I don't know why, but no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to fit into this country's institutional machinery. For example, it has just taken me all winter to change my energy supplier. Scottish Power refused to let me go because they said the energy company I wanted to change to couldn't support my old electricity meter. In order to get through the labyrinth of red tape, I had to buy a brand new meter, have it installed, and then have it removed again the next day in order to fit a second brand new meter. All of which is ludicrous. But that was the only way they'd do it. It took four months.
Now it's tax.
My accountant filed my tax return well before the January deadline, and I duly sent off my cheque and thought no more about it. A couple of months later, HM Revenue and Customs sent me a reminder, saying that I had to pay my tax before a certain date. The reminder arrived two days after the deadline. They'd sent it to the wrong address, and it had been sitting in a neighbour's empty house for weeks.
So I phoned them up. "I've already paid this."
"No you haven't."
No, I hadn't. It seems they'd lost my cheque.
I paid the tax there and then over the phone. Unfortunately it was too late. Because the cheque had vanished and they'd sent the reminder to the wrong address, I had missed the deadline. Now they want me to pay a surcharge.
I said, "Was there anything else I could have done to avoid that surcharge? I sent my cheque on time. I paid you the moment you informed me you hadn't received my payment."
They said I have to appeal in writing.
Writing this reminds me of another example. A long time ago I owned a flat I wanted to rent out. I'd left my job and wanted to go and see some of the world. So I contacted a letting agent. He said, "Great flat, blah de blah, do you want to rent it furnished?" I did, so we signed something and he went off to look for tenants. I phoned the insurance company. "I'm letting out my flat, will I still be covered?"
"No," the said. "You'll need to change to our landlord's insurance policy."
"Fine." It was more expensive, but I wanted the peace of mind.
A year later I got back, to find out I haven't received any rent for the last ninth months and the flat was bare – no furniture, no TV, no bed. Not even a spoon. Someone had painted a large dragon on the wall, badly.
I phoned the letting agent.
He said, "The tenants wouldn't pay any rent."
"Where's all my stuff?"
"They stole it."
I phoned the tenants.
They said, "We paid all the rent up to the last month, but our deposit covered that."
"Where's all my stuff?"
"What stuff? We wanted an unfurnished flat, so the letting agent cleared it out for us before we moved in."
I phoned the police.
They said, "What's been stolen?"
"Everything I own." That wasn't entirely true. I still had the clothes in my backpack, and a plastic dog I'd bought in India for 20 rupees. And half a tube of toothpaste.
It turns out the police had had complaints about this letting agent before. They said they'd go and see him. They didn't. The officer who had been assigned my case went on holiday for a month. When he got back he left his job to work at another precinct. A new officer was put in charge. He'd get on to it as soon as he got back from his own two week holiday. He didn't. My case had become lost in the switch over. Months passed. Eventually they told me they couldn't pursue it because it had been too long since the original complaint. Sorry.
In the meantime, I phoned my insurance company.
They said, "You aren't covered."
"Yes I am," I said. "Because, I changed to your insurance policy for landlords like you told me to."
"But that policy doesn't cover theft or damage by tenants, or letting agents, or anyone with a key to the front door."
I waited a long moment. "What does it cover?"
Not much, it turned out.
Cormack McCarthy once said that if you were able to measure some human talent or attribute, such as luck, for everyone on the planet, and you plotted them all on a graph, it would form a bell-curve. And at one end, you'd find the luckiest person in the world.
Actually I think I'm pretty lucky. But if there's a bell curve that covers relatively minor inconvenience involving governments, councils, phone and insurance companies, banks, energy suppliers, the DVLA, and airport baggage handlers – any sort of system which will at times fail – then I have a sneaking suspicion I know which end I'm stuck at.
Still, the "relatively minor inconvenience bell curve" isn't such a bad one, when you think about the other possibilities. The loss of some stuff, a disconnected phone, a missing suitcase, or a fine from the tax man means nothing. It's completely insignificant when you compare it to all the actual suffering in the world: the grief, the hunger, the disease, the war.
It's still fucking annoying though.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Dreams
I've been having a lot of extremely vivid dreams recently. Some of them, like the one I had two nights ago, are easy enough to explain.
