So even if I wanted to close my Facebook account, now I can’t. And the rights to all the images I uploaded now belong to them, too? Can’t say I’m all that impressed with FB making the announcement after they’ve closed the deal without telling anyone. Now nobody can pull out or object. It amounts to nothing more than a cyber-hijacking.

I’ve only got a few things on my FB page – a few pictures, comments, and groups – but I also have my book covers posted and links with the titles to my blog posts. I use FB to promote my work and my website and I do scrape up some traffic through it. The thought of them owning all this stuff forever is just disgusting.

What FB has, and the reason I’m so annoyed, is put me back in touch with some old friends from my school days. So I’d hate to have to leave it because of this, but then, I can’t, can I? Something tells me this isn’t over yet. The storing of people’s data like this is surely a breach of the Data Protection Act, but I’m not sure how much of our law extends to sites hosted in the States. We shall see.

I got a great sleep last night; a full seven hours, which felt more like ten. Woke up feeling refreshed and raring to go, which is just as well because the day was manic.

Big Brother is one of my most hated TV programmes, and at its height I used to think Jade Goody was a total pain in the ass. I would always turn her off if I saw her on the box, but these days, I have to admit to feeling right sorry for the lass.

At the start of her illness I thought it was yet another cynical attempt to stay in the headlines and make some cash, but having seen now that her cancer is for real and she has only weeks to live, I think it’s very, very sad. As much as I despised what she stood for, I certainly wouldn’t have wished this one on her.

I think if I were in her shoes I would do the same things (like selling TV and magazine rights to cover her wedding so she can leave her kids with as much money as possible). What I found most remarkable about the various news reports covering this yesterday, was the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. There’s nothing quite like a socialist talking like a capitalist – which kind of sums up Britain’s Labour movement these days: Read what Gordon Brown had to say here.

This weekend I’m off down to South Shields to see my mate. It’s badly needed with all this work I’ve had on my plate lately. I always get a good wee bit of writing down on the journey down, so hopefully this will be no different.

I’ve taken next Monday off and I intend to spend the day writing. Looking forward to it – badly needed also.

Checking the news online tonight after working on Blood Ties, I noticed FB have done a full U-turn on their decision to control people’s data forever. So they did the decent thing this time, but who’s to say they won’t do it again?

The Scruffy Dog Review – Winter Issue OUT NOW!!

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Bit of a busy day today.

The day job kept me on my toes but I got some editing work done on a couple of shorts I’ve written over lunch.

I spent most of my evening catching up with my Ranfurly Review submissions. I’m not drastically behind but I needed to tend to them before they did. Issue 6 is almost ready for its March launch, so if I can get it tied down in the next week I’ll be happy.

EP confirmed receipt of my contract and will send more information out once the CEO has signed it and returned a copy back to me. There are two things I’m excited about most: finalising a release date and seeing the cover. Once I have that I can move ahead with designing a lot of my promotional material. I’ve got some exciting things planned.

The kernel of an idea for a second book involving Randolph and Stella grew into a green shoot in the evening. I need to get Blood Ties out the way fast before the inner demand grows too much to bear.

I felt the first stirring of a cold coming on; sore eyes, runny nose, itchy throat; so I went to my bed reasonably early and after taking some boosters to my system. The last thing I need right now is to come down with something, so I’ll battle it with everything I’ve got.

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It took around 20 minutes from waking up to remember that I sold Stella yesterday, and that it is going to be published. It’s a great feeling, and today when I actually signed the contract, I felt like I had achieved something; an unexpected step forward at a time when it couldn’t have come any sweeter.

After some fresh coffee and a bagel, I got down to work on reformatting the Stella manuscript for the publisher’s requirements. I also started preparing the material they sent me that has to go off to the different departments: the copy editors, cover artists, and of course, the marketers.

I got a lot of that done before pausing to watch the rugby, and witnessing another demolition of the Scotland international squad. This time it was Wales, the current Six Nations champions who came to Murrayfield and humped us, threatening at one point to over-run us completely. Thankfully, they took their foot of the pedal on the last twenty minutes and we managed to pull the score back slightly.

