This time next week, I’ll no doubt be sound-checking in preparation for this:

Yup, Aeroplane Attack’s first appearance at The Wedgewood Rooms, a former place of employment for three members of the band and the premier live music venue in Velcro City. And it’s a free gig on a Friday night – so if you’ve got no plans, head on down! Promises to be a night of goud loud tuneage, and I’m really looking forward to it… especially as I’ve borrowed a new echo box and am itching to deploy it over a large PA.

So, likely no FPB next week, much like last week (although my excuse last week was a train journey up to Manchester). It’s all go in my universe, as I do keep mentioning… so I’d best get on with it, eh?

Album of the week

Actually from last week, but easily good enough to carry over… it is, of course, The Eternal by Sonic Youth. If you’re a Sonic Youth fan already, you’ll be wanting to pick this up. If you’re not yet a fan, it’s accessible enough to be a good contemporary introduction to an utterly original band who’ve been gigging and recording almost as long as I’ve been alive. Go listen to ‘em.

Stuff

Yeah, look at me compressing a number of sections into one. Such is the manner of my life at the moment, and – during the scant seconds I get to sit and consider it – I’m quite enjoying it that way, thank you very much!

No review writing has been committed for a while, but I’ve been getting a decent amount of reading packed into the schedule; currently about a third of the way through China Mieville’s The City & The City, which is a good story whose premise is handled with subtlety, though I’m finding the narrative voice a bit odd at times – often enough, in fact, that I may shift to reading the published version rather than the ARC in case what I’m seeing is a pre-copyedit state.

Still plenty on my freelance plate, though the light is visible at the end of a few tunnels (even as another seems to stretch itself out further). Futurismic is rolling along nicely; we got linked to at MetaFilter the other day, and while it didn’t bring an avalanche of traffic I’m really chuffed to see us there, because I’ve been following the MeFi feed for almost as long as I’ve had an internet presence – and hence appearing there is a little like getting to have a drink in the Cheers bar would be for television fans of a certain age.

What else has been happening? Well, adventures Northward, band practices and meetings (and plain old hang-outs), live shows (like the mighty Clutch), hunting down cardboard boxes so as to ship seventy-odd kilos (SRSLY) of unwanted books to a buyer… from the sublime to the mundane, it’s all go, basically.

So there’s just time to trumpet happily about the arrival of Charlie Stross’s new short fiction collection, Wireless, which arrived in the mail this week (and will be shouldering its way up the TBR array in the days to come).

Lovely!

Now, I’ve got stuff to be doing, so I’ll bid you all a good weekend. Take care!

Those of you who like my live music photography are in luck; those of you not so keen have probably been longing for periods with steady sunny weather wherein I have more time on my hands. Sorry!

This is the bizarrely-named Grog, singer and bass-player of a three-piece band called Die So Fluid:

Don’t be put off by the pseudo-goth fetish outfit; their music is straight-up chunky alt-rock, close to the metallic end as far as heaviness is concerned, and wow – she can really sing. Proper gutsy vocals, none of your Gwen Stefani schlock.

Go check ‘em out on MySpazz if you don’t believe me – great band, live and on record.

Writing about music

The results of my night out in Southampton last week can be seen above, at least in part; Die So Fluid [live review] were supporting My Ruin [live review], who I also interviewed.

The pictures of the My Ruin set were unfortunately awful, thanks to a combination of poor lighting, low-end dSLR, a push-and-shove mosh pit … and my lack of ability to compensate for all three of them. Life’s a learning curve, eh?

Another busy week for CD reviews, but there’s a sort of pang about it – by Sunday, I will have finished my last weekly batch of reviews for sites other than my own.

I’ll still be writing for Subba-Cultcha and Pennyblack on an occasional basis, but I’ve reached a point where I need to devote all my music writing time to The Dreaded Press. The work is coming in steadily, and I need to stay on top of it.

But in the spirit of assessing ones achievements, it’s pretty impressive to me that in less than twelve full months writing for those two sites I’ve managed to rack up over 250 pieces of work (if you include the ones yet to be published).

You’d be forgiven for not believing me – I find it quite astonishing myself – but you can see the proof as a list of items tagged with my name at del.icio.us.

Crikey.

Writing about books

Minimal once again; see above. Will hopefully pick up steam again; see above. I did manage to get the latest Interzone review offers list out of the electronic door, though.

I sent a re-polished edit of my review of McDonald’s Brasyl to Andy Sawyer at Foundation; he seems pretty pleased with it, and reckons it will only need further trimming if the other pending material is equally excessive in length.

I don’t know if you remember me whining on about how immensely frustrated I was at being unable to hammer that particular leviathan of a review into shape at the time*?

Well, here’s a lesson for my self-critical facilities – with some relatively minor edits, it actually read fairly well. Amazing what a distance of a few months can make – I now understand the fiction writer’s advice about leaving stories fallow before editing them.

Currently reading Gene Wolfe’s Severian Of The Guild, and enjoying it immensely – although I can see a lot of reasons it might infuriate others. It reminds me of Mervyn Peake, though, and it’ll take a lot of frustration to dull that particular shine as far as I’m concerned.

