Halfhead

Publicate me, baby...

2008-07-23T14:40:00.003+01:00

Publicate me like I've never been publicated before! Today is something fo a first for me - never before have I had two books out in the same year. And it's kinda cool... OK, so it's not exactly a feeling I'm going to get used to, given how bloody slow I seem to be writing at the moment, but for this year and next I'm going to be a bifurcated write-ist. Not in any physical sense you understand, just a metaphorical one. After all, we've all seen things we'd rather not on the interweb, and I really don't want to go there.

Anyhow, yesterday was the day that SAWBONES officially hit the bookshelves, but I only got my copies this morning. And they're very cool - especially the cover. The only weird thing is the thickness. From the front they look like a regular book, but from the side they've been on a diet. Having been prone to producing doorstopperish 150,000 word monsters, the sight of a scant 18,300 is pretty damn freaky.

It'll be interesting to see the reaction to it start coming in (as of today it's sitting at #49 in Amazon's Mystery chart), but no one's posted a hatchet-job review yet, so that could well change. It's a bit like taking delivery of a brand new car, and waiting for some sock-sucking cock-wad to scratch the paintwork, or bash into it with their shopping trolley, or ding the wing as they open the door of the rusty piece of crap they're long past caring about. You know the sort of people I mean.

Maybe I should just log into Amazon and post a stinker myself? Get the waiting over and done with?

Or maybe I should just knuckle down and get some bloody work done on the second draft of Book Number The Fifth? So far I seem to have been doing everything possible to avoid it.

Finger out, Stuart. Finger out.

Anyway, while my finger is still well and truly entrenched, I shall point one of my other digits to the calender and say, "See that day there? ... No, not that one, I'm pointing at Saturday the 2nd of August. ... Yes, there, now you've got it. Well, I'm going to be at the Union Bridge branch of Waterstones signing copies of SAWBONES... What? ... Oh, yeah, I'll probably be signing other things too. I'm not proud. ... Boobies? Well I don't know about that, but I dare say I could try. ... No, my pen isn't normally that cold. ... Yeah, well, anyway, like I was saying: Watersones, Union Bridge, Aberdeen Saturday the 2nd at 12:30. Be there, or be somewhere else! Like in the pub."

Right, back to work!

Harrogate-arama

2008-07-15T17:09:00.002+01:00

Hurrah: it's Harrogate time again! Those magical 4 days in summer that reek of beer-fuelled crime-writing-related shenanigans. What could be more fun? And this time I'm determined to see Agent Phil perform his now legendary monkey impersonation. Yes, he's small, but he's wiry. I can't believe I missed it last year - that's what I get for being sensible and going to bed before three in the morning.

Well, I am getting on a bit. Mind you, I've been successfully podging up for most of the year, putting on that extra few layers of fat to counteract all that alcohol... Or I could just, you know... go tee-total for the duration. Which sounds like a radical departure from festival etiquette, but both Allan 'mine's a fruit juice' Guthrie and Zoë 'Ooh, I'd kill for a cup of coffee' Sharp* manage it on a regular basis. And they don't come across as soberer-than-thou temperance types either. Damn their un-bloodshot eyes!

And it's not as if I'm going to have much opportunity to get absolutely weaseled, I've got the TOPCNoTY presentation to go to on the Thursday night, and as I'll be on the stage I probably shouldn't be roaring drunk. Then on the Friday night I'm getting thrown out of a balloon, so again sobriety will be the order of the day. So any heathenistic excess will have to take place on the Saturday night. My panel gets out at half four and I'm free as a free thing after that. Woo-hoo!

After all there's no point wasting all this weight I've put on.

And as an extra special treat to myself, whenever anyone asks me to be in their team for the Saturday night pub quiz I'm going to fake a dose of industrial-grade haemorrhoids and slope off to the bar instead. Well, maybe not haemorrhoids, that kind of thing is likely to put off any groupies. Maybe I'll fake something more sophisticated, like gastric flu? Or leprosy?

Or I could just admit that I'd rather creosote Gordon Brown's backside with my toothbrush - and then brush my teeth with it - than sit through another bloody pub quiz?** But personally I'm leaning towards the leprosy.

* And the scary thing is, she probably could - and all she'd need would be a teaspoon and a little sachet of castor sugar.
** I should point out that I know some perfectly nice people who actually enjoy a pub quiz. OK, so there's clearly something deeply wrong with them, psychologically speaking, but you know... each to their own.

Corned beef and Sci-Fi

2008-07-04T15:46:00.004+01:00

As you know I've been stuck in the mud a little of late. Stuck like a sticky stick that someone's stuck steeply into sticky mud. This was mostly because I was suffering from clinical PERE* in addition to my rather severe bouts of CRSD**. Taken in isolation these conditions can be bad enough, but together they lead to much moping and sighing and being a general pain in the arse... By which I mean I was being a pain in the arse, not that my arse had a pain in it. Let's face it, I know we've known each other for a while now, but there are some things that are too personal for the interweb. But don't worry, my arse is fine. Fuzzy, but fine.

Anyway, now that I've got my first-draft edit notes back I can unstick myself. Lubricate myself free of the mire and forge onwards... blah, blah, blah. In an attempt to do this culinarily I decided to have another bash at something that's been a personal bugbear for years: CORNED BEEF. I don't like corned beef. I've never liked corned beef. It's all greasy and fatty and the fact it looks like someone's just haemorrhaged all over a piece of cork tiling doesn't help. But She Who Must Eat Some Bloody Horrible Things likes it, so I thought I'd get some for my lunch today. Not just any old corned yuck from a can either, this was top-notch gourmet corned beef from a butcher of some local renown.

And you know what?

...

It was bloody horrible.

Still, Agent Phil*** did have some good news for me - the cheque from HarperCollins has cleared. Not a Logan check, oh no. This is a cheque of an altogether different stripe. This is a cheque from their Voyager imprint. This is a Science Fiction cheque. HALFHEAD**** was the third book I'd ever written, and it was the one HC were thinking about when I delivered the first draft of COLD GRANITE all those years ago. So I think it's been gestating for about five or six years down there in Hammersmith, and finally it's ready to break it's waters... you know what, I'm not going to go too far down the birthing analogy, because it's going to get messy. And no one really wants to read about piles, do they?

Right, so, HALFHEAD (for which this very blog is named) is a near future thrillery-type thing with essence of police procedural thrown in. No spaceships. No aliens. Just good old-fashioned serial killers, conspiracies, and onomatopoeic weapons. And as an aside, I always think it's a bit odd that if you write a crime novel set in 1532 it's HISTORICAL CRIME FICTION, which is serious and read by serious folks what know lots of stuff. But if you write the same story set twenty years from now it's SCIENCE FICTION! With an exclamation mark. And everyone knows that SCIENCE FICTION! with an exclamation mark is only read by teenagers with more acne than skin and a serious fixation with Seven Of Nine's breasts. Allegedly. It'll be interesting to see if people who like the Logan books will be willing to take a punt on it, even if they risk being pointed at if they wander into that section of the bookshop and *gasp* buy one of the books! I hope they will... Otherwise HarperCollins might ask for their money back, and Grendel needs new shoes.

The current plan is that HALFHEAD will hit the shelves as a trade paperback sometime next Christmas-ish, and then I'll get to go to conventions where people dress up as robots and hit each other with sticks. Which will be cool. That's what's missing from Crime Writing Festivals, if you ask me: not enough people dressed up as robots.