After the rugby it was into Blood Ties. The writing is coming out slower in this period, but I’m not letting it put me off. I’m just going with it and pushing it, but not forcing it. There’s so much going on in the story it’s so hard to keep up, I’m making full use of my large notepad and the whiteboard on my wall.

I entered a competition; an especially written poem for the We’re 15! Competition at Writer’s Relief, and I got my newsletter out – late, but better than never. I also update my website – Stella has its own page already – check Stella out here.

When I finished doing all my work it was around half past ten; a full and solid day’s work writing, and it felt great. I stood up at my desk to stretch and couldn’t believe my eyes: in front of me, two inches of snow had landed silently outside my window and was still falling; the garden and surrounding area a complete blanket of white with a low mist hanging over it. It was quite beautiful, but tomorrow could be a slippery day!

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It’s not that I’ve been too busy to blog over the past few days, I’ve just had nothing to say. I didn’t see any reason in filling up these pages just to tell you something meaningless, so I took a break. I never broke off from writing, just from blogging.

My time spent working has been put to good use. Blood Ties is progressing keenly; Lennox is developing into a much darker and frankly a lot more intense character than I ever envisaged. In Slick I only really scraped the surface of his personality and we never got to grips with his motivations and thoughts. That’s all coming out in this book making it a better read in my opinion; and a lot of fun to write as well.

I’ve written a lot of poetry, taking advantage of every occasion, thought, and opportunity to write. Some of it is very, very deep and emotional, and some of it has been light-hearted, others have seen me make a return to children’s poetry. I think I have written about a dozen poems so far this month, when my target was only one per week!

I have a short story ready for submission to a competition, and two others I’m toying with send to other competitions. No more responses from any of my submissions across the board. It’s been a quite month on that score.

It’s been a quite month all round, actually. Not that I’ve not had much on my plate – the day job has been red hot with Julie away – but all in all, things are going to result in a productive look back at the work I’ve got through this month.

Oddly enough, I still feel I have more in me. I’m pushing myself harder not to let the strains of the day job affect my output, but I’m still feeling sapped from it even though I’m getting through a lot. I think it’s maybe a subconscious thing but I do feel I could achieve more.

A belated happy birthday to Binny, my wee sister who was 30-years old on Sunday. The family got together on Saturday night to celebrate, with drinks in The Auctioneers pub in Glasgow centre, and then in the Urban Grill restaurant a few doors along from George Square.

The City Chambers in George Square was lit up in celebration of Robert Burns’ birthday tomorrow – same as Binny’s – although he is somewhat older at 250 years. The light show (as illustrated in the photo above) is also part of the Homecoming Scotland year that the SNP are currently promoting. Walking down Leith Walk on Saturday I can understand why people won’t be bothered coming back.

Anyway, there was a lot of eating, drinking, and laughter in the restaurant. We all gave Binny her presents during the meal and the staff brought out a large cake with her baby picture on the front, to one of the limpest attempts at the Happy Birthday Song I’ve heard from a group of waitresses.

It was a great night, and I was pretty knackered by the time we got home around 1:30am on Sunday morning.

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Laura and her pals never woke until later in the morning. Not surprising given the time they were up to last night. I eventually fell asleep around 1am, though it wasn’t easy.

When I got up this morning I made some lovely fresh Columbian coffee, ate a bagel, then went round to the shop for a newspaper, and for fresh rolls and bacon for the girls.

Then I left them to it.

Before lunch, I caught up with all my outstanding email, checked the job listings (pitched for one gig), cleaned the rabbit hutch, put all the Christmas decorations back up into the loft until next year, finished tidying my office, and posted yesterday’s blog. Good stuff.

Gail and I then headed out to PC World in Corstorphine to buy a monitor she has been after to help with her photographic editing. I had noticed there was a couple in stock at a reduced price on the Internet so off we went. I also got her a wireless keyboard and mouse to go with it – the last of her Christmas presents after yesterday’s jewellery return and purchase of new ring.

