Author: Rob

Writer. Film-maker. Cartoonist. Cook. Lover.

Best I can do today, sorry.

What Is Your Battle Cry?

Rampaging out of the tundra, clutching a vorpal blade, cometh Conojito! And he gives an ominous roar:

“You in some shit now, muhfuh! I bring annihilation and cheap beer!”

Find out!
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Are you a girl, or a guy ?

created by beatings : powered by monkeys

More coming, once my brain reboots.

A creature of habit

My days are quite structured now.

I rise at 6AM, shower, have breakfast, peruse the headlines. At 6.45 Clare gets a cup of tea and a kiss. I am on my bike and cycling to the station by 6.55. I park up, snag a cappuccino no sugar from the AMT cart, and wander to platform 9 where the 7.10 to Paddington is waiting. I have a favourite seat, tucked right at the back in the corner, and because the train is almost empty at that point I have no problem getting it. 

This is my principal writing time of the day. In the hour it takes that slow train to reach London, I will have done the best part of a thousand words. 
At Paddington I take the underground into work. I no longer read the free paper as a way to kill the travel time. It annoys me too much. I read a book instead. Currently it’s Charlie Brooker’s Screenburn. It amuses me.
I then work all day.
On the train home, I will hopefully manage another 600 words. If I get on a train where I can’t get a seat, then that’s a half-hour wasted, so I pick my ride back with care. Once home, I will cook the evening meal, spend some agreeable downtime with Clare, before picking up the tail end of my wordcount and posting to the Nano forums. Then my brain will usually shut down. I will be in bed by 11PM.
Repeat until December 1st.
Ah, the creative life.   

Keeping count

You may have noticed a new widget in the sidebar, keeping track of the wordage I’m hammering out for NaNoWriMo. At time of writing, I’m just about back on track after a lazy weekend. But man, I’d forgotten how disciplined you had to be just to keep your head above water with this challenge.

It doesn’t help that there are people that have already passed the 50,000 word barrier. God, that’s demotivating…

The Ugly Truth about Radiohead

I am one of the 40-odd per cent of people (according to a slightly spurious poll published this week) who actually ponied up some cash for the new Radiohead album. And in fact I paid slightly over the average for it. Why? I’m a great believer in bands going their own way and getting their music to the fans without needing a middleman. The release of IN RAINBOWS seemed a worthy exercise, and one I wanted to support. It was money well spent, not simply for altruistic reasons (yeah, yeah, I know, support your local mulitmillionaire rock band) but because it’s the best thing they’ve done since Kid A. 

It’s interesting to read about the backlash/sneering/feigned surprise that yer average punter would decide not to pay any money at all for the music. These commentators clearly aren’t paying attention. It’s becoming an industry truism that “the album” is becoming little more than a loss leader for concert ticket and merchandise sales. For better or worse, people are out of the habit of paying for music. Why should they, when even twerps like me can configure a P2P client and snag stuff for free? But Radiohead are still laughing, as with no marketing campaign they’ve still managed to achieve 1.2 million hits in under a month, with a significant majority of visitors downloading the album.  That’s brand awareness for you. Free publicity? Priceless! Thanks for doing all our advertising for us, blogosphere!
It’ll be interesting to see if the physical release, out early next year, offers any extra value. This is a strategy that I’m paying close attention to for reasons of my own. Let’s put it like this. The Radiohead approach doesn’t just have to be applied to music. Just ask Cory Doctorow. Or for that matter, Michael Moorcock.
while we’re on the Creative Commons tip, let’s have a bit of a mashup, shall we?
 

Honey, I just accidentally created a Fox show.

Here’s some inspiring news – Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku are working together again, on a new SF show called Dollhouse.

Weird that Joss would be happy to work with Fox again after the way he was treated over Firefly. Still, anything that gets him back behind the idiot lantern is good news by me. Check his comments about the WGA strike too…

Aaaaand They’re Off!




November already? Blimey. It’s been a busy 2007, but it doesn’t seem like a year since I wrote the first words of what would eventually become Satan’s Schoolgirls. And now here we are again. It’s NaNoWriMo season, and I am again obsessed with word count and the ever encroaching deadline of December the 1st.  This year, I’m giving an old short story the respect it deserves, and opening the world it contained up to closer examination. The story is The Prisoner Of Soho. It’s got magick, gang warfare, kerosene powered mecha and espresso-fuelled madness drooling off every page. You will need this story in your life. Trust me, I’m a writer. 

You can find ongoing word-countyness and choice cuts from the story as it develops by simply clicking on the PARTICIPANT icon to your right at the top of the page.
Yeah, by the way. The only reason I’m hammering it out so quickly is cos I’m at home with flu at the moment. Little to do except sit and write.  Trust me, that’ll change. By month’s end I’ll be panicking about the deadline just like everyone else. 
Shouts to my writing buddies this year, Clive and Rob. Good luck, guys, and just remember. Keep cranking it out.