The stuff with sticks I can take or leave.

* Pre-Edit-Related Ennui is a condition caused by delivering the first (or any other) draft of a book and then hanging about waiting for your editor(s)/agent/reader(s) to get back to you on whether or not it's a festering mound of politicians' poop.
** Cat-Related Sleep Disorder - most cat owners suffer from this from time to time, especially if their cat wants to go out at half four in the morning, but not until it's been fed cat sweeties and told how pretty it is. It can also be caused by the aforementioned cat deciding that she wants to have a quick kip on her owners lap when said owner is just about to get up from slobbing in front of the telly to go to bed. This is related to a subcondition - CRBD (Cat-Related Bladder Distress) caused when a cat does the same thing when the owner wants to go to the loo to get rid of a bottle and a half of red wine.
*** Who allegedly was well behaved at the HarperCollins Summer Party (that I didn't go to). I can only assume that Editor Sarah is right when she says that I lead him astray. And as I missed the party, I'll have to work twice as hard on the astray leading part of my job when Harrogate comes around.
**** I have no idea if we'll get to call it that, but I can't face another round of 'make up the title' right now. Just the thought brings me out in hives.

Me and the Archers, we're like that...

2008-07-01T08:12:00.003+01:00

Well, today is the day of the big party - the one with the fluorescent green plastic invite - and am I down in London, preparing for a celeb-studded boozeathon? No, I'm at home looking out at a crappy Tuesday morning full of rain and cold. Yes, it's summer in Aberdeenshire...

I got another 'talking to' last week about my rendition of the glorious Aberdeen weather at a book group in town. They invited me along to talk about Book Number the Fourth and for once everyone had actually read the damn thing. Now, you might think that this was a given, yes? If you're a book group and you've got a book to read, and you've invited the poor sod who actually wrote the thing, you'd think people would get off their backsides and actually put in the effort to read it. Well, you'd be wrong. I think in the whole time I've been doing this, it was only the second time everyone in attendance had actually bothered.

And it really makes a huge difference: being able to talk about the whole thing without having to be all coy about plot twists.

That said, the evening didn't exactly get off to a flying start. When I turned up there were about 19 members of the Posh Club* present, and I squeezed in on the edge of the group. Everyone had a little badge with their name on and a round sticky label. Some of the stickers were red, some green, some yellow. But the name badge of the person sitting next to me was naked. No sticker. Just her name. I smiled and pointed at her absence of round sticky thing. "Why haven't you got a sticker?" I asked, "Have you been naughty?"
She looked at me. "I wanted one with an upside-down smile on it. They didn't have any."
"Oh..." And that was when I realised the significance of the stickers - it was a traffic light thing. "Didn't like the book then?"
"I hated it."
Which is always a good start to any event, don't you think?

Still, give her her due, she didn't seem to hold it against me for more than about twenty minutes. To be honest, I actually quite like it when you get a couple of people who really don't like the book in a book group. Yes, it'd be nice if everyone loved it to bits, but in a real world that's never going to happen. And if someone really hates the book they're not usually shy about letting the rest of the group know, whereas someone who just didn't care for it is much more likely to keep their mouths shut, not wanting to cause offence. I'd much rather have a good debate on what's going on than an hour of people blowing smoke up my delicately fuzzy behind.

Apart from anything else, when someone's complaining about things it makes the group members who loved the book wade in with why, and then you get both sides of the argument. It brings out a lot of things I wouldn't have thought about otherwise. Which makes for a much more interesting life.

Of course the problem with admitting this, is that people suddenly start thinking I want them to hate the book. Or at least pretend to. I don't. It's not the same if you don't really mean it: I don't want your pity hatred. Actually, what I want is a cup of tea. And maybe a nice biscuit.

Anyway, it was a good evening - they were a very nice bunch of ladies (with one poor bloke sandwiched in at the back**). They bought me a pint and offered me mini sausage rolls. What red-blooded man can resist when plied with beer and pastry-wrapped pig byproducts? And I even managed to escape before the pub quiz started (because I bloody loathe pub quizzes). Result!

Mind you, none of this explains the title to this meandering post. The Archers and I are now buddies of a bosom-like nature, nestling as we do in the warm cleavage of BBC Radio Four. I was asked to write a short story as part of the Afternoon Reading series to commemorate 100 years of people using the acronym S.O.S to indicate that things have gone seriously poop-shaped. THE FISHWIFE'S LAMENT is a wholesome tale of dementia, fish factories, and Strawberry Mivis, and it goes out on Thursday 3rd of July at 15:30. It's also going to be available on the website for about a week afterwards as well.

In case you're wondering, it's not me reading it. You can tell, because I'm a man and the person reading the story isn't. I suppose I could have shut my privates in the door to create the necessary change in pitch, but I didn't really fancy the resulting bruised genitals and cowboy walk it would cause.

There are limits how much I'll suffer for my art***, you know.

* If you follow the linky link, you'll see a photo of me and my pint (I'm the fat beardy bloke in the middle, and my pint's in the glassy thing in my hand), with Posh Club founder: Suzanne on the right of the pic, and the lady who wanted an upside down smiley sticker on the left.
** For some reason, there's usually a maximum of one man in any given book group. Maybe he's there because he's been dragged along by his wife/girlfriend, because she thinks they should do things together not involving socks or lubricant. Or maybe he's hoping that it won't just be the books' covers he's slipping between - if you want to meet ladies, a book group's a pretty good place to do it.
*** Using the word 'art' in it's loosest possible sense.

Bloody Women

2008-06-27T09:26:00.004+01:00

I should point out that this isn't some sort of misogynistic rant, but the title of the panel I'm moderating at this year's Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, or 'Harrogate' as it is more colloquially known. According to the programme it's about:

Saturday 19 July
3.30 - 4.30pm

Is it true that women writers can get away with writing more explicitly about violence, particularly of a sexual nature, than their male counterparts? If so, why is this? Simon Beckett and Mark Billingham argue the case against Val McDermid and Chelsea Cain, whilst one of the wittiest Aberdonians of them all, Stuart MacBride, keeps order.

Ah yes, a contentious can of worms that wriggle in a contentious manner of wriggliness. Of course as moderator I'm going to have to be gender-neutral -- not easy when you're as manly and virile as I obviously am, you know ... with the beard and everything -- and try to keep the fisticuffs to a bare minimum. Which is going to be interesting given that none of the participants are exactly shrinking violets. Well, I've never met Chelsea Cain, or Simon Beckett, but I'm assuming they'll give Val and Mark a run for their money in the boisterous department.

I should point out, by the way, that I'm not responsible for that 'while one of the wittiest Aberdonians of them all, keeps order' line in the blurb. I tried to get them to change it to something less cringeworthy, but they refused to follow my suggestion of 'while world-renowned, bearded SEX-GOD: Stuart MacBride (blessed be his saintly man bits), keeps order.' Some people, eh?

Anyway, as I am a conscientious moderator, and couldn't think of a reasonable excuse at short notice that would get me out of having to be the responsible adult for sixty minutes, I've asked Mark, Val, Simon, and Chelsea to tell me what's the most violent thing they've ever written and what's the most violent thing they've ever read.