Opposite PC World is a large pet store so I dragged Gail in to take a look at all the animals they had in stock. They had a good stock of Mini-Lop rabbits and a whole brace of super little baby Guinea Pigs. I was also glad to see they’ve started an adoption service for animals, including one albino rabbit looking for a home. Poor wee fella looked all alone and I wanted to take him away. His hair was all spiky on his head and he kept looking at me through the glass as if to say: “please take me with you.”

What I did take home was a couple of new coldwater fish for the aquarium vacated after Smashie the goldfish who died last year. I bought one Comet goldfish and a Shubunkin, and had them in the tank within half an hour of getting home.

I’ve named them after the countries they originated, the Comet being from the USA and the Shubunkin from Japan.

The Comet is white and red, and is called Madison, so derived from James Madison, a major contributor to the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as well as American President during the War of 1812. I thought this appropriate given the impending changes in the US this week.

The Shubunkin is a beautiful array of colours from gold to brown and orange, and is called Akanè (ah-kay-neh), which means “deep red” in Japanese, so called because of the large red patch behind one of his gills.

The rest of the day was all about work. I installed Gail’s new TFT monitor and wireless keyboard so she could get to work, then I worked a little on Blood Ties and a short story I began during last year’s Muse Conference. I’m going to enter it into the Fort William Mountain Festival short story competition, and it is called Letting Go.

I wrote a new poem later on called Scar Tissue. It’s a very close to home kind of poem; very direct and powerful so I’m not sure what venue it will fit best. It might just be one of those poems I use to vent my feelings and come to terms with certain things, but you never know, it might see the light one day.

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I couldn’t believe my eyes this morning when I logged on to my PC, morning coffee in hand, to read that a US Airways plane had ditched into the Hudson River. The first I knew about it was the sight of the plane floating on the water, and people standing on the wings waiting to be collected. I actually thought it was a mock-up until I realised I had tuned into the BBC News website and not some spoof site by accident.

Thankfully, everyone got off in one piece. By all accounts, if it weren’t for the pilot that may not have been quite the case given the record airplanes have of staying intact when they come into contact with the surface of a large body of water.

Went for a delicious lunch at Muang Thai on Hanover Street: Thai Pork Dumplings to start; Terriyaki Chicken with egg noodles for main; hot waffles and ice-cream to finish. Stuffed I was, but seeing as I had my breakfast at 5:45am this morning I was pretty hungry by the time I draped my napkin.

The afternoon went slowly as it always does in the office after a large lunch.

I finished one of the poems I wrote at the start of the week. The right words finally came to complete it off beautifully. It’s called Road Hogs, and it’s good enough to send out or include in a chapbook, I feel, so it’s a keeper.

I developed a couple of short stories that I wrote during last year’s Muse Conference, both of which will probably be getting entered into a couple of competitions I have earmarked.

More work done on Blood Ties, but needed more time and frustrated myself at having to stop.

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Murder is a thought not often contemplated by the sane and the civilised, but it crossed my mind today. This probably only serves to prove my theory, that if you had to work with some of the wallies that I do, you’d also be as insane and uncivilised thinking as I am. Trust me.

Lots of work done on Blood Ties and those poems I wrote earlier this week. Sometimes, finding the exact word to finish a poem can be tougher than finding the right sentence to describe how someone looks – thus, all the fun of the fair.

I was a long day in the office because my regular team-mate is away on holiday to New Zealand for three and a half weeks. I’m left with a contractor who’s only there for the cash and not really interested in doing what he’s meant to be doing. I’ll be cracking the whip shortly – loudly if I have to.

Laura was back at Guides tonight so me and Gail did something we’ve not done in a long while … go out for the evening. We went to Starbucks in Ocean Terminal after we dropped her off – not my first choice, I assure you, but it was all that was open – and had coffee, hot chocolate and cakes. We took Gail’s laptop and some print-outs with us because I’m about to start working on an enhancement or ten to her website, and we needed to go over a few things.

Still nothing from the potential Hunting Jack publishers. I’m getting worried that I’ve only gone and annoyed them by following up with a query asking when I could expect to hear. It was a week short of their recommended wait time, but that doesn’t include a full manuscript request after 8 weeks followed by 3 months of nothing. It’s maybe being impatient of me, but the suspense is killing me.

