For your information, the subject line is an unforgivably oblique reference back to the days of vinyl records. Just so you know. Or don't. 

Right, I shall be writing this entry in sort-of real time with choosing the winner of a personalised and signed copy of The Fear Institute. Which is to say, I shall be writing a bit, doing something, writing about what I just did, and so on. First thing up is that I shall randomise a number from 1 to (checks Twitter) 425, and then do some very tedious counting to find out who that is. If it's an inadmissible entry -- a group or whatever -- I do it again and keep doing it until I get an individual. I shall not be publishing the number, primarily because I'm likely to miscount and I can do without being pulled up over a failure in accuracy, thank you very much.

I was going to generate a number electronically, but that's boring, so I'm going to do it old school and break out some polyhedral dice. 425 is an awkward number, but that can't be helped. I'll generate a 1 to 5 for the hundred groupings, then roll percentiles. Obviously, if 426 to 500 comes up, I immediately re-roll. That'll give me a flat probability spread over the target numbers. 



Dice! (Huh!) What are they good for? (Generating random numbers!) Say it again!

Okay, here we go. 

And the winner is...

Arse. 

No winner, it's a group, although a thoroughly awesome group and one I'm very pleased to have following me -- Hammer Films. What, you don't have a legendary horror film production company following you? No? Awww. 

Awesome, but not an individual. Try again. 

And the winner is...

I can't find the damn dice. I had them a second ago. How the blazes have I lost them? Oh, panic over. Okay. 

And the winner is...

These dice are taking the piss now. That's three numbers in a row over 425. This isn't going brilliantly, is it? This is why they never let me compère Eurovision. 

And the winner is...

W00t! A viable account! Finally.

@eslamprey! Come on down!

Evelyn S. Lamprey, a splendid name that I may use for a character at some point, is a photographer, and lives in a haunted house. I'm not going to have to make up anything at all for the character, really, am I? There's the story right there. 

Congratulations to you, Evelyn. I'll scribble in a copy of The Fear Institute and get it off to you before the end of the week. Commiserations to everyone else, especially those who offered "special" favours for me to rig the lottery, favours that I regretfully had to decline for reasons that now elude me. Believe me, you had a narrow escape. 

The Fear Institute comes out in about a fortnight from Headline in the UK and, I would guess, Australia. Still no idea when it will be published in the US or Canada. Sorry about that, but I'm completely out of the loop on how that's progressing. If you really cannot wait, I'm told that the Book Depository do a good job, but I don't have personal experience of their service. You can find The Fear Institute here: http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Johannes-Cabal-Jonathan-Howard/9780755347988 

 I announced a little give-away on Twitter the other day, but if you didn't see it there, I'll repeat it here. 

Basically, I've received my hardback copies of The Fear Institute and I'm going to give one away -- personalised and signed -- to somebody chosen randomly from my followers list on Twitter. The only restriction really is that it has to go to an individual and not an organisation or a bot or anything like that. I shall be doing the picking on Wednesday, all the while bitterly regretting that Twitter doesn't helpfully number your followers. That would make this so much easier if the random number turns out to be an awkward one. 

I shall announce the winner both on Twitter and on here, and then weep as the fair weather followers who only followed me to be in with a chance at the prize bail on me. You unfeeling bastards.

 Oh, dear, it's been a dog's age since I last posted. My apologies; I've been a bit distracted. I still am, but at least I've got some nonsense to go on here. I was daydreaming while having breakfast the other day, a thought occurred, and I ended up writing it down. It went like this...

( I'll give YOU bloody midiclorians...Collapse )

Black Gate #15 is out soon. It's a terrific magazine for fantasy readers and I would recommend it wholeheartedly even if they weren't publishing a short story by me in #15. As it happens, they are. My story's an 11 000 word adventure called "The Shuttered Temple." The issue's full contents list can be found here:

http://bit.ly/hQRlW4

Also, in case you missed it, "Fantasy Magazine" published a new Cabal short online the other week entitle "The House of Gears." You can find it here: 
http://www.fantasy-magazine.com/new/new-fiction/the-house-of-gears/
There's an option at the top of the page to hear it read by Stefan Rudnicki too, which was unexpected and rather wonderful. 