For me, the most explicitly violent thing I've written has to be the 'tin bath' sequence in FLESH HOUSE, though a scene I did in an earlier, unpublished* book where someone is forced to eat a human eyeball comes pretty close. As to the most violent thing I've ever read... Hmm... I think you'd have to go a long way to beat Val's 'Judas Chair' scene from THE MERMAIDS SINGING, though Simon Kernick has made several valiant stabs at it. At least as far as crime fiction goes.

I can't decide if James Herbert's THE RATS counts or not, after all it's not people doing the extreme violence in this one, it's ... well, rats. Clue's in the title of the book. I remember reading THE RATS on a school trip to see Roman stuff in Chester**, I was about 11 at the time*** and loved that kind of stuff. Maybe that's why FLESH HOUSE ended up the way it did, a sort of homage to the James Herbert and Stephen King books I used to read as a wee lad?

Anyway, reminiscences aside, I'm interested to see what other people think -- anyone out there want to share their most violent booky moments?

* And pretty much unpublishable
** At least I think it was Chester, my memory is not the most shiny spoon in the cutlery drawer.
*** Actually that's just a random guess, due to the aforementioned crapulant nature of my memory.

Nipples

2008-06-18T14:54:00.003+01:00

That ribald denizen of the audio-based blogosphere, Angie Johnson-Schmit has subjected me to her evil podcast of doom - In For Questioning. It sounds as if I'm in the middle of drowning in a bath full of custard, while having a rant about Rankin-based media cock-weaselry, and seeing how often I can say the word 'nipple!'

Not to mention insulting Allan Guthrie, reciting a wee verse from a potential new Skeleton Bob story (if I ever get around to finishing it) SKELETON BOB AND THE BIG YELLOW PLUKE!, and I also talk about naughty nakedness of the 'below the ankle' variety. Sinful.

One word of warning though: Angie promised me she wouldn't put any reggae on the soundtrack, but she lied. SHE LIED!!!

Double Happiness Wholesale Ltd.

2008-06-09T18:17:00.005+01:00

To start with I was going to post a long an introspective ramble about tone and pace and the nature of the Logan McRae books, and then I thought, sod it: no one wants to read about that. And then I thought, bugger off, it's my blog, I'll post about what I bloody well like! What's the point in having a blog if you can't splurge on a self-indulgent introspective ramble from time to time? And then I wondered why I kept a blog at all. And then I remembered the whole point was so I could poke fun at John Rickards, and I hardly ever do that any more. Which is strange when you think about what an easy target he is, what with being short and smelling of whelks the whole time... Then I thought I'd berate you all for not wishing Grendel a happy birthday when she turned 4 on Sunday. And then I realised I'd kind of lost the whole chain of though and went for a cup of tea instead. And by the time I got back I'd forgotten what I was going to post about in the first place.

So then I thought I'd write an Ian-Rankin-themed rant. Not about Mr Rankin, or even at him, but about the media's habitual obsession with trying to find a replacement for the poor sod. But I couldn't be bothered as it was going to involve getting all riled up and indignant and calling people cock-weasels. Which probably wasn't going to be a good career move.

So then I thought I'd post a response to the only review to spot the fact that FLESH HOUSE owes a lot to the horror genre (possibly because I used to read a fair bit of it when I was little), but that just led back to the whole 'who cares what you think' feedback loop of shouting at the keyboard.

As a result of all this internal dialogue and internal struggle, I have decided instead to post about the Trendy Seaweed Rice Snack I bought for She Who Must Be Indulged On The Date Of Her Getting Hitched To Me Who Is A Bearded Sex God And Dead Good With Words And Stuff.

Yes, I pushed the boat out and bought her a bag of Trendy Seaweed Rice Snack (Teriyaki Seasoning Flavoured). According to the bag "You can enjoy not only the delight delicious flavour, but also the greatness of natural mineral benefits from the sea in every single bite." What more could you ask for? Seriously, when did you last eat something with a delight delicious flavour?

OK, so they look a little bit like deep-fried worms, but they're trendy - it says so on the label and I know that's got to be true, because they're 'manufactured and distributed by: Friendship Co. Ltd.' of Bangkok. The Friendship Co. Ltd. wouldn't lie to us, so it has to be true. Not only that, this bag of trendy delight deliciousness was imported by none other than 'Double Happiness Wholesale Ltd.'

How cool is that? Deep-fried-worm-looking rice snacks that are delight delicious, made by Friendship Co. Ltd. and imported by Double Happiness Wholesale Ltd. how could we possibly go wrong?

There's something deeply satisfying about a company that calls itself Double Happiness Wholesale Ltd. -- clearly they're head and shoulders above those bunch of shits at Single Happiness Wholesale Ltd. clue's in the name, isn't it? It's a shame that this isn't a trend we'll see catching on over here, naming companies in as chummy and cuddly a manner as possible. BP could change it's name to 'Big Fluffy Huggy Bunny Love Company Plc.' Who wouldn't want to buy petroleum-derivatives from them? If the Inland Revenue became 'Triple Cuddly Best Friends Inc.' we'd all be falling over ourselves to pay our taxes, and we'd be doing it with a smile of cuddly-best-friendliness on our faces. Hell yeah! Someone tell the Chancellor of the Exchequer that all his troubles are over (assuming he manages to do something about his eyebrows, possibly involving a Black And Decker hedge trimmer).

I wonder if this is an Eastern phenomenon -- calling your corporation nice things -- or is there a 'Complete And Utter Bastard Foods Corporation' just down the road from the Friendship Co. Ltd headquarters?

I know which one I'd rather work for.

Things ate my trousers

2008-06-05T15:59:00.002+01:00

It's a day of double goodness today. Not chocolatey goodness, as that's not really all that good. And a bit sticky. And lets face it, when it gets hot, chocolatey goodness tends to melt and look as if someone's had a bottom-related accident. So let's call it 'pickled-oniony goodness' instead: they don't melt, they smell nice, and if you draw on a cornea and retina, you can make small children think they're eating eyeballs. Which is always fun. Well until their parents find out. Then it's all recriminations, shouting, and running away.

So, I hear you ask, what's the reason for this declaration of double pickled-oniony goodness?

Reason Number The First is that Mr James Tiberious Oswald has been shortlisted for the CWA's Debut Dagger for the second time in a row this year. Hurrah! Everyone at Casa MacBride has their fingers crossed for him. Except for Grendel, as this would interfere with her master plan for world domination. Which, at the moment, seems to involve pouncing on as many butterflies as possible. Plus she's a cat, and doesn't really grasp the concept of literary awards.

Reason Number The Second is that today marks the anniversary of when Mr Allan Guthrie's naked posterior first appeared from his mother's womb and was briskly spanked by a man in a smock. Which is an image all of us are going to treasure. Obviously I can't comment on any further incidences of smocked men spanking Allan's backside, it would be unethical of me. But we've all seen the pictures.

I suppose you could also lump into that a Reason Number The Third: Crime Scene Scotland, in the person of Russel 'Badger Bait' McLean, has been so kind as to cast his eye over both FLESH HOUSE and SAWBONES. Which is nice, because poor old FLESH HOUSE hasn't been getting much in the way of review attention. It sits on the shelves, lonely and forlorn, weeping into a snotty hanky and making the occasional farty noise. I think this now brings the number of official reviews for the thing up to a dizzying 2, including the one in the Guardian by the lovely Laura Wilson: "Anyone writing with the dual aim of fist-in-mouth shockery and humour needs to work bloody hard, and MacBride does, showing us just how much fun body parts can be."