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Back in the swing today; no dodgy tummy, no feel crappy, although still not much of an appetite but I can live with that for now. And an early start meant high levels of creativity, particularly since I’ve done so much thinking, reading and planning of late.

Stopping to work out the plot links and arcs for Blood Ties has definitely helped. The story is much more intricate than I actually realised, and mapping it all out has cleared most of the questions nagging in my mind. I was ready to go again, and go I did. I feel much, MUCH happier with it.

I also did some work on some poems in my WIP folder, as well as the ones I penned last night. Coming on nicely. It feels good to be scribing poems again – just doing – not thinking too much about it at the moment.

Greyfriar’s Bobby died this week in 1872. He reputedly spent 14 years guarding John Gray’s grave, his owner while he was alive. A statue was erected to his memory in 1873, which still stands proud outside the gates and the pub of the same name. Find out more at: RCAHMS.

Rock band, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, have been allowed back into The Liquid Room RCAHMS for the first time since fire gutted it along with Khushi’s restaurant three weeks ago. Thankfully, both of these venues, which are two of my favourite places in Edinburgh, look likely to be saved, though it’ll be at least a year before it’s complete. Replacing the roof over Khushis has been estimated at three months alone.

This is shocking: a Labour MP has claimed dyslexia is a myth invented by education chiefs to cover up poor teaching methods.

The BBC reported … Backbencher Graham Stringer, MP for Blackley, claims millions of pounds is being wasted on specialist teaching for what he called the “false” condition. He also claims the reason so many children fail to be taught to read and write properly is that the wrong teaching methods are used.

Stringer said: “The education establishment, rather than admit that their eclectic and incomplete methods for instruction are at fault, have invented a brain disorder called dyslexia.”

No wonder the British Dyslexia Association (BDA) is up in arms. The guy is clearly an idiot.

I would direct him to a wonderfully talented lady by the name of Anita Govan. She’s far more advanced within literacy terms than most “normal” people I know of, and guess what – she’s dyslexic. She’s also a poet – published and performance – of some considerable talent, and I was delighted to interview her for The Scruffy Dog Review a year or so ago.

If Graham Stringer MP is in any doubt of the problems faced by dyslexics, but also of the amazing things they can achieve, he should read the interview here. Then he should collect his P60 on the way out the door.

Are you dyslexic, or simply appalled to read about this? Feel free to vent your anger directly to Mr. Stringer by clicking on the following link, then get typing.

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/graham_stringer/manchester%2C_blackley

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I didn’t sleep much last night, my stomach still turning over in spasm and gurgles. I tried to eat some bread and consume a cup of tea about an hour before putting out my light last night, but it didn’t sound like it was sitting too well. I hardly ate yesterday at all, and I hate that.

So, this morning I got up early, just after 4:30am, and showered etc. I made some coffee, noticing that by the time I was dressed and clean I was feeling somewhat better than last night. Same way I felt yesterday, actually, and we all know how that ended up.

Unable to take any sick time off due to a situation at work, I made my way in on the first bus. Edinburgh is awesome in the “blue hours” – the period between night-time and dawn, or dusk and darkness. Empty and wide open, the streets seem to be more welcoming and you notice things you never noticed before, like buildings at normally busy junctions that would otherwise get missed. Or shops you never noticed before, or places that you would normally never see devoid of human life empty of everything, asleep and secretive.

I was hungry by lunchtime and my stomach seemed relatively fine, so I bought a cup of lentil soup. Ninety minutes later my stomach was cringing again, the soup either helping to get things going again and flush out the germs, or something untoward was happening in the pipeline. I wasn’t sure.

I managed some food later in the evening – thanks Devon – and by bedtime was feeling a whole lot better.

I did some important background work on Blood Ties, mostly into my notebook with some new approaches and ideas. I’ve never hesitated this much DURING the writing of a novel before, and while that’s a new thing for me and goes against what I believed was the way I should always do it, I feel ok with it – for now. It’s work I feel needs to be done; planning, thinking – a lot of thinking. I want this to be a damn good novel, and if it comes to the point where I have to re-write everything I’ve got, the so be it. We’re not there yet, though, because the changes I’m thinking about can be mostly slotted in and then come after where I am at the moment.

