Peace be with you

I drove to Coventry yesterday to see my good friend Clive Hogger get ordained as a deacon in the cathedral there. The ceremony had - maybe appropriately - a little of a wedding about it, combined with something of a christening. There were lots of ladies in hats and there was a general buzz of familial pride.

For me it was all a bit strange. The only services I have been to for as long as I can remember have been weddings and funerals. Had I not felt a bond with Clive, I dare say the ritual could have been fairly empty for me as a non-believer, but the one thing that I did find moving as well as seeing the bishop blessing Clive and him walking away looking a foot taller - was when everyone was encouraged to greet their neighbour.

Hundred of people turning to each other and shaking the hands of friends and strangers and saying, 'Peace be with you,' struck me as a quite a beautiful thing and managed to somehow short circuit my default setting of cynicism. It had a simplicity that was lost among the pomp of the occasion.

So, peace be with you.

And good luck to Clive, the coolest deacon I know.

After the reception back at Alison's parent's house near Rugby, I then drove back to Cambridge in time to have, appropriately enough after standing on the touchline with Clive watching our sons play football for their school, a kick around with my son and watch Spain win Euro 2008 in fantastic style.

I need answers

A busy Saturday today. I took my son to tennis this morning, then worked whilst he went to the school's summer fete. It is my deadline on Monday and I'm not going to hit it. I have killed one of the stories off - or rather I have put it into suspended animation. It needs time to make it really work, so it will end up in another book, another time. Sometimes writing is more about letting go of something than it is about the work itself. You can't afford to be precious.


I dropped in to the school later just to see how it was all getting on and have a chat to John and Judith among others. In the afternoon I cycled with my son to have a piano lesson at his teacher's house on the Trumpington Road and then back for Doctor Who.

Dr Who is regenerating after being hit by a Dalek after an hilarious slow