Colin Harvey – author

Something significant happened at 12.27 today; at about the same time as I was submitting my first assignment, in Feature Journalism, the thermometer rose to freezing point. It’s the first time in I’m not sure how many days that it’s shown positive.  It’s still bitterly cold, but at least now I can leave off tipping boiling water into the bird bath. (No, we’re not parboiling the local sparrows — within a few minutes it’s barely above freezing again, but at least it’s drinkable)

Kate took some pictures yesterday, which will illustrate our wintry world far better than I can.

And in the same way as there’s a sense that the world is thawing gradually, so I’ve finally started to feel as if I’m getting on top of things, for the first time in quite a while.

Partly that’s because I’m about two days away from finishing the revision of Ultramassive.  I have one more pass to do a light edit of certain passages, but I’ve used the time freed up from working at the BEH to target this.

And, as I blogged yesterday, Film is done and dusted for a few days. It’s now onto the nice part, the concept stages leading to a screenplay.  And tomorrow night our core lecture will take the form of a screening of the Swedish version of Let the Right One In. Must remember to pick up the popcorn on the way in…

It’s going to be a quickie this morning, as I’m due to be on campus by mid-day. I  have  to register –despite already having registered on-line!- and go to an introductory lecture, and I’ll probably visit the on-site Job-Shop and raid the Fresher’s Fair for whatever goodies there are (well, I am a starving student…).

Meanwhile, I’ve posted a quick blog at suite101 as well about the curious affair of Winter Song in East Lansing, Michigan — courtesy of my friend the Black Helicopter.

More tomorrow!

I’m still getting settled back into some sort of routine this morning. After a brief diversion into the land of short story writing, I took a day off yesterday to attend my step-father’s funeral.  Not the sort of day off that I like — I much prefer them to involve lying prone somewhere in sunshine on one hand, a long drink in another, and a good book — wait, that’s too many hands…

But despite being slightly worried about resuming novel-writing, once I got going, I found slipping back into the groove of writing Ultramassive surprisingly easy. I think that I’ve achieved a certain residual momentum. Or maybe the day ‘off’ did some good.

My only reminder of work yesterday was when Lee rang me from the Angry Robot office for one last minor edit for Damage Time. It came as Kate and I were buying some sandwiches for lunch in a bomb-site/Sainsbury’s-under-construction, on the edge of Exeter. I thought, ‘shall I tell him where I am?’ but decided against it. He might have felt guilty, whereas I was actually glad of the distraction.

And Damage Time cropped up again this morning, with this timely link provided by the lovely Liz van Zandt, via Facebook. I proposed in the novel that society might be entering a phase whereby economic factors affect people’s living arrangements, and even marriage. In the draft it raised more eyebrows and hackles with the crit group than perhaps any other point, which surprised me.

I suspect that I’m not done with blogging about this yet. In fact, I know I’m not…thanks Liz. 🙂

This morning I passed 40k on the next novel, so it is now officially a novel, albeit an unfinished one.   🙂

I also posted up my full Angry Robot schedule at Suite101. Since the US and UK have different ordering and delivery cycles, there are four different dates, which makes it hard even for me to keep track of.

And I watched Misfits on Channel 4 last night. Brilliant. Heroes done properly — including a cheeky dig at the American series.

This morning I’m guest blogging over at at Gareth L Powell’s website, on the subject of Generating Heat.  Nothing to do with starting fires or keeping warm, but rather a film industry term.

Long gone are the days when the author wrote a book, sent it off, and left it to take its chances in the world. Nowadays every publisher expects the author to have a plan. The scriptwriting industry is much more self-aware about writing as a career, and can provide the aspiring writer with useful career guidance. Read more here.

I was supposed to be working on a synopsis this morning, but I hit a bit of a road block. So when I saw a recent  Guardian article that tied in with a couple of recent conversations, I thought it worth taking a few minutes out to post something at Suite101.  

But now I’ve done that, I’d better get back to work.

I’m going to be particularly busy over this next week. Kate and I went to see Wilde’s Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime in Bath last night, so this morning I posted a quick review at the usual place.

Tomorrow I’m in Bristol at the Shakespeare (down on Princes Street) for the launch of Gareth L Powell’s debut novel Silversands — I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy.

Monday night I’m in Bristol again, for the monthly meeting of the Bristol SF & Fantasy Society, where doubtless talk will turn to Bristolcon. Although there will be other subjects discussed -such as whose round is it?– and Doctor Who and…the meeting is at 8pm at the King William on King Street, and as well as yours truly, Jim Mortimore and Jo Hall will be there, plus assorted others.

On Wednesday I’ll be attending the Arthur C. Clarke Awards presentation ceremony in London, and staying overnight. The next morning I might just take a stroll into one or two of the local bookshops, and maybe even sign a few copies of Damage Time…

If you’re at any of the upcoming events, feel free to come over and say ‘Hi.’

With the eruption in Iceland knocking even the General Election off the headlines yesterday, I thought that I’d check that my friends up there were okay, since the BBC were making it sound as if the Four Horsemen were on the move — even checking with some rent-a-pundit whether we were at risk from all this flying ash (which begs the question; what are we expected to do if he says “Yes, we’re all going to die”?).

I got an interesting reply, which I’ve paraphrased here.

Then he added with typical Icelandic humour, “So now we are not just dealing with corrupted businessmen and politicians, but mother nature as well. But in some ways we are relieved having something else to talk about than Icesave.”

That last by the way, refers to the bank which Wee Gordy Brown decided to lock down using anti-terrorist legislation, which was clearly what it was designed for. Not. Of course you should trust us with these powers, the politicians say…we’d never dream of misusing them…

OK, so it’s a year late, but I finally got around to reviewing one of the best of the Nebula Awards series in quite some time. Here it is. Meanwhile, I’m still pondering how I approach multiple blogs and still keep them interesting. More on that later this week.

I posted the usual blog entry over at suite101, but I’m acutely conscious that if I’m not careful, this blog becomes no more than a daily re-direct. It was something that I was already aware of before a friend made a comment yesterday, but it made it more important that I give it some thought. (Oh no, more thinking required…)

I’ll follow it up on Monday, although it won’t be posted at suite.