As for analysing it from a reviewer’s perspective, however, I have no idea where I’ll even start. That said, I’ve not even finished the first book of four yet.

Other stuff

Much to the great frustration of a vocal minority of readers who have actually made a point of asking me about it**, the Great Pending Announcement will not be made today – it will be made on Monday 11th, for reasons that should become clear when the announcement is made.

But the way forward is clear and unobstructed – or at least as unobstructed as it’s going to get. Keep watching the skies.

Books and magazines seen

Zero on the fresh literature front this week, with the arguable exception of some very smutty manga from Yen Press that has no real literary merit that I can discern.

Let me be plain – I’m in no way opposed to the sale of smut (I’d be a hypocrite if I were), but sheesh – either give it a decent plot or stop pretending, y’know? An absolute endorsement of the adage that something labelled “not suitable for minors” might as well be labelled “will only be of interest to minors, mostly male”.

The end of an era twice over, too – picked up the final instalments of Doug Rushkoff’s Testament and Brian K Vaughn’s Y: The Last Man.

Y:TLM is a great piece of science fiction, though I’m sure the film they’re threatening to make will strip all the good bits out.

To fill the small but poignant gap that my only two running comic subscriptions have created by ending, I’ve put a couple of Warren Ellis titles on order. Yay!

TTAcon

It is my intent to head up to the Big Smoke by train tomorrow for TTAcon 9, a gathering of folk connected to TTA Press, be they staff or readers.

It’s being held at a pub called Filthy MacNastys near King’s Cross on Saturday 9th February – full details at the TTA website.

If you end up going along and you see me there, please make a point of saying hello – it’s nice to meet people from the intarwebs.

However, my attendance or otherwise is dependent on me clearing a bunch of writing this evening and tomorrow morning … I’m pretty sure I’m going to make it, though.

Coda

Those interested in the results of my frugality experiments will be fascinated to hear that I haven’t spent any unnecessary money since this time last week (with the obvious exception, which was declared in advance anyway).

Still not smoking, no alcohol for seven days, minor but daily exercise, early rising. It’s uncanny; I feel like I’m living someone else’s life. Part of me hopes they’ll ask for it back real soon; the other part is trying to decide how it should arrange the furniture.

But as for now I’m busy busy busy, so I’m going to wrap this up and get on with my proper work. Well, right after The Friday Curry, that is.

Hasta luego, amigos.

[ * You'd be forgiven for forgetting, because I was beginning to sound like a scratched record or a particularly uninspired televangelist. ]

[ ** This actually happened. It was very flattering - and it made me realise that I'm not the only person in the world who needs to get out more. ]

I wish my father, a computer engineer and employee of IBM long before I was born, was still alive to see an IBM 1401 Mainframe computer being toured as part of a musical show that features interpretive dance.

He’d probably have been quite disgusted, but in a good way.

The one golden rule of writing that brooks no breach is, of course, that a writer must write. Every day, without fail.

If you fall down at this first fundamental hurdle (and I do, all the time), knowing the layout of the obstacles beyond is worthless. Personally, I’m hugely intimidated by the blank page. Not so much with non-fiction, I might add, but that merely underlines the overall point - I write non-fiction every day, and it really makes a difference to your abilities after a little while.

Jim van Pelt reiterates this crucial truism:

“For most of the writers I hang around with, this isn’t a problem.  They are so attuned to their own story-making apparatus that they have more than a lifetime of ideas to write already.  But not everyone is that way.  For some they have to work at getting ideas, or they have to have some way to prime the writing pump to get words flowing.  For them, writing exercises are a godsend.”

Indeed they are – and that’s the main reason I miss going to the poetry workshop I used to attend, because the regular exercises used to get my brain (and pen) on the move. Van Pelt also links to this online random writing prompt generator, which looks like it could be a very useful tool for me.

***

Another oft-quoted writing rule is show, don’t tell – and that’s an important one, too, especially in poetry.

However, there are times when the reverse is true. It’s vital to keep your story lean and cruft-free, and E. E. Knight has some suggestions on how telling rather than showing can be the course of greater wisdom in certain situations:

“Most of your telling-not-showing is going to happen at the beginning or end of chapters or scenes. It’s routine business keeping, letting the reader know that time has passed and location has shifted (if it has).”

As usual, he’s included examples and quotations – which are invaluable, as it helps to see the effect of a technique rather than simply being advised to use it.

***

The common ground of those two posts is the fact that one only ever learns something by doing it, not just knowing it. John O’Neil, editor of Black Gate magazine, shares a list of points he has written out for himself, to remind him to put knowledge into practice. The last entry sums up the whole thing:

“10. You tend to think that once you understand something that you�ve learned it. By this time you should know better. Continue to refer to this list, because if you�d really learned all this stuff you wouldn�t have had to write this list in the first place.”

Zing!

So, lots more sound advice for fictioneers. Though I will, of course, have to put more effort into crossing that first hurdle before the later ones will become of any real use to me!