Oh, and I also got an invite to a party today. Not sure if I'll go yet, but it's on a funky bit of fluorescent plastic. It's hard to say no to fluorescent plastic...

What Next?

2008-06-03T14:46:00.003+01:00

I've been doing a lot of ranting lately. Angry, angry ranting that involves shouting at the television, or at the radio, or at all those slack-jawed halfwit gitbags who are somehow allowed in charge of automobiles, even though they clearly aren't qualified to pick their own noses without impaling their brains on a questing fingernail.

Seriously, if you're doing 30mph in a 60 zone, you should maybe rethink the whole driving-while-fast-asleep thing. And see those stick things on either side of your steering wheel? One of them makes a light on the outside of your car go all blinky, so people can tell where the hell you think you're going. What, did your driving licence come free with a packet of Cornflakes?

But I digress.

For some reason the quantity, quality, and all round bitterness of my rants has increased dramatically since I handed Book Number The Fifth over to my publisher. I blame post-book-delivery blues, and politicians. Slimy sods. Every time I see one on the telly it feels like taking a bath in a tub full of phlegm.

But I'm digressing again.

One of the things that's been weighing heavily on the old bearded noggin this past week is the question of what I'm going to do next. And not just in the short term - that's going to involve making a cup of tea - but in the longer term. My current contract with HarperCollins ends with Book Number The Sixth (a plot for which is already fermenting at the back of my head, like a dead sheep in a septic tank), and that's just one book away. Or it will be if I survive the second draft of Book Number The Fifth.

What to do after that?

I've been thinking about taking up plumbing. It pays pretty well and the hours aren't too bad. Yes, you occasionally end up knee-deep in jobbies, but at least it isn't normally your fault. And it's someone else's jobbies too... Hmm... does that make it better or worse? Neither would be pleasant, but at least you'd know where your own ones had been...

But I'm doing that digressing thing again.

If I do decide that there's a future in this writing thing, what will I write? More Logan books? I know that anyone who writes a crime novel set in Scotland is eventually going to be called 'the next Ian Rankin', but could I really spend 20 years writing about the same character? I think I'd probably go mad. Then I wouldn't just be ranting at politicians when they come on the telly, I'd be investing in a cricket bat studded with six-inch rusty nails and paying the bastards a visit. "Look what you've done to the National Health Service!" WHAP, WHAP, WHAP!
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
"Stop claiming rent-boys as a business expense!" WHAP, WHAP, WHAP!
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, Jesus, please stop hitting me with that!"
"Try giving a straight answer when you're asked a question on telly!" WHAP, WHAP, WHAP!

I'm kinda in that sort of mood.

My Forgotten Book(s)

2008-05-30T13:13:00.004+01:00

Patti Abbott, doyenne of all things that need that kind of thing, has been asking strange men (and women) to post about books that you might have overlooked in your rush to snap up the latest James Patterson. *cough*

The idea is to unearth shining jewels from the dungheap of life, that all our souls may be enriched with shiny goodness. Just make sure you wash them first, otherwise there may be a lingering aroma that will spoil your reading pleasure.

Anyway, as I traditionally don't pay too much attention to the rules I'm going to indulge myself a little* and post about not one book, but two.

The first is SHOOTING DR. JACK by Norman Green. I discovered it in a crappy bookshop in San Francisco back in 2004 - the kind of place where it looks as if they've just rented out a big empty room for the week, stuffed it full of cheap tables and then heaped those tables with random titles in no particular genre or alphabetical order. The sort of place where they're probably going to be selling knocked-off electrical items next Wednesday. And the person operating the till has a face full of spots and a mouth full of gum. And they look at you as if to say, "You're buying a BOOK? Jesus, what a looooooser." That kind of bookshop.

But SHOOTING DR. JACK was well worth the hour and a half we spent rummaging through the self-help nonsense and two-curlingly awful fantasy novels. It tells the tale of what happens when things go seriously wrong for Stoney - an alcoholic junkyard owner in Brooklyn. Aided and abetted by his business partner Tommy 'Bagadonuts' Roselli and the strangely talented, but staggeringly naïve Tuco; Stoney gets caught up in the worst kind of drug-related shenanigans**. It's fast paced, brilliantly observed and very, very readable.

The second book I'm going to recommend is Adrian Hyland' brilliant debut, DIAMOND DOVE. It's one of those rare books that really takes you somewhere new - in this case the Australian outback as seen through the eyes of Emily Tempest, a young aboriginal woman, as she tries to return to her mob's traditional home of Moonlight Downs. DIAMOND DOVE has it all: Murder, intrigue and some truly stunning dialogue.

It won the 2007 Ned Kelly Award for best first novel and Christ knows why it isn't better known over here. Excellent book.

I liked it so much I actually wrote my first ever review (for Shotts Mag) and even got Adrian to submit to one of the most unprofessional interviews you're ever likely to come across. But at the UK publisher's request, my paltry efforts won't be going up on the website until the paperback comes out September.

Right, and now I'm going to crawl back under my rock, before I start ranting about Gordon Brown and the Kingdom of the Unfeasibly High Petrol Prices. Cock-weasel.

* Not like that, you filth merchants.
** Oh, come on - how often do you get to use the word 'Shenanigans' when talking about a crime novel?

It am completed

2008-05-28T16:05:00.002+01:00

Book Number The Fifth still doesn't have a name*, but at least it's not lounging about the house any more, eating everything in the fridge, never picking up its socks, leaving the top off the toothpaste, and drinking all the booze. For today BNTF went off to live with it's aunties in London for a while.

Knowing my luck we'll just have got the stains out of the carpet and it'll be back again with a bin-liner full of dirty washing, and every sentence will begin with, "When I was in London, Aunt Sarah let me [insert unlikely scenario here, probably featuring hard liquor, tattoos, and potato scones]..."
And I'll be all, like, "Get a haircut, you lazy book!"
And it'll totally freak. "I hate you! I wish I was never written!"
And I'll be, like, "What-ev-er. Go to your room. And don't leave your jacket lying on the floor: this isn't a hotel."

Honestly.

Oh, I know it'll probably mature a little during the second draft, but right now it's all spots and surly attitude. Why can't it be like its big brother COLD GRANITE? Not only has Book Number The First moved out and got its own place, it even sends money home from time to time.

And while it will probably run off with some floozy librarian and refuse to look after She Who Must Be Placed In A Secure Residential Facility Where They Won't Give Her Access To Knives Or Short People and I in our dotage, we can take pride in the fact it won a school prize when it was little and isn't still hanging around making the place look untidy.

* So far it's known as either, 'Hey, you!', 'Book Number The Fifth', or 'BLIND [insert word here]'... That may well be why it has behavioural difficulties.

Sawbones

2008-05-19T19:41:00.005+01:00

I was going to have a big, long, elaborate whinge about how I can't write for toffee, soor plooms, sherbet flying saucers, or any other form of childhood confectionery, but as I know that kind of thing bores the pants off you, I won't. After all, it's important that you keep your pants on. Nobody wants to see your sinful nether regions at this time of day. Or any other time of day, come to that. It's enough to put somebody off their Pot Noodle, so it is.

So, instead of the scheduled whinge, I'm going to answer Grant's timely and completely unprompted question "Hey Stuart, what is Sawbones? There is no description on the linkey page."

