Colin Harvey – author

I thought I ought to start getting back toward at least a semi-regular blog.  Even though this morning’s lie-in to a decadent 7.30, plus (food) shopping and fitting the new TV rather rather blew that out of the water, I’m determined to say a few words about yesterday, which was hectic and hinged around two very different experiences of lectures.

The day was terrific but exhausting; Ashley Pharoah gave the 9am script lecture, then I spent the day with friends before heading back to uni to give the 5pm guest lecture with Gareth L Powell.

In the morning Pharoah talked about the bizaare genesis of Life on Mars, the rare pleasure of actually ending a series ( Spin-off Ashes to Ashes finishes on the 21st) rather than handing it over to someone else, as Russell T Davies did with Doctor Who, or just having it axed by the network.  He also talked about his agent, and the fact that scripwriters cost their agencies an average of £10,000 per client. I’m sure that that’s less for literary agencies, and perhaps comes down the more clients an agency has, although conversely, the less they can do for an individual client, but it’s an interesting insight into the pressures on an agent. That’s something that most writers rarely think about.

Co-hosting the 5pm lecture with Gareth was a very, very different experience.  

In actual terms there were only about 30 people there (Gareth estimated 20 to 30, I thought 30 to 40, so let’s go with the middle figure) but the shape of the auditorium, which rises away from one makes even that low number pretty formidable. I suspect that not all of the audience were SF fans, since attendance is theoretically mandatory — though it was the end of the academic year — so I wanted to give them a flavour of proper SF. Gareth went for a lighter approach, and read a short story which went down well, while I read an extract from Winter Song which is perhaps -with hindsight- a little tech heavy, although perfect for a con. There’s a moral there; think about the nature of your audience. But it showed them just how diverse SF is. 

Gareth gave them some very tips on writing, which you can read about here, while I talked a little about a typical day, and both of us fielded the ‘where did that story come from?’ which is still a good question to ask.

The whole experience  was pretty draining, and offered an insight how it feels to be a lecturer. Some of the questions were tough ones to answer on the hoof, and there were several occasions when I wished afterwards that I’d just had a few more seconds to think before answering — but I felt that I had to keep one eye on the time.

It would be profoundly interesting to go back in a year’s time and repeat the experience, to see whether the experience feels any less overwhelming, and whether any of the students have gotten into SF and/or fantasy.

This will only be a quick post, since I have to leave at 8 for a 9am lecture. It’s one that’s worth going to, since the guest lecturer is Ashley Pharoah, creator of Where the Heart Is, and more importantly to genre fans, co-creator of Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes.

And then tonight I co-present the 5pm Creative Writing Lecture. I’ll be reading from Winter Song, and taking questions on SF, writing — whatever. I may not be home until 7.30, so we’ve decided to give the theatre a miss tonight. Just as well — it’s been a long year and at the moment I feels like I’m running on empty.

Still, one more week, one more seminar, and two more assignments and it’s all done until the Autumn.

The news is out: Angry Robot is under new ownership, more details of which you can see here.

My initial thoughts are that this is good news. While Harper Collins was a ‘name’ publisher, they aren’t specialists in the way that Marc and Lee are, and (hopefully) freed from all the constraints they’ve been placed under at HC, the Robot Overlords and their army will be able to give readers a better service.

And of course, good luck to Marc and Lee who have already done a terrific job, and will (hopefully) do an even better one free of corporate interests.

Meanwhile, normal service will be resumed shortly — maybe tomorrow, maybe next week. Depends how I get on with my remaining assignments…

The news is that Peter Watts has been fined, not imprisoned; hardly good news, but far, far better than things looked 36 hours ago, and at least he can now (hopefully) get on with his life.

Meanwhile, I’ve reviewed Gareth L Powell’s debut novel over at Suite101.

And the second part of the memory thread that formed such a serendipitous moment, given Damage Time’s imminent publication, is here. This is specifically about deleting memories, the parallel to the novel’s ripping them.

