Just a quick message this time to point you toward an exciting new concept in blogging! Check out http://www.storytellersunplugged.com/ to find out what it's all about. A whole host of writers and publishers are allocated one day per month to write a blog, and mine will be on 14th of each month. Believe me, this is going to grow into something fantastic ...
It's 4am here, and I can't sleep. I've had the flu - or some variation thereof - for a couple of days, and yesterday I thought I was getting over it. Went to bed, fell asleep, woke at 2 ... and I've been lying there awake ever since.
Thing is, my mind's been spinning. I've been having these weird lucid dreams, very intricate and logical and linear, one after the other. The first was a trip to New York to meet a film company (hey, I can hope, eh?). The second was receiving a call there and then that the house of someone I know had been firebombed, and she and her son were on their way to hospital. The third was a walk in the woods on my own, finding a strange tunnel that seemed to lead nowhere: I went in, walked for ten minutes, emerged exactly where I had entered, but every time I went back in I came out into a different world. I'll write that one day.
And then I stared thinking on stories I'm working on. In the space of half an hour I'd thought through the screenplay I'm planning to write and come up with what just might be an ending. It's weird, it's not very 'Hollywood', but it works.
And then I got to thinking about why my mind's off on one like this. I have a fever of about 39 degrees, and my mind at the moment is not my own. My blood is hot, and my brain is different. I'm thinking as Tim, but not the everyday Tim, and poorly though I amI quite like this sleepless Tim who's quietly working through story ideas and problems in screenplays.
I have a mind altering fever. It'll be gone tomorrow, but - and I never thought I'd say this - it was fun while it lasted.
Sleep well.
I took my 6 year old daughter Ellie to the park on her bike yesterday and removed her stabilisers for the first time. She went from one end of the park to the other shouting "Am I doing it? Am I doing it?" She thought I was still holding onto the bike. Yes, I had a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes, and when she eventually stopped and turned around - and saw me waving to her from the distance - the look on her face was priceless.
I can still remember the first time I rode without stabilisers, the difference being I fell off when I realised my brother was no longer holding on. So Ellie did better than me. I'm pleased.
I've been fighting the 'flu today, so I'm drugged up to the eyeballs. A whole day of writing lost ... but I crashed and watched a couple of movies, the Assault on Precinct 13 remake, and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. They were both OK ... but they reinforced my belief that remakes ... well, what's the point? I hear that The Hitcher is being remade ... and I actually find it pretty depressing. Why not pump that money into a new, original movie (based on one of my books, of course)?
A new interview of mine has just been posted on the Guillermo del Toro website. Check it out here!
Thanks to the several people who sent me texts agreeing with my last journal posting.
Bastards.
I went to London last week to meet a film company (more of which soon ... hopefully). On the train on the way home I was sitting at a table seat on my own when a very nice young lady asked if she could sit there. Naturally I nodded and smiled, and she sat down, and I commenced reading Volume 6 of PREACHER ('Not enough gun!').
Then she took out her mobile phone. Called her mother. Talked about a funeral. Called her boyfriend. Complained about how much her mother keeps her chatting on the phone.
The journey between Paddington and Newport is about 100 minutes. She started talking 2 minutes after leaving Paddington and she was still talking when she left the train at Newport. I now know about her dead Aunt, her boyfriend's eating habits, the new car they're choosing, why she hates her jobs and how annoying tunnels are because they cut off the phone signal.
How unreasonable of them.
A few days later I went to see Audioslave in concert. It was a stunning gig, but that's by the by. Beforehand my wife Tracey and I stopped off for a Mexican and a couple of beers. It's a trendy Mexican restaurant, and there was a hen night at the adjoining table. Eight nice young ladies, and four of them - including the bride to be - spent virtually the whole time we were there texting people on their phones. Ignoring their friends. Letting their meals go cold.
On the way to the gig someone walked into me in the street because they were busy texting someone instead of watching where the hell they were going.
In the Audioslave gig, as they came on to Your Time Has Come, a guy in front of me was texting his girlfriend about problem they were having with their relationship (it was one of those illuminated screens, I could see).
Is it just me?
Is it?
Or should everyone who uses a mobile phone in public be PUT UP AGAINST A FUCKING WALL AND SHOT?!?!?!?
I went to London last week to meet a film company (more of which soon ... hopefully). On the train on the way home I was sitting at a table seat on my own when a very nice young lady asked if she could sit there. Naturally I nodded and smiled, and she sat down, and I commenced reading Volume 6 of PREACHER ('Not enough gun!').
Then she took out her mobile phone. Called her mother. Talked about a funeral. Called her boyfriend. Complained about how much her mother keeps her chatting on the phone.
The journey between Paddington and Newport is about 100 minutes. She started talking 2 minutes after leaving Paddington and she was still talking when she left the train at Newport. I now know about her dead Aunt, her boyfriend's eating habits, the new car they're choosing, why she hates her jobs and how annoying tunnels are because they cut off the phone signal.
How unreasonable of them.
A few days later I went to see Audioslave in concert. It was a stunning gig, but that's by the by. Beforehand my wife Tracey and I stopped off for a Mexican and a couple of beers. It's a trendy Mexican restaurant, and there was a hen night at the adjoining table. Eight nice young ladies, and four of them - including the bride to be - spent virtually the whole time we were there texting people on their phones. Ignoring their friends. Letting their meals go cold.
On the way to the gig someone walked into me in the street because they were busy texting someone instead of watching where the hell they were going.
In the Audioslave gig, as they came on to Your Time Has Come, a guy in front of me was texting his girlfriend about problem they were having with their relationship (it was one of those illuminated screens, I could see).
Is it just me?
Is it?
Or should everyone who uses a mobile phone in public be PUT UP AGAINST A FUCKING WALL AND SHOT?!?!?!?
Yesterday morning, in the space of two hours, I did the following: went for a walk to the post office; drank 3 cups of tea; ate two slices of toast; called a friend; checked my email about 17 times; checked the Shocklines board; received some book parcels through the door, opened them, checked out the books, folded the cardboard boxes and readied them for recycling; had another cup of tea; rearranged some books on my shelves; tried, and failed to tidy my study; had another cup of tea; emailed some friends about how terribly I procrastinate when I'm supposed to be starting a new novel.
That's right. Yesterday was supposed to be my first day writing DAWN. I have pages and pages of notes, observations and ideas that I've been working on for several weeks, and I even had a first line: 'As he approached the nameless village, it was easy to believe that the world had ended again.'
But it took me two painful, fraught hours to get started.
6 hours later I had 4,500 words down, and I was a happy bunny once again. So that's it, I'm into DAWN, and I can't wait to meet all my old friends from DUSK once again.
Tomorrow I'd heading to London for lunch with a film producer, then a pint with with my excellent film agent Ed afterwards. Wish me luck!
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