And quite right he was. As far as I'm aware there's still no linkey-flavoured description, but I have flavouring for you, naughty people. I have flavouring coming out of my ears!*

SAWBONES is a novella coming out in July from Barrington Stoke, and for once it's not a Logan McRae book. Hell, it's not even set in Aberdeen... Cue VOICEOVERMAN!:

"They call him Sawbones: a serial killer touring North America, with a thing for young women. The FBI and the police say they're doing all they can: following up leads, doing things by the book. Getting nowhere.

But Sawbones has just made the biggest mistake of his life: his latest victim is Laura Jones, 16, blonde, pretty... and her father is one of New York's biggest gangsters.

Laura's father isn't interested in the law, or due process – he wants revenge. And he knows just the guys to get it.

Sawbones is about to find out that this time, he picked on the wrong family."

So there you go. Sawbones is a racing-snake 18,500 words and I have to admit that it's one of the best things I've ever done. And if you're a regular at Casa Del Halfhead, you'll know that traditionally I hate everything I've ever written.

This might have something to do with the fact that where FLESH HOUSE took me four and a half months to write and five months to edit, SAWBONES was a mere two weeks in the writing. I edited it in two days. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! How could I not love it? It's the only book so far that hasn't sunk it's teeth into my arse and chewed off big lumps. I had fun! How freaky-weird is that?

And it's a mere £5.99! Well, that's the RRP, so you'll probably be able to pick it up for a lot less from the usual suspects.

I even have a blurb for it:

"keep[s] the tension wound up tighter than a tourniquet from an irate triage nurse"
Allan 'Horror-Bollocks' Guthrie

And you know Allan wouldn't lie to you... Would he?

[update-arama]

And now I have a fresh new blurb to go with the first blurb (which is a little older, but still within its sell-by-date and unlikely to give you food poisoning. Unless you have it with a side-order of mouldy coleslaw. And if that's what you're up to, you deserve all the vomit and diarrhoea you get.) :

"Only MacBride can turn a Winnebago ride through middle America into a violently depraved hunt for salvation."
Tamara Siler Jones

* Earwax is too a flavour!

I has got meaty goodness

2008-05-08T16:55:00.002+01:00

Well, it's been a year and a bit in the making, but Book Number The Fourth - AKA: FLESH HOUSE (it's a house of flesh!) - has started generating feedback. And some of it is very strange indeed. Or at least, different to what I'd expected.

The lovely David Stenhouse wrote a piece in Scotland on Sunday where he took a long hard look at the book and declared, "MacBride has written a highly convincing manifesto for vegetarianism" I did? I honestly didn't mean to. Really, I like meat* I am a confirmed omnivore. Any vegetarianismistical overtones are purely accidental.

But they must be there, because while trolling the interweb, looking to see if anyone hated the book yet (or had even noticed it existed), I came across the following on a vegetarian forum:

...I can't remember HOW the dream progressed to this, but suddenly I was eating a human hand. With the fingernails still on and everything. I now feel slightly ill, because it was raw and the texture of raw meat.. ew. I do know that in my dream I pronounced it "better than pork". I think I'll skip breakfast today, I still feel a little queasy...

Followed up a few posts later by:

...think I had my dream because last week I read a book where a serial killer was butchering his victims and selling them to catering companies/butchers. It was a really good book actually, it's called Flesh House. Veggies should check it out, we can feel all superior that we'd never eat human flesh by mistake...

Which is nice... I think... isn't it?

And at least now my test reader can rest easy that she wasn't the only one the book gave nightmares to. It looks like it's the kind of book that's going to be generous that way.

* And no, I don't mean it that way, you filthy perverts.

All longlisty

2008-05-05T14:59:00.003+01:00

I keep meaning to post some indecipherable rambles about the launch last week, but the loom of deadline beckons me with its pointy claws. Though technically it's more receding than looming. Look as it drifts further and further off into the distance! Bye bye, deadline...

Anyway, I shall post about the launch sometime soon, thus massaging my already overburdened ego with stories about how everyone loves me, because I'm so great. *ahem*

Meantime, I have been asked to point out that DYING LIGHT has been longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award 2008. Now last year I got my backside roundly kicked up and down the bookshelves by Allan 'is that a squirrel in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?' Guthrie, so obviously I'm anticipating another crushing defeat. Ah yes, I'll be glaring in bitter jealousy from the audience at Harrogate this year, while someone else walks off with that wooden-barrel-o-fun. Oh and I'm planning on spitting in the winner's pint as well. You know, just for giggles.

Anyway, if you are so inclined, you can vote for who makes it onto the shortlist either by hauling yourself into your nearest Waterstones, or clicking on this item of linky goodness and doing it online instead.

Oh I am so going to get my backside kicked again.

Beer! Beer! BEER!!!

2008-04-28T22:18:00.005+01:00

When I was wee, I made a list of things I'd like to achieve before I got old and stinky. Things like: go into space; make Doris Day my love slave*; kick the living shite out of Duncan McFee**; eat my own weight in pickled onions... You know: stuff grounded in realism. But one thing I thought beyond my destinitinous*** dreams was having my very own beer****.

Well dream no more, beardy boy, for fate has dug deep in it's lint-lined pocket and bought you a pint of the best!

Yup, as of Wednesday discerning connoisseurs of the brewers art may feast their jaded pallets on a super special, super limited edition ale, because those fine chaps (and chapesses) at Skye Brewery have produced a brew of artistic wonder to mark the publication of Book Number The Fourth.

Oh yes indeederoonie - from Wednesday you'll be able to walk into the very best pubs in Scotland and order a pint of FLESH HOUSE. 3.8% of blonde beer-type wonderment, guaranteed to make you completely irresistible to the opposite sex!*****

"But," I hear you yell, in an alcohol-soaked fervour, "where can we purchase this beer of exquisite loveliness, oh Bearded Sex God of mine?"
Well, you can get your hands on my foaming beery goodness at the following emporiums of the brewer's art (also known as pubs):

The Redgarth - Oldmeldrum
Castle Tavern - Inverness
Glenkindie Arms Hotel - Strathdon
Benleva Hotel - Drumnadrochit
Uig Hotel - Isle of Skye
Marine Hotel - Stonehaven
The Grill - Aberdeen

All of them excellent, independent pubs with a reputation of really knowing what they're doing when it comes to storing and serving really good beer******

And as an extra special treat, Archibald Simpson are going to be selling it too! And as that's where a lot of Aberdeen's police officers drink after a hard shift keeping the city safe, I'm pretty chuffed about it.

And all this was the dark and twisted idea of Stuart Singer of the Redgarth in Oldmeldrum (DI Insch's local and not only does it features in the FLESH HOUSE, Stuart gets a speaking part too!). Now I am officially rock and roll. Whoo, yeah, and other things.

* Well, I was only young and she was very, very pretty. I mean, you would, wouldn't you? Phoaaaaaaaar... (I mean that in an inclusive and empowering way)
** He lived up the road from me and was a rotten bullying bastard. But his eyes were too close together, so I can take solace in the fact that he's either never managed to get a woman to have sex with him, or he's had SERIOUSLY ugly babies.
*** It wasn't a word before, but it is now. Destinitinous: noun. items of an impending destiny-related nature. e.g. "Dropping the pregnancy down the toilet was destinitinous for Daphne, because nine months later her life followed it." See? Perfectly cromulent.
**** Partly because I was five and had no concept of naughty grown-up things like beer. (though Doris Day was obviously a destinitinous exception)
***** Or that's what you'll think after six or seven pints of the stuff, by which time you'll probably be making sweet, sweet love to the nearest fire extinguisher. You saucy minx you.
****** Is it just me, or do I sound like 'VOICEOVERMAN'?