If this all seems a little breathless, it is; this Tuesday seems especially frantic as the Uni timetable is all over the place and I have to be out of the door in about five minutes…

The Saturday review at Suite101 this week is Black Static 16, but before you click on the link –or not– I want to add a coda.

I mentioned that it’s the first full colour Black Static, but Suite’s policies preclude me from saying that the whole magazine is jaw-droppingly fucking gorgeous.  I had my doubts about a full colour edition, simply because  it’s a magazine of dark fiction, which just goes to show that

a. sometimes bright colours can enhance the darkness

b. I know nothing, absolutely nada, about artwork. Except what I like.

Oddly, the Lynda E. Rucker artwork, which is among the strongest in the issue, seems to be uncredited.

On another point, space precluded me commenting in more detail on Stephen Volk’s ‘Electric Darkness,’ which was like a shot in the arm. This is how it starts:

There’s this story. This guy went to live in the wilderness with grizzly bears… He admired their grace and ever since he was a kid he adored them. He thought, if I treat them well, they’ll have no reason…to attack me.  On the contrary, they’ll love me like I love them and we’ll all live happily in the forest together. Well, one day the fucking grizzlies turned on him and ate him.

I know the feeling.

Volk recounts the series of setbacks and the periodic depression that plagues him (and sometimes the two are linked, and sometimes they’re not) — and wonders why he bothers.

It touched a chord because I’m slightly melancholic by nature, and also lately because I’ve begun to note the switchback nature of writing for a living.

Possibly every beginning writer dreaming of the first sale thinks that after they’ve made the breakthrough, it’s happily ever after. In fact, given long enough a writer’s career seems increasingly to me to be like a game of Snakes ‘n’ Ladders. Volk’s article nails it absolutely, and in the process outlines how he copes. Anyone who suffers from depression, or whose career is going through a rough patch should read it.

Black Static is a great magazine, and 16 is an exemplary issue, but in any case this month’s Electric Darkness alone is worth the cover price.

I realized as I got up this morning that I only have five more days of holiday. I have no idea where the time went, since we seem to have done very little, but it seems like only a day or two ago that I was waking up on the Friday before Easter and thinking, three whole weeks of no uni!

They, whoever the mysterious ‘they’ are –aliens perhaps, or tribal elders?– say that time passes faster as one gets older. What they don’t really hammer home is that it hurtles by as if you’re on the Cresta Run, so that the seasons seem in memory to become a series of stop-motion snapshots; flick! It’s winter and snow carpets the ground; flick! now it’s spring and leaves are shouldering their way out of the buds. flick! Now it’s summer, and heat and languor hover just above ground level. flick! Here comes autumn again…

But for now it’s spring, and out in the garden, the wildlife is stirring…

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.

I noted over at Suite101 that I’ve been doing a lot of thinking this week. What I don’t say in the blog is how suspicious we are as a society, and as individuals, of people who think a lot. We’re so obsessed with productivity, and things, that we mistrust people who stare into space without actually doing something. I actually once had a Management Accountant tell me that anything that couldn’t be measured was worthless. Indeed, our whole society seems predicated  on providing ways of avoiding thinking — be it TV, radio, the internet, etc, etc…

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

Grr! The plan was to take this week off, but we can’t go out today as we’re waiting for a delivery of kitchen tiles.  And we can’t even sit outside as the workman have turned up to re-lay a water pipe outside our front gate. Cue a tractor- mounted pneumatic drill, and the smell of scorching pavement wafting across the graden.

Oh well, nothing else for it but to tidy up one of those reviews I almost finished before Eastercon. In this case, it’s a play, as we went to see Noel Coward’s Present Laughter recently.

At least the workmen should be finished by tomorrow…

Last week I blogged about a couple of live cases involving members of the SF community and getting in and out of the US. In the last few days the situation has become clearer, although no happier for those involved. More about it at the usual venue.