My good friend has asked me to be best man at his wedding in July, and of course I'm honoured and chuffed. (This isn't the dream yet. This is real life.) My dream began at the wedding reception. Due to some strange technicality that wasn't clear, the wedding had been brought forward to an earlier date, and I hadn't found out about it until the very last minute. Of course I didn't have a best man's speech prepared. The reception was held in a huge white marquee. I remember sitting there in a panic, aware that I only had six minutes to come up with a speech. Suddenly I had three minutes left, then two, and my mind remained blank. And then it was my turn to speak. I stood up nervously in front of the expectant crowd. Everyone was looking at me. I couldn't think of anything to say. At that point I woke up.
Last night's dream was stranger.
I was in a park, somewhere. It was summertime and sunny and I could smell cut grass. Other people I knew were around, but, with one exception, I can't recall who they were. The only person I do remember is a well-know writer I've met a couple of times. A nice guy. I'm not going to say who he is. In my dream he was wearing a white t-shirt and jeans. At first he kept wanting to fight me, but the reason for this remains unclear. My friends were trying to stop him. This went on for a while, but then his attitude suddenly changed. He became friendly, then too friendly, which started to weird me out. Then he began to get aggressive again. I wanted to leave, but we had to stick together because it was the only way to defeat the vampires.
Yep. The vampires sort of sneaked up on me, too. God knows where they came from. That's dreams for you.
I've also been having a lot of dreams about the end of the world. The one that sticks in my mind is where I'm standing on a hill watching hundreds of nuclear missiles fall to earth. The sky is dark red, full of massive clouds. The landscape is also red, hazy, and a siren is wailing in the distance. I can see the missiles' jets burning as they descend through the clouds. In my dream they're falling slowly, like crimson flares. Its freezing cold and I want to go inside, but I can't bring myself to look away. I remember thinking, I'm not going to see anything as beautiful as this again.
That said, I had been playing Fallout 3 at the time.
My good friend has asked me to be best man at his wedding in July, and of course I'm honoured and chuffed. (This isn't the dream yet. This is real life.) My dream began at the wedding reception. Due to some strange technicality that wasn't clear, the wedding had been brought forward to an earlier date, and I hadn't found out about it until the very last minute. Of course I didn't have a best man's speech prepared. The reception was held in a huge white marquee. I remember sitting there in a panic, aware that I only had six minutes to come up with a speech. Suddenly I had three minutes left, then two, and my mind remained blank. And then it was my turn to speak. I stood up nervously in front of the expectant crowd. Everyone was looking at me. I couldn't think of anything to say. At that point I woke up.
Last night's dream was stranger.
I was in a park, somewhere. It was summertime and sunny and I could smell cut grass. Other people I knew were around, but, with one exception, I can't recall who they were. The only person I do remember is a well-know writer I've met a couple of times. A nice guy. I'm not going to say who he is. In my dream he was wearing a white t-shirt and jeans. At first he kept wanting to fight me, but the reason for this remains unclear. My friends were trying to stop him. This went on for a while, but then his attitude suddenly changed. He became friendly, then too friendly, which started to weird me out. Then he began to get aggressive again. I wanted to leave, but we had to stick together because it was the only way to defeat the vampires.
Yep. The vampires sort of sneaked up on me, too. God knows where they came from. That's dreams for you.
I've also been having a lot of dreams about the end of the world. The one that sticks in my mind is where I'm standing on a hill watching hundreds of nuclear missiles fall to earth. The sky is dark red, full of massive clouds. The landscape is also red, hazy, and a siren is wailing in the distance. I can see the missiles' jets burning as they descend through the clouds. In my dream they're falling slowly, like crimson flares. Its freezing cold and I want to go inside, but I can't bring myself to look away. I remember thinking, I'm not going to see anything as beautiful as this again.
That said, I had been playing Fallout 3 at the time.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Happy Birthday Neil
It's my brother's birthday today. He has a blog here:
http://intheventofire.blogspot.com/
He's getting a book for his birthday. Guess which one.
http://intheventofire.blogspot.com/
He's getting a book for his birthday. Guess which one.