Children are naughty

2008-04-24T09:41:00.005+01:00

Grendel T Kittenfish MacBride is officially in the bad books today. I let her out at about half four this morning, seeing her on her way with the usual set of instructions: "Be good, stay away from the road and no fighting!" She went, "Prooop!" in reply and pattered off into the mist.

Stuart then grumbles about how it's too cold to be standing outside in the altogether at half four in the morning, before shuffling back to bed and a disturbing dream we won't go into here.*

06:40 and the alarm goes off. More grumbling, some ranting at the radio while the newspaper headlines are read out. And then our bearded protagonist groans his way out of bed to let the cat back in.

Nothing.

The door opens on a world of white, the sound of distant cockerels bellowing their wakeup call, muffled by a thick blanket of fog. The sound of randy pigeons going at it in the hedge. And a bearded crime write-ist shouting, "Kitten? Come on! Grennnnnnnnnnndel!" Very manly.

Still nothing.

Then the Bearded, naked one** looks down at what's lying on the porch floor. And swears.

We've had stoats living next to us ever since we moved out to the back end of nowhere. It was part of the appeal of the place, seeing these lovely little marmalade coloured ribbons of fur pop-hopping through the long grass, white tummies shining in the sunlight. Sometimes dragging a rabbit three times their size from point A (where they killed it) to point B (where they were going to gnaw their way into its skull and feast on the gooey goodness inside). I like stoats.

Remember a couple of weeks ago I posted about a milk-fed baby rabbit Grendel left half eaten in the porch, oozing yoghurty stuff all over the concrete? Well, we'd finally come to the conclusion that there was no way Little Miss would have gone down the burrow to get the thing, and what were the chances of her grabbing it on its very first day out of the warren? Slim, but not impossible. And then last week I watched one of the neighbourhood stoats hauling a huge rabbit across our front lawn. Dropping the thing every four pop-hops to take a breather. BIG rabbit.

So what were the chances of Grendel lying in wait for Mrs Stoat to come along so she could relieve it of its shopping? A damn sight higher than the previous two options.

Well it looks like this time Mrs Stoat decided she wasn't giving up the bunny quite so easily.

Now I don't mind Grendel murdering mice, battering bees, crunching centipedes, or slaughtering shrews, but stoats? Stoats are dangerous. Stoats have big pointy teeth that bite things. Stoats are carnivorous killers. You do not screw with stoats.***

Which is why Little Miss Violent Fish now has a pair of holes in her nose. Well, an extra pair if you're counting nostrils. And they're not holes in the 'go all the way through' sense, more sort of dents. With blood.

We don't have any TCP either. Not that she'd sit still for long enough for us to rub it in - it was difficult enough just getting her to pose for the picture. She's so chuffed with herself it's unreal. "Look at me! I killed a stoat! A STOAT! Not some sort of cheesy little mouse, or a wriggly little piss-ant shrew, S-T-O-A-T! Oh yeah, who's your kitty? Eh? WHO'S YOUR KITTY?"

This is not the kind of behaviour I like to encourage.

How's she going to hold on to her crown as the world's prettiest cat if she keeps collecting scars all over her nose? And what's next: badgers? Alsatians? Jehovah's Witnesses? Am I going to wake up one morning and find a full-grown grizzly bear lying face down, dead on my porch? And don't look at me like that - it is too possible. The bear might be in the North East of Scotland on holiday... visiting with relatives... or backpacking its way around the world, working in bars and things to pay its way. You know. There it is, out snaffling picnic baskets, or looking for a shady wooded spot to do its business, and the next thing it knows there's this furry ball of teeth and claws ripping its throat out, screeching, "WHO'S YOUR KITTY?"

It's not too difficult to give Mrs Stoat a decent Christian burial courtesy of the council's fortnightly collection, but can you imagine trying to cram a dead bear into a wheely bin?

* But it did involve marmalade.
** Stop picturing me naked! It's very naughty. What would your significant other say?
*** Unless you are seriously perverted and don't mind lacerated genitalia.

Panic Stations!

2008-04-22T10:21:00.003+01:00

Yup, it's all aboard the panic train, leaving Aberdeen at 19:00 Wednesday the 30th of April. Please make sure you have all your personal possessions with you before boarding, and that you have clean underwear on.

"Achhhh," I hear you say, in that slightly off-kilter Groundskeeper Willie accent you've been practising for the last three months (and to be honest, it still needs work), "but what have yeh tae worry aboot, yeh beard-wearing, shower-taking, soap-using, Jessie?"

Well, I'll tell you: that's when copies of the book formerly known as BOOK NUMBER THE FOURTH will be available in at least one lexiconographical emporium of booky goodness. AKA the Aberdeen Union Bridge branch of Waterstones. Now officially the publication date is the 6th of May, but the launch party thing is happening on the 30th, and it seems kinda daft not to have any copies of, you know, the actual book there.

And anyway, it's not like anyone pays the slightest bit of attention to publication dates, is it? Take DYING LIGHT, I received an email from a nice police officer* pointing out something I'd got wrong four days before the damn thing was published - he'd picked it up in Costco and read it over the weekend.

But that's not why the Brown Trouser Express is pulling into the station. The reason the train conductor of doom is calling "Mind the gap!" has more to do with the fact that people will finally be able to read the thing.

You see, a book is a bit like the cat in that sadistic bastard Schrödinger's experiment - until it's actually out in public the thing can exist simultaneously in two states: good, or crap. It's status is determined by the act of observation, only you don't get the RSPCA breaking down your door and beating the crap out of you for poisoning cats.

So far I've only seen one review online for FLESH HOUSE (it contains spoilerettes, so I'm not going to link to it), even though advance reading copies have been doing the rounds for a couple of months now. Mind you, the lady in question does say, 'FLESH HOUSE managed to sink its claws deep into my subconscious...' but whether that's a good or bad thing is a matter of interpretation. It did the same to one of my test readers and gave her nightmares to the point where she couldn't finish it.

Worry, worry, worry...

Mind you, I'm pretty sure most writers are the same. Now is the time to open the box and find out if the cat's still alive.

* We're not supposed to call them Policemen and Policewomen any more, because it makes them feel all dirty and sexual.

Something for the weekend

2008-04-18T17:07:00.004+01:00

I went to the barbers last week... well, let's be honest here: it's not a barbers, it's a hairdressers. With all that it entails. Used to be a time when a bloke with a beard scalped my barnet*, in a shop that smelt of Ralgex and aftershave. The place I go to these days has mirrors-a-go-go and couches shaped like a big pair of lips.

Now I don't know about you, but I'm not used to furniture kissing my arse. How can that possibly be wholesome? I barely know this couch, and yet I'm supposed to park my pert and fuzzy parts on it's lips. Mary Whitehouse must be spinning in her grave.