I wrote two poems this evening; the first lines of brand new poetry I’ve written for quite some while. For first drafts they aren’t half bad. I’m going to keep running with my poetry GDR and see what I have later in the year with regards to publishing a new chapbook, but I’m placing no limitations on what I write about – it’s all about the poetry. If I have work that can be brought together into a body of work I’ll do that. If not, c’est la vie, I’ll still have a bunch of new poems.

Read some more of Day by AL Kennedy. I’m really enjoying it. Her style of writing is what’s fascinating more than the story itself – so far – because ever so subtly she’s introducing factors into the book that one can tell are leading to things.

The latest issue of The Scruffy Dog Review is out now. Can you believe it’s now 3 years old?!

Inside this issue we have an illuminating interview with Broadway actor and singer, Gerard Canonico, articles by Devon Ellington and myself, and some fiction and poetry for you to get your teeth into. It’s a really good issue this month so I would urge you to pop over and have a scout about.

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I don’t have that much to say from this weekend, other than I wasn’t feeling myself and I’m not sure why. I’m not depressed or anything clinical, just pissed off with certain things, which when it happens, affects my writing and that pisses me off even more. It’s a vicious cycle and one I don’t particularly enjoy.

Saturday morning I was up early and took Laura to dancing. I was half-minded to go into town for the morning, but instead I bought a Scotsman and Guardian and took them back to the house to read over a couple of cups of freshly brewed Italian coffee and a cinnamon bagel; a good start to any day.

I went to collect Laura at lunchtime and picked up some lunch for the family at the same time, before getting down to some serious work on Blood Ties. I came to defining some serious problems with the book and after working them through, also came to some serious conclusions.

Problem – I don’t know Lennox well enough.
Conclusion – Lennox and I sat down and had a “chat”.

Problem – the story is not balanced correctly.
Conclusion – I’ve started working on a new structure.

Problem – I don’t know enough about where the story is going.
Conclusion – I’m going to write a light plot synopsis for guidance.

In the evening, and until 3:30am, Gail and I visited one of her aunt’s on the other side of Edinburgh, along with her parents and some other members of the family. It was a strange get together, because Gail and I were by far the youngest, and at times I felt like I was intruding on a family occasion. Don’t get me wrong I had a good time and they are all lovely people, I just felt slightly out of place – I don’t know why, really.

Today, Sunday, I wasn’t feeling too good. I doubt it was anything Gail’s aunt made for what was a delicious buffet, including Duck Spring Rolls, Bruscetta, and pork pies, but I was on and off the bog all day with a dicky tummy. I hardly ate as a result and spent most of the day lying in bed drinking water and reading.

For my birthday last September, I was given a paperback cope of Ian Rankin’s latest novel, Doors Open, and had started reading it but let it languish. With time on my side today I started it again, and by 9pm, had read the entire novel – no one day. I’ve only ever read a full book in a day once before, and that was on a train to London for a job interview in 1998.

Reading Rankin’s novel from start to finish was not only enjoyable – it’s a great read – but it made me realise that the problems I defined on my own novel yesterday are all true. I felt somewhat vindicated just by reading someone else’s work. Drunks call it a moment of clarity, and I now know where to go.

My first instincts were correct and so step one is to get to know Lennox better. I need to spend more time with him and part of that will be through the writing of this novel.

Step two is to complete the plot of the book before I finish it. Until now it has been mostly “drive by night” writing, as Val McDermid calls it, but I don’t feel I am getting the best from this advice on this occasion. I’ve got a good story up to now, but I have murders across the city and several people who might be in the frame, none of whom have any motivation whatsoever.

I also need to introduce the point of view from other characters because it’s gone stale. Only the act of the murders taking place is described, with everything else being about Lennox. This ill-balanced approach needs addressed.

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The sub-zero temperatures that have gripped the country over the past few days have finally begun to lift and it was mildly warmer this morning as a result. I noticed it wasn’t quite so cold when I got up at the back of 4am this morning for work, and instead of seeing frost-coated cars and ice-laden roads, I saw drops of dew running down windows and a damp sheen glistening off the street.

