won awards. I taught officers and staff from the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, and many UK and overseas police forces. And I archived the entire organisation's training library and was one of the founder members of the first ever IT-based training system for police which has since grown to become the National Centre for Applied Learning Technologies. I sat on Home Office working parties and wrote speeches for people as diverse as Tony Blair and Fiona Bruce. I've lectured across the UK and USA and was a founding member of the Problem Solving Unit that retrained every single community policing team in London. I've made monsters for movies. I've made exhibits for the Natural History Museum. I've had two books published. I've written for the QI Annuals and had my artwork appear on the TV show and been abused for it by Jimmy Carr and Jack Dee. I am more than capable of archiving a few fecking books and films.

So, I went through their person spec and job description and, for each requirement, provided evidence of my competence. Oh, and my referees were the managing director of a very successful training company and the man who invented QI and Spitting Image and produced Blackadder and Not the Nine O'Clock News, my good friend John Lloyd. Oh, and he co-wrote parts of The Hitchhikers; Guide to the Galaxy too. But that didn't impress them enough to even bother giving me an interview. 'As we stated clearly in the advertisement and person specification, we are seeking someone with a degree' they reminded me. Even if it had been in something unrelated like Marine Biology or 17th Century architecture I would have stood a better chance than having 30 years experience doing the very work they wanted doing. 

Sadly, one of the problems of having been part of the public services is that you might learn an extraordinarily wide range of skills but you don't get a nice piece of paper that says 'This bloke is good at X, Y and Z'. You can do external qualifications of course, but only in your own time, which is tough when you have a family and a demanding job that involves ever-changing shifts, including night duty. I managed to get a few small qualifications and my Certificate in Education but I could never find the time to do a degree. And now the chances of doing one are remote as, without a job, I simply can't afford to undertake it.

Experience also comes with age of course. I'm 50. But I'm not an old 50. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I have more energy and drive than most 20 year olds. But it's still a big number and, I'm sure, it has a bearing on some applications. They say that you can't discriminate these days and they can't ask your age on the application form. But every form - especially if it's a public sector job - comes with an equality monitoring form where I have to provide my ethnicity and my age. Call me an old cynic ...

However, I'm not down about it. As I said, I have a roof over my head and food on the table and most of the bills get paid. I can tighten my belt some more and there's already talk of downsizing. Meanwhile I've decided that there's simply no more point in applying for jobs I won't get. Instead, I'm going to attempt to plough my own furrow. There's a good chance I can get my next book out there using crowd-funding and, in the last few days, there's been a glimmer of interest in a kids' book I've written. I'm looking at venues to start running art classes locally and I'm approaching schools about coming in to talk about creativity. I'm also going back on the road doing a series of talks about creativity, critical thinking and crime science - the first few are coming up soon (see top right of blog page).

The past 18 months have been very humbling and, at times, genuinely depressing. They've made me realise that spending 30 years trying to help people and make the world a slightly safer place is worth precisely nothing. In fact, when being rejected for one of the school jobs, I was told that having been a cop meant the kids would never trust me. Great. It's also made me realise that my wealth of life experience is similarly worth feck all. But it's not all doom and gloom. I am reasonably smart, moderately healthy and have all my own teeth. If the world of work won't embrace me then to Hell with it. I'll employ myself.

Or become a 'bear' on the gay prostitute circuit.

Words you didn't know you didn't know 3

Following on from Words you didn't know you didn't know, Words you didn't know you didn't know 2, German words you didn't know you didn't know, Words you didn't know you didn't know that start with A and Anglo-Saxon words you didn't know you didn't know, here's another selection of words for everyday objects that may skipped under your radar.

Achenes - (pronounced ah-keens) The little yellow seeds on the outside of a strawberry.
Arcuate Vanes - The raised ridges on the top surface of a Frisbee.
Baisemain - That slightly creepy kiss on the female hand beloved of cads and bounders.
Bobèche - The widened ring at the top of a candlestick that catches the first of the melted wax.
Calamus - The tubey bit at the base of a feather that is cut for use as a quill pen.
Caruncula - That pink blob in the inside corner of your eye where all the sleepy grit forms.
Dragées - (pronounced drah-zhay) The proper name for those edible silver balls you put on top of cakes.
Eyes - The correct and somewhat macabre official term for the holes in Swiss cheeses.
Fines - The dusty remnants in the bottom of packets of cereal.
Frog - That hollow in the top and bottom of a housebrick that you slap the cement into.
Gari - The pickled pink ginger slices served with sushi.
Glassine - The thin shiny paper that you get inside boxes of chocolates or from which the chocolate cups are made.
Gluteal Crease - Where your arse meets the top of your thighs.
Grawlix - A series of typographic symbols used to replace a swear word e.g. 'I've cut my &%£! finger off!'
Keeper - The loop on a belt that you tuck the excess into so that it doesn't flap about.
Muselets - The wire cage around a champagne cork.
Pediddle - A car with one headlight out.
Pips - The dots on dice.
Rowels - The spiked wheels on a pair of spurs.
Samaras - The correct name for 'helicopter' seeds shed by sycamore, ash, maple and elm trees.
Splat - The flat piece of wood in the centre of a chair back.
Tang - The part of the knife blade that extends into the handle.
Toorie - The little bobble on top of a tam o'shanter.
Ullage - The air space in the top of a bottle of wine.
Zarf - The metal holder and handle into which a glass teacup fits. Also used for the cardboard sleeve around paper cups in coffee shops although that should be called a clutch.

A Weekend Miscellany (NSFW - Some rude words!)