"So," I hear you cry, with bored and distracted abandon while you drink your coffee and contemplate stealing another thousand Post-it notes from the stationary cupboard, "why do you go to this non-testosterone-fuelled emporium of barbery**?" Well, I go because it's local, and when I started using the place it didn't have arse-kissing sofas. It had a sort of benchy thing and old copies of National Geographic, with the pages depicting naked tribeswomen stuck together with glue to stop the impressionable getting all onanistic whilst awaiting their short back and sides.

At least, I hope it was glue...

But the fact is that I like the bloke who cuts my hair and he does a good job of it. I have to look pretty for my public, you know.

Anyway, I was in getting prettified for an event for Aberdeen's society of Advocates (I know, I know: why do you need a society for a Christmas-type eggy drink favoured by aged aunts?) and when we got to the end, and I went up to the wee desk to pay my bill, I was handed a questionnaire.

Not a, 'How do you like your haircut?' questionnaire, or a 'Do you like sitting on a couch that looks like Mick Jagger's face?***' thing, but personal details.

Some of the questions were fair enough:

Name - well, they know that already because I have to phone up and book an appointment.
Sex - again a pretty easy one. The beard's a bit of a give-away too. I am a manly man who exudes manly manliness in the same way that politicians exude slime and skunks exude stink.

So far so good.

Then we get on to things like:

Age - er... why? Is grey hair more difficult to cut than my usual rich, chocolaty brown?**** And if I'm old enough to be bald, I won't be needing a hairdresser any more, will I? I'll wear a squashed-hamster toupee like any other self-respecting literary superstar.
Telephone Number - OK, you could check my number when I phone up for an appointment, but I'm not scribbling it down on any damn form. Next thing I know it'll be wall-to-wall phonecalls about bloody double glazing and 'Can I speak to the home owner?'*****
Address - get stuffed.
Email Address - Nope.
Work Address - Now you're taking the piss.
Work Telephone - I'm thinking your couch isn't the only thing that can kiss my backside.

And it went on, and on, and on... Now I know I've been a tad grumpy of late, but I don't think it's unreasonable to say that I'm wanting a haircut, I'm not applying for a sodding mortgage. How much information do you really need to cut my hair?

Do I have a head?
Is there hair on it?

END OF STORY. My inside leg measurement is not relevant to the cutting of my hair... well, unless I'm wanting an intimate bikini wax, and believe me, I'm not.

Is it just me, or is the whole Britain-as-a-surveillance-nation thing getting a bit out of hand?

* And for all you dirty-minded Americans out there, that's not an euphemism.
** As opposed to an emporium of Barbary, where people all dress up like pirates and stroke each other's parrots. Perverts.
*** Only, you know, less leathery.
**** I have seriously chocolaty hair, women try to eat it all the time (and stoned people), but it doesn't melt in the sun and leave poo-coloured smears all down my head. Thankfully.
***** Small clue: if you have to ask, no you bloody can't.

In which our bearded protagonist reveals that he is in a foul bloody mood.

2008-04-04T11:17:00.003+01:00

That's right, I'm in a foul mood. And by that I don't mean "I'm a little grumpy" I mean I'm having fantasies about bashing someone over the head with a claw-hammer and dismembering their bodies. Don't even care who, at the moment. But a representative of the Royal Bank of Scotland would be sweet. I'd go into details, but what's the point? Let's just say that at the moment they're right down there with BT in my estimations.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAArgh!

Grendel hasn't been helping either. She got a fright this morning while we were still abed, leapt forward and sank a panicked claw into my face. Lovely. That's just the sort of start you want to a day. With the screaming and the bleeding. She tried to make it up to me later by bringing a dead baby rabbit into the house (sans feet), but by then it was too late. The Grump had well and truly landed.

Hasn't helped that every twenty minutes the sodding phone goes with some recorded tit saying, 'This is a free national announcement. If you can't afford--' Which then requires me to scream obscenities down the phone prior to hanging up. And I know it's a recording and there's no point shouting at it, but it's tradition, OK? I don't make up the rules, I just live by them. When it suits me.

The only thing I haven't had today is one of those international cock-weasels calling up, asking to speak to the houseowner. Which is just as well, as I'm likely to be a little short with them. Like two foot three. And I think you'll agree that's pretty short.

And while I'm ranting, in an attempt to cheer things up yesterday, I bought a £12.00 bottle of d’Arenberg The Custodian Grenache. Push the boat out a little on a nice bottle of wine to cheer things up. Only it wasn't. Instead of being a wonderfully rich and fruity wine (as promised on the bit of paper stuck to the shelf in Oddbins) it was a thin, slightly bitter, and cheap-tasting bottle of plonk. The sort of plonk the masochistic can usually pick up for £3.00 in any supermarket. And not 'half price special promotion' £3.00 plonk either. This is plonk that's only ever going to be worth £3.00. The sort of stuff that tastes as if it's been made by marinating Magic Tree car air-fresheners in Ribena for a month. The sort of wine you take to a party when you don't like the host, or any of the guests, and you're only going because it seemed like a good idea when you were in the pub, but really you despise them all, because they're a bunch of bastards.

That kind of wine.

Oh, and a couple of days ago I got my author copies of a new anthology I'm in. And the only place they managed to spell my name right was on the back page. All 12 other times it's 'McBride'.

And no, you may not ask how the writing is going.

Breaking Cameras

2008-03-31T09:53:00.002+01:00

Either I've suddenly become a lot more attractive of late, or there are some very strange people out there. Other than you, of course. You're not in the least bit strange. You're ... different. Yes, that's it: different. Not strange at all. No, no, no. *ahem*

Anyway, now that we've reassured you that you're still 'mummy's special little soldier', we can get to the point*.

People keep emailing me and asking for a signed photograph. And believe it or not, they're not actually after one of my nude Gloria Hunniford snaps either. Or even the ones I have of Anne Widdicombe in a thong. No, they want one of me. Perverts.

I honestly can't understand this at all. Yes, I have a lovely sexy beard, but that's not enough reason to go asking for 'artistic' photos, is it? The whole idea of scrawling my signature across a glossy eight-by-ten gives me the shuddering heebies. It's just WAY too showbiz.

And what, exactly, are these people going to do with signed photos of me? Does it feature sketchy stalker-style shrines, to be built upon over the years with used chewing gum, discarded pint glasses and locks of human hair**? Or is the word 'Voodoo' going to be involved? Either way it's creepy.

Mind you, some of us aren't so shy about putting ourselves out there as mega-multi-media-celebrity-types. Take Allan 'Sunshine Horror Bollocks' Guthrie, for example:

As I may have mentioned earlier, I took my very own copy of SAVAGE NIGHT with me to Poland. I read it on the way there, and She Who Must Remember To Bring More Books Of Her Own So She Doesn't Get Mine All Filthy With Her Naughty Fife Fingers read it on the way back. And we both loved it.

It's totally screwed up, twisted, violent and quintessentially Guthrie. She Who Must doesn't read a lot of crime fiction unless I twist her arm, but even she was gripped by the quality of Al's prose. What's the world coming to when a short hamster-like Orcadian can go round impressing other people's wives with the quality of their prose? It's not bloody wholesome, is it?***

Right, I'm off for a jolly good sulk.

* Not that there actually is one. I just like to pretend there is to make myself feel all important and special. 'Special' is another good word, isn't it?
** Probably pubic, you know what these weirdoes are like.
*** And I should probably state for the record, that She Who Must has never admitted to being gripped by the quality of my prose. But I'm not bitter. Oh no. Not a bit of it. But I will be interviewing for the position of 'Mistress' later in the week. If you're looking to apply for the post, please make sure your CV includes a photo and a brief description of three uses for custard not intended by the manufacturers.