I got my 2k down on Blood Ties extremely early today as a result of my pre-dawn start. Most days I’m up around 5am to start writing, which at this time of year is always pre-dawn so I suppose today was a middle-of-the-night start.

The early start played havoc with my system despite it only being an extra hour lost. By 10am I was ravenous and by 4pm, after two one-hour meetings, I was ready to drop. When I got home I lay down for an hour before the family got home, which is just what I needed to be able to get through the evening. You see, I had to logon to the systems at work at 11:15pm to take care of some standby work, so as far as the day job goes, today was a long and hectic one.

As far as the Lennox novel goes, I’m spotting holes in it already. I added an extra 500 words through re-writes today alone, after I started going back through to revise the story despite being about 40% through. I also have a decision to make whether I want to write more from the mystery murderer’s point of view or just leave it all up to Lennox. I’m not sure. I think I may need some changes in the angles to stir it up and provide a wider basis for growing the suspense.

I read a fantastic study of McIlvanney’s Laidlaw off the Internet today, which gave me some things to think about for developing Blood Ties in my own way. I don’t want Lennox to appear like another hard-boiled police detective – there’s enough of them – and while I think they have their place, Lennox isn’t quite like them.

He’s his own man, and while I, the author, may be influenced by Laidlaw, Rebus, Thorne, Dalgliesh et al, I would hate for Lennox to be seen as just another tough-line copper to line up alongside them. Worse than that, I would hate to be accused of trying to imitate anyone else’s work.

It’s vital I get across the personality and type of person that I know Lennox to be through this novel, and it’s this that is causing me the most wrinkles on my forehead. If it works there will be more Lennox books to come; if I mess it up, it fear could be the end of him.

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I probably shouldn’t have done two things today, but I did. First, I went back over and read everything I’ve written so far on Blood Ties, and did some straightening out and redefining edits. I just wanted to get it all straight in my head everything I’ve written over the past three days (there’s rather a lot of it) and make sure it was all consistent. I ended up adding 1100 words to the word count, though, which wasn’t a bad start considering this morning was an accidental “sleep in”.

The longer lie (6:30am) was brought on by the copious amount of red wine I drank yesterday evening with Carol and Ian, our friends in the Borders. They run their house as a B&B (I did their website) and I have to say, their hospitality is second to none. I can see why they get so many compliments and letters of thanks from all around the world. Check them out here: Millburn House B&B – and if you ever pop in, say I sent you.

Then the second thing I shouldn’t (probably) have done: I re-read Stella from start to finish and gave it one final polish up so I can get it submitted. It’s turned into a great wee story, much better than the original because now it shows everything instead of skipping through and telling. By the end of the night I had a fully completed novella manuscript – and for that feeling alone – the feeling of completing a project – it was worth it.

A couple of my intended markets for Stella have since closed to submissions, but I still have one in mind. I kind of wish I hadn’t submitted the original version to Samhain because of it being so inferior. Never mind, I’m much more hopeful of a sale now.

Blood Ties (NaNoWriMo)

Blood Ties (Full Novel)

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After posting yesterday’s blog post last night, I received an email from an editor replying to my query about a short story submission that’s overdue. He was deeply apologetic but was happy to say, if I still wished, I could keep the story in the final selection for their winter issue. Naturally, I was only too delighted, and he promised a quick turnaround given my 8-month waiting period so far.

In my role as editor of Ranfurly Review, I know only how easy it is to discover the hard way that a submission has gone awry or the author not received an email. It’s embarrassing, but we are only human so sometimes it happens. I find that being honest when it happens is the only way to go, which is why I’m excited at being in the final pool for consideration with the story in question, A Point of View.

Day job was major busy – so much so I got nothing down on paper over lunch, which was frustrating.
However, I’m underway with Blood Ties; not as many words as I wanted today but the first two chapters are down and Lennox is in Leith. It’s exciting having him here, but he’s already learning that the age old Glasgow-Edinburgh divide still lives on. And … there’s been a murder!

NaNo’s widgets aren’t working, so I’ve done my own.

Blood Ties

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