 Just a quick 'un. Genre for Japan is an auction of science fiction, fantasy and horror bits and bobs, the proceeds which will go to the Japanese Tsunami Appeal administered by the British Red Cross. Lots have been provided by authors and publishers, and include signed works by the likes of Gaiman, Pullman, and Pratchett among many others. It runs until midnight (BST, i.e. GMT+1), Sunday the third of April.

 Dear me, another long break between posts. My apologies; I know the world wilts and the colours are not quite so bright in the absence of my recondite musings. Yes, it does. It does, truly. You just haven't been paying attention. Trust me, you've really missed me. Oh, suit yourself. 

So, what have I been up to? Well, I have been largely tidying up one of the novels I finished last year (One of the three. I've mentioned that already, have I? Oh. Well, anyway. THREE). It's one of the two non-Cabal novels, and is pretty good fun. It will be interesting to see if I'm alone in that judgement. I'm waiting on notes for Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute, so in the meantime I'm going to write a short or two and polish the third novel. 

None of this is very exciting, I'll grant you, so in an endeavour to give this post some sort of interest, here's an artefact of sorts.

I do find myself concerned that, after I've won every literary prize imaginable and they build a new wing to the British Library to hold my archives for the wonderment of future generations, it is going to be quite a small building. Probably about the size of an outhouse. The reason for this is that I write almost purely in electronic form and, apart from a few notebooks and some fitfully notated MSS, there is limited wonderment to be had from gazing at old hard drives.

Marvel, then, upon one of the few times I've had the cap off a pen to do anything other than notes. I should point out that the following contains some mild spoilers for Johannes Cabal the Detective, so please be warned. 

( Mild spoilerage awaits...Collapse )

 Hello. 

I should really hold off writing my address to a grateful planet until after Christmas, but I should be too stupidly busy to do it then so I shall impose upon your holiday cheer earlier rather than later. Specifically, a brief report on my year for your elucidation and delight. 
( Deck the halls, an' that...Collapse )

 Relatively speaking. 

As will be evident from my previous entries pertaining to Nanowrimo, I was not at all convinced that I would be able to complete it, and that if I could even hit 25 000 words I would be happy. Well, as it turned out I passed 50k last Tuesday, the 23rd, and finished the novel the following day, hitting just shy of 55k. 

( Writerly meanderings follow...Collapse )

 Well, I said I'd stick the occasional update about the whole NaNoWriMo thing on here, so here we are. 

So far, so good. 

Oh, you were expecting more detail than that, were you? Very well, then. After eleven days of writing, I have written 23 677 words according to the word counter at the NaNoWriMo site (MS Word begs to differ with that, suggesting 23 623). There have been a couple of difficult days, but by and large it's gone quite easily. Of course, I have the huge advantage that this is most of what I'm doing at the moment work-wise, so it's not the mountain it is for people finding time to do it in the evening. On the other hand, I can't regard what I'm doing as purely fun; the intention is to have something that can be whipped into publishable shape at the end of it, so I can't afford to write in sequences that I know are just there for padding and will need to be cut in editing. Thus, despite my intention specifically not to, I've found myself doing a little light editing and more detailed research than I was intending. Little of this has required more than a swift foray into Google, Wikipedia, or *gasp* opening a book, but it's still time consuming. I can't help it; details bother me and I hate getting them wrong. 

I also have to admit that my word count includes the dedication. It came to me yesterday and, as I felt it helped set the tone for the book that follows, I've included it in the file already. I will just say this about who it's dedicated to -- it's nobody living. Or dead. 

Or undead, so you can stop thinking along those lines right now.

One thing that's surprised me (apart from actually managing to keep up a decent rate of work) is the style. I was expecting it to be stylistically quite sparse and spare, cut to the bone due to the time pressure. To the contrary, however, it has similarities to the Cabal stories in terms of asides and digressions. I wasn't sure if it was the right style for the story, but I've written almost 24k worth of the damn thing, so it is now. 

With regard to the story, you will appreciate that I can't discuss it in any detail at this juncture. I can say, however, that it has no supernatural occurrences in it at all, but stupidly large numbers of guns, fire fights, explosions and, most horrifyingly, there may be KISSING, eew, spew, yuk. Or there may not be -- I blush easily. 

Tomorrow, barring disasters, I pass the halfway mark. Onwards!