A few little snippets collected together in one blogpost. To start, here are two interesting features that every creative should read.

The first is this excellent blogpost by Peter James Field which discusses the tricky issue of whether we should ever do work for free.

The second is this article by Ian Rankin who is quite rightly concerned about the terrible financial situation that exists for many writers.

And now for some pictures that amused me this week (click to enlarge):

On the starting grid of 2012

My blog will be five years old this year (August). That's five years of essays, artwork, fascinating facts and general tomfoolery. You can read it all here and on the blog's previous site here.

It was interesting to look back to the very beginning this morning and to see what I wrote on my first ever blogpost:

'I've also had a number of extremely successful meetings recently and have decided to up the ante on pitching my book projects to agents and publishers. I have lifted myself up from the well of despondency and I'm now happily sat in the bucket of optimism.

Onwards and upwards, people. Onwards and upwards.'

It's exactly how I feel right now - energised and raring to go. And it's worth noting that within six months of writing that post in 2006 I'd landed an agent and a book deal.

There's no such thing as luck. I'm convinced of that. Hell, I even spent a whole year trying to prove it one way or another (for an as yet unpublished book). Luck is being in the right place at the right time. But what gets you there is hard work, determination and a thick skin. If you're out there looking for every opportunity then you're in the right place to grab one when capricious fate throws one near you. Opportunity rarely knocks on your front door; you have to hunt it down and bag it in a net.

I've polished my hunting boots and repaired my nets. 2012 is going to be a very good year. 

The Curse of Good Ideas

If  there's one thing that all creative people have to learn to accept, it's the fact that there is no monopoly on a good idea. The curse of good ideas is that, if you've had it, someone else will have had it too. Success in writing has as much to do with being the first past the post as it does about the quality of the product.

Over the past 30 years I've written novels, scripts for TV and film, non-fiction books, song lyrics and, yes, even poetry. And, quite often, I'll have a great idea, work my tits off to make it a reality and then have the rug pulled out from under me when someone has the same idea and gets theirs out before me. In 1995 I wrote a four part TV script called Cowboys and Aliens. No one was interested in the idea at the time as 'cowboys aren't fashionable' (I still maintain that mine was much better than the eventual movie!). In 2004, I wrote an entire novel called Apollo's Vest about the Greek gods fallen on hard times and living in suburbia. But then Marie Phillips' Gods behaving Badly came along with exactly the same idea and is now being made into a film. Although her plot an mine were radically differnt, the core idea was similar enough that I had to abandon it. I wrote another novel a few years earlier - about the time that the Friends Reunited social network appeared - about a bunch of schoolfriends who meet up after a 20 year break and who immediately get sucked into a murder mystery as someone starts bumping them off. It was called The Dysfunctional Strippers Club and I sent it out to agents just two days before Ben Elton announced that he'd written essentially the same book and called it Past Mortem. In 2009 I started work on 364 cartoons of Father Christmas with the intention of submitting a book called Secret Santa - What he does for the other 364 Days. I showed my agent in June 2010. In August 2010 I got word that an almost identical cartoon book by Dave Cornmell called 364 Days of Tedium: or What Santa Gets up to on his Days Off  had got a publishing contract.

That's just four examples. This has happened to me maybe eight or nine times now. It feels like a punch in the guts when it happens and it's very easy to get despondent. But this sort of thing is an occupational hazard as a writer and artist and you just have to learn to accept it.

The same applies to missed opportunities. In the 1990s, producer David Lane put myself and my friend Huw Williams in touch with Gerry Anderson who was re-imagining Captain Scarlet as a CGI series. Gerry asked us, by way of a 'test' to go away and write our version of the two part pilot episode. He gave us Phil Ford's (now a writer on Doctor Who and its spin-offs) commissioned pilot script as a standard against which to measure ours. He obviously liked our take on it because we were asked to submit scripts for Scarlet series 2. Sadly, series 1 flopped so series 2 was never made. The scripts I wrote are now redundant but they were good enough - that's the fact to hang onto. And back in the 1980s, one of my Doctor Who scripts attracted the attention of then-producer John Nathan-Turner and we got as far as considering it for Peter Davison's final season. Sadly, it didn't make the final selection and, with the show being so huge now, the chances of me ever writing for it again are nil squared. But that doesn't negate the fact that my ideas were good enough for the show once before.

When something like this happens, the best thing you can do is get back on the horse, rescue what you can (a lot of your work can be recycled), and gallop off into the sunset to start again. Steven Moffat said much the same thing in an interview with Jason Arnopp: 'It’s all too easy to be a neglected genius in a reeking bedsit, railing at the world.' It is. But you can't adopt a mindset like that. Think of it like this instead: If someone does make a success of the same idea that you had, it proves that your idea was good. You just have to beat them all to the finishing line next time.

Well, it's just happened to me again. A book I was due to start promoting very shortly has been gazumped by a book with a similar format and the 'rival' book is doing very well. I've had to take a step back and do that whole re-evaluating thing and I've missed all of those lovely Christmas sales. Sigh. But I wish nothing but success to the author, and I hope they'd do the same for me if the situation were reversed. It's a tough world out there in publishing land at the moment and we're all struggling to scrape a living from writing. So damn them but damned good luck to them! That's the way the game is played. It would be so easy for me to sit here throwing darts at their photos. But, instead, I've had a little sulk for a few days and now I'm raring to go again. I have fresh ideas, bags of enthusiasm and I'm ready to fight my corner.

Regroup, rethink, re-imagine, recycle, rewrite.

But never give up.