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
More on God of Clocks
A short Publishers Weekly review of the book here:
God of Clocks Alan Campbell. Bantam Spectra, $25 (384p) ISBN 978-0-553-38418-5
In the dramatic third and almost certainly concluding volume of Campbell's Deepgate Codex (after 2008's Iron Angel), an apocalyptic battle between warring gods puts the very existence of humankind in jeopardy as gore-splattered battlefields spill over from the realm of mortals and the depths of Hell to the labyrinth of Time itself. Featuring an ensemble cast of richly described characters, including a soul-eating giant and an angel trapped inside a 400-foot-tall golem, the numerous story lines eventually converge in a finale involving a multiverse of time paradoxes and mind-bending plot twists. Campbell's experience in video game design is evident in the relentless pacing and highly imaginative settings as well as his meticulous attention to detail in the many fight sequences. Readers will thrill to the hellishly dark imagery and labyrinthine plot lines.
God of Clocks Alan Campbell. Bantam Spectra, $25 (384p) ISBN 978-0-553-38418-5
In the dramatic third and almost certainly concluding volume of Campbell's Deepgate Codex (after 2008's Iron Angel), an apocalyptic battle between warring gods puts the very existence of humankind in jeopardy as gore-splattered battlefields spill over from the realm of mortals and the depths of Hell to the labyrinth of Time itself. Featuring an ensemble cast of richly described characters, including a soul-eating giant and an angel trapped inside a 400-foot-tall golem, the numerous story lines eventually converge in a finale involving a multiverse of time paradoxes and mind-bending plot twists. Campbell's experience in video game design is evident in the relentless pacing and highly imaginative settings as well as his meticulous attention to detail in the many fight sequences. Readers will thrill to the hellishly dark imagery and labyrinthine plot lines.
Monday, April 06, 2009
Publishing: Traditional vs Sleb?
I've received a lot of emails recently asking if I have any tips or advice on getting work published, so I thought I'd blog about that, with a disclaimer – I'm not an agent or an editor, so I can only say what worked for me (for what that's worth). Also, a lot of people have been sending me their work and asking that I take a look at it. Unfortunately, I have to give the same response. I'm sorry, but I just don't have the time. If I look at one, I'd have to read through them all, and that would take up most of the week. And to be honest, I'm not the best person to critique work anyway. You'd be far better finding a good writers' group.
When I started writing with a view to getting the work published, I read a few books on the subject. Some were better than others. "The Elements of Style" by Strunk and White is best of the bunch. You can find the text online here:
http://www.bartleby.com/141/
"Stein on Writing" by Sol Stein helps writers look at their prose from an editor's perspective. Bill Bryson's "Troublesome Words" is informative and funny. It's the only reference book I've seen that explains those esoteric rules of English usage such as why "Mr" should not have a full stop at the end, but "Prof." should, while gleefully poking fun at almost every major newspaper. And if you're looking for inspiration, Stephen King's "On Writing" will have you scrambling back to your keyboard with a smile on your face.
A lot of these books cover the same ground: Show don't tell; Omit needless words; Write with nouns and verbs. Everyone agrees on the basics, which is good news because there aren't that many basics to cover.
Finish your book. Join a writers' group. Get feedback. Rewrite. Polish the book until it's as good as you can make it.
Join a writer's group. That's worth mentioning twice. Don't join a group where everyone sits around massaging each others' egos. What's the point of that? Find a bunch of people who are serious about critiquing and improving their fiction, and who won't hesitate to let you know when something doesn't work.
Does your book fit neatly into a genre? Find out which agents represent authors who write in that genre. If someone at your writers' group says your work reminds them of Author X, then Google Author X and find out who represents them.
That's the best agent tostalk, submit to first.
I read that work should be presented in "standard manuscript format", so that's what I did.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mslee/format.html
Send about fifty pages, along with a short letter telling them a bit about yourself.
Then wait. If your chosen agent doesn't go for it, then try somewhere else. Remember, it's subjective. Some people will hate your book, but others might just love it.
So that's the traditional way to get your work published. No surprises there. Just long hours of hard work. If you decide to take that path, then I'm afraid I don't know any shortcuts.
But there is another way.
The alternative is to get your face on TV, and then provide a publisher with a celebrity book. It doesn't really matter how badly written it is, because the people who are going to buy it don't read proper books anyway, so they won't realise it's shit.
