Colin Harvey – author

Although I’ve dully completed my 1400 words this morning, focusing on the wip has been quite tricky, as a lot of stories seem to be breaking at the same time. I’m not the only one who’s been busy…

First of all, the inaugural Angry Robot podcast is up at their website. It sounds as if Marco and Leeeeeëe are having way too much fun in their padded cell, and Mrs H and I chortled at the note of bemusement that host Mur Lafferty tried -and failed- to keep from her voice as she tried to bring some sanity to the proceedings.  Joking apart, there are some great insights on the state of publishing and some of its possible futures.

Secondly, huge congratulations to fellow author Gareth L Powell, who has been equally busy in a less obtrusive way; yesterday he announced the sale of his novel The Recollection to Solaris Books, who had this to say. The beers are on you on Monday week, Gareth…

And lastly, Cheryl Morgan has also been busy. She’s announced a new venture, Wizard’s Tower Press. The new company will publish a new non-fiction magazine, Salon Futura, as well as a number of out-of-print works, and a small number of new books. The first of those new books will be Dark Spires, edited by Yours Truly. More details are here and will follow as we get a ToC. 

As well as blogging, interviewing and pimping cons like Bristolcon and London 2014, Cheryl does a huge amount of work behind the scenes, and Wizard’s Tower Press deserves to succeed. Good luck, Cheryl.

This morning I’m guest blogging over at at Gareth L Powell’s website, on the subject of Generating Heat.  Nothing to do with starting fires or keeping warm, but rather a film industry term.

Long gone are the days when the author wrote a book, sent it off, and left it to take its chances in the world. Nowadays every publisher expects the author to have a plan. The scriptwriting industry is much more self-aware about writing as a career, and can provide the aspiring writer with useful career guidance. Read more here.

The news is that Peter Watts has been fined, not imprisoned; hardly good news, but far, far better than things looked 36 hours ago, and at least he can now (hopefully) get on with his life.

Meanwhile, I’ve reviewed Gareth L Powell’s debut novel over at Suite101.

And the second part of the memory thread that formed such a serendipitous moment, given Damage Time’s imminent publication, is here. This is specifically about deleting memories, the parallel to the novel’s ripping them.

If this all seems a little breathless, it is; this Tuesday seems especially frantic as the Uni timetable is all over the place and I have to be out of the door in about five minutes…

Various bits of Odds and Sods-ery for your erm, pleasure today.

First of all, I’m pleased to see that I’m not the only person who was pissed off at the BBC for allowing a cartoon Graham Norton to clamber across the screen at the supposed climax of Doctor Who last night. What were they thinking of when they decided to do that? Were they thinking at all? Seriously, Beeb, WTF?

It’s enough that we have to cope with a new Doctor (jury still out, but generally OK) a new assistant (thumbs up) and the most intrusive music and background noise since 1972 (thumbs very much down) but now this? What’s the point of making drama programmes if you throw the audience out of the drama at key moments?  If you want to complain, here’s the link.  I urge you to do so, or we’ll have no quality of programming at all.

And I’ve posted the latest review at Suite101; in line with my continuing fascination with Children’s Literature I borrowed The Wolves of Willoughby Chase from Newton Park Library. It’s a good-ish book, marred somewhat by the moron who borrowed it before me deciding that they were an editor, and that they could ‘improve’ on Aiken’s prose. So many, many passages have been pencilled through and ‘alternative text substituted in the margins or over other text.

Are you sensing a theme this morning?

Well, if so, here’s something completely different. The launch of Silversands yesterday included Gareth L Powell reading a chapter of his debut novel and free vino. What more could you want? Certainly not me desperately improv-ing a 30-second interview on AudioBoo…