Been going through some very rough times lately.
In work today I went for a walk around the building, trying to straighten my head and shake the headache that had settled there. We're on the fifth floor, and I ended up out in the stairwell, opened the window a few inches and stood there breathing in some fresh air. I even felt some of the stress leaving me as I looked out onto the smaller buildings behind ours.
I love the autumn. It's my favourite season. And for a few minute I stared down at the flat roofs below me, littered with leaves from the many surrounding trees. Thousands of leaves. Maybe a million. And I looked at how randomly they had fallen, how they were more beautiful and colourful in death than in life - strange, leaves are just about the only thing this applies to - and how they looked so unarranged, chaotic. Life is like that sometimes ... chaotic.
Then I heard a rustling from my right. I looked, and the wind had blown a leaf up to that fifth floor windowsill. It sat there on the pitted concrete sill, fluttering slightly in the breeze, not floating away.
I looked at the sill stretching left and right for the length of the building, then I leaned out slightly and looked down at the other sills. I couldn't see any other leaves, anywhere. Just that one, which had been blown up to where I stood looking down, thinking about its million yellow and orange cousins.
It was a profound moment, and I'm still trying to figure out why. I'm an atheist, but the thought came unbidden, "I've been noticed." I have no idea what that means.
Maybe it means something. Or maybe it just shows how we go looking for signs when we're going through hell.
... the more complicated life becomes. Or is it just me?
***
I'm reading Wildwood Road at the moment by Christopher Golden, a fantastic book that I thoroughly recommend. Chris is one of the best, hardest working writers around right now, and you should definitely check out his stuff. He's written the novelisation of Kong Kong, and in Janaury his novel The Myth Hunters is out from Bantam (same month as my own novel Dusk is released by the same publisher).
***
And speaking of Dusk, check out www.noreela.com where the first Dusk reader review has been posted. You'll also find an ever-expanding Gallery, a message board and some exciting Latest News.
Conventions take place in an alternate reality, I'm sure of it. They do things to your head. Take away some of the pain. And in their wake, something happens to your energy level (ie, you have one)!
I've just returned from the British Fantasy Convention in Walsall. I bought more books than I should have (some rare Machen items, China Mieville's new collection, Mark Morris's new novel, Joe Hill's collection), and drank more than I should have (ahhhh .... Black Sheep .....), smoked more than I should have, even slept more than is normal at a convention (I actually had 8 hours sleep). I feel refreshed and full of energy, even though life is complicated at the moment, and I'm still feeling confident about hitting a book deadline that LOOMS.
Conventions are Good Things. Wish I could do them every weekend.
***
Check out www.noreela.com if you haven't already ... a fantastic new site for my forthcoming fantasy novels DUSK and DAWN.
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