In this case, you're aiming for readers of those glossy gossip magazines – the ones with lots of celebrity pictures, where any text comes in small, easy-to-manage chunks and sentences usually end with an exclamation mark. This is good because it means that your book doesn't need to have any thought behind it whatsoever. For example, you can write paragraphs about your hair – whether or not to have it straightened or curled, or even dyed. The readers will relate to that because they have hair too, and have faced similar dilemmas. The book itself can be pointless, with entire chapters devoted to the mundane. You got up, ate breakfast, and so on. Your readers will be enthralled. She's just like me, they'll think.
You can probably get away with a biography every couple of years. Usually, there will be things that have happened during the time between books, events that the readers will want to know about. New kitchens, hairstyles, clothes, etc. Maybe you took a taxi somewhere? Or ate sushi? Let your imagination run wild. Sometimes nothing at all will have happened, but that's OK. It's real life, innit?
If you are a celebrity and you want to write fiction, ask your publisher to provide you with a ghostwriter. This is a person who takes your idea for the book and writes down all the words. If you can't think of a plot, just copy something you see on the TV. It doesn't have to be "War and Peace". Twenty or so events happening one after the other should do the trick. But do tell your ghostwriter to use simple language. After all, you might want to read it yourself one day.
When I started writing with a view to getting the work published, I read a few books on the subject. Some were better than others. "The Elements of Style" by Strunk and White is best of the bunch. You can find the text online here:
http://www.bartleby.com/141/
"Stein on Writing" by Sol Stein helps writers look at their prose from an editor's perspective. Bill Bryson's "Troublesome Words" is informative and funny. It's the only reference book I've seen that explains those esoteric rules of English usage such as why "Mr" should not have a full stop at the end, but "Prof." should, while gleefully poking fun at almost every major newspaper. And if you're looking for inspiration, Stephen King's "On Writing" will have you scrambling back to your keyboard with a smile on your face.
A lot of these books cover the same ground: Show don't tell; Omit needless words; Write with nouns and verbs. Everyone agrees on the basics, which is good news because there aren't that many basics to cover.
Finish your book. Join a writers' group. Get feedback. Rewrite. Polish the book until it's as good as you can make it.
Join a writer's group. That's worth mentioning twice. Don't join a group where everyone sits around massaging each others' egos. What's the point of that? Find a bunch of people who are serious about critiquing and improving their fiction, and who won't hesitate to let you know when something doesn't work.
Does your book fit neatly into a genre? Find out which agents represent authors who write in that genre. If someone at your writers' group says your work reminds them of Author X, then Google Author X and find out who represents them.
That's the best agent to
I read that work should be presented in "standard manuscript format", so that's what I did.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mslee/format.html
Send about fifty pages, along with a short letter telling them a bit about yourself.
Then wait. If your chosen agent doesn't go for it, then try somewhere else. Remember, it's subjective. Some people will hate your book, but others might just love it.
So that's the traditional way to get your work published. No surprises there. Just long hours of hard work. If you decide to take that path, then I'm afraid I don't know any shortcuts.
But there is another way.
The alternative is to get your face on TV, and then provide a publisher with a celebrity book. It doesn't really matter how badly written it is, because the people who are going to buy it don't read proper books anyway, so they won't realise it's shit.
In this case, you're aiming for readers of those glossy gossip magazines – the ones with lots of celebrity pictures, where any text comes in small, easy-to-manage chunks and sentences usually end with an exclamation mark. This is good because it means that your book doesn't need to have any thought behind it whatsoever. For example, you can write paragraphs about your hair – whether or not to have it straightened or curled, or even dyed. The readers will relate to that because they have hair too, and have faced similar dilemmas. The book itself can be pointless, with entire chapters devoted to the mundane. You got up, ate breakfast, and so on. Your readers will be enthralled. She's just like me, they'll think.
You can probably get away with a biography every couple of years. Usually, there will be things that have happened during the time between books, events that the readers will want to know about. New kitchens, hairstyles, clothes, etc. Maybe you took a taxi somewhere? Or ate sushi? Let your imagination run wild. Sometimes nothing at all will have happened, but that's OK. It's real life, innit?
If you are a celebrity and you want to write fiction, ask your publisher to provide you with a ghostwriter. This is a person who takes your idea for the book and writes down all the words. If you can't think of a plot, just copy something you see on the TV. It doesn't have to be "War and Peace". Twenty or so events happening one after the other should do the trick. But do tell your ghostwriter to use simple language. After all, you might want to read it yourself one day.
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