Cabbage is the new asparagus.

2008-03-24T11:22:00.002Z

Much to the relief of Polish people everywhere, She Who Must Be Taken Along on Research Trips To Make Sure I Don't End Up In A Turkish Prison Somewhere* and I are back in the good old U of K**.

And I have returned armed with dramatic information that many of you may not possess - eating too much cabbage makes your wee smell funny.

Now I've long been aware of Asparagus's dreadful effect on the stinkiness of one's wee, lets face it, it's scary the first time it happens, "AAAAAAAAAARGH! I'm rotting away from the inside!!!" but you soon get used to it. What I didn't know was that excessive consumption of boiled cabbage and sauerkraut*** has a similar effect. Oh, the smell's not the same, but it still makes for stinky wee.

Factor in eating way too much of that gloriously dark-red beetrooty borscht as well and you end up with pink pee. Stinky pink pee. As if your kidneys have packed their bags and sodded off somewhere healthier.

And I love borscht. I am now an official convert to borscht. In fact, I'm drinking some now, in a mug. On the last night of our stay in Krakow, She Who Must Be Dragged Round Foreign Supermarkets So That I Can Marvel At All The Weird Stuff You Don't Get At Home and I went on a spending spree in the local Polo. And came home with a suitcase groaning with packets of instant beetroot soup. Mmmm, borscht.

We tried to make it once, out of a Delia book and it was sodding dreadful. I mean nasty to the point of being cruelty to taste buds. The only way it could possibly be consumed was by chilling the hell out of it and adding a hefty measure of vodka. But the borscht in Poland is like unto the beetrooty nectar of the Gods.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go make some pink piddle.

* Well... Turkey, probably. I mean, you don't exactly get Turkish prisons anywhere else, do you? Unless they're like theme pubs. Then you'd be getting arrested and it'd be like, dude: groan. Not another Irish theme prison. All them bicycles on the walls, Guinness posters, and signposts to Cork and Limerick. We're in Thailand for God's Sake. Didn't come all the way over here smuggling crack cocaine to be banged up in an Irish prison. What's wrong with a bit of local culture, eh?
** Or what's left of it.
*** Which while made of cabbage is in a COMPLETELY different league when it comes to producing smells.

To Poland I will go

2008-03-17T08:46:00.003Z

Right, we're off to the airport in a minute, after a litany of travel-type disasters yesterday. Serves me right for having a moan about being tired -- our hotel room on Saturday night was nice, but seemed to have been built directly over the WORLD'S LARGEST EXTRACTOR FAN, which wrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrred all night. Those low, subsonic never ending noises that get louder and louder the longer you hear them. So very little sleep for beardy Stuart.

And on the way home from the train station, the clutch cable went BANG! on the 4Trak. And that damn thing is a big bastard to push. Which means packing got done at midnight with much shuffling and groaning. Real George Romero, Pre-Holiday Activities of the Living Dead, style stuff. And as soon as my knackered, beleaguered bonce hit the pillow... 'ping!' wide awake.

So today I resemble a half-shut knife that's been left in a septic tank for about a month.

Still, I'm hoping now that we've got all our crappy travel woes behind us, and everything will be plain sailing till we get back on Saturday.

The In-Laws are up looking after Grendel while we're away (in case you're wondering, I'm leaving the cat in charge). I've asked Little Miss not to post any photos of dead mice on here while I'm gone, but you know what she's like...

Fatigue - in which our Bearded Protagonist reveals that he is knackered

2008-03-15T20:15:00.005Z

Do you remember that resolution I made at the start of the year? The one where I said I wasn't going to take on heaps of things all at the same time, so I could really concentrate on suffering my way through writing Book Number the Fifth? That I was getting knackered by taking on too much?

Well, just to prove that I have the willpower of a buffalo in a moustache factory, I've managed to sod that one right up this month. Thursday was out at Aboyne library where lots of lovely people were traumatised by my tales of abattoiristic naughtiness (I don't know why, but somehow describing how a cow goes from 'Mooo' to a little shrink-wrapped package of meaty goodness, tends to upset some people). Good event. And I even managed to not do a great deal of naughty wordishness. Well, less than usual anyway. The only trouble with the event was that Aboyne's a three hour round trip from Casa MacBride. In the dark. With the SatNav thing sending me via every twisty arse-end-of-nowhere back road in-between. Cue Stuart getting home at nearly 23:00 with bags under his eyes the size and colour of your average aubergine.

Which on its own would have been shaken off after a few day of lolling around in a smoking jacket, while a naked Gloria Hunniford peeled grapes for me. But alas 'twas not to be, for today didst dawn at Dear-Jesus-It's-How-Early o'clock, so that She Who Must Be Shown What A Galmorous Life We Write-ists Live and I could catch the train to Glasgow for the Aye Write festival of bookly delights. Said train pulled a fast one and decided it would arrive a mere 45 minutes before the event. No problem. I'm a manly man, I can handle that. Jump in a taxi and away!

Only I didn't, did I? No, I took some idiots word that the hotel was just around the corner from the station and decided to walk it. Only it was about three million miles away, all of them uphill. Half way there, when the previous abundance of taxis suddenly dried up, panic begins to set in. Stuart steps up the pace, gets to the hotel five minutes after he's supposed to be in the festival green room, relaxing and getting himself outside a complimentary bottle of wine. Then discovers the venue is another four or five blocks way, on the other side of the motorway.

RUN! RUN FASTER YOU BEARDED FOOL!

So by the time I finally burst through the doors of the Mitchell library, I resembled a pervert in a sausage factory. Sweat pouring from every available surface. Puffing and panting. With a bit of wheezing thrown in for good measure. Ah yes, nothing like being all relaxed and calm before an event. Nothing sodding like it at all.

On the bright side, we did get to hang about in the bar afterwards - She Who Must, Allan Horror-Bollocks Guthrie, His long-suffering wife Donna, Russel the Boy Badger, and Duane Swierczynski, some strange Philadelphian homeless bloke Al and Donna were letting sleep on their sofa. There was a distinct whiff of whitespirit about the man, and he kept going on about haggis tempura. But at least he kept his hands to himself (after I slapped him two or three times -- well, I'm not that sort of boy), unlike Guthrie, who tried to French me up at the end of the night. Disgraceful.

Another bonus was buying a copy of SAVAGE NIGHT, the evil Horror-Bollocks' latest volume, which looks pretty damn funky. I shall save it for the plane next week.

Yes, in addition to schlepping halfway across Scotland to Aboyne on Thursday and halfway down Scotland to Glasgow today, She Who Must and I are off to Poland on Monday for a week of research and sausage*. Which means that although I'll be working, I won't actually be writing. Meaning that the chances of me hitting my deadline for this God-Forsaken-Tome-Of-DOOM are about the same as my allowing that skanky Ho, Kate Moss, anywhere near my manly parts. Not even with a jar of mayonnaise.

The knock-on fun and frolics will be that I'll still be trying to get the thing finished while I'm promoting FLESH HOUSE. Ah, a perfect recipe for the terminally confused write-ist to sod things up!

I now have to find a nice tactful way to tell HarperCollins that won't make them want to string me up by my goolies. Any suggestions?

* And I don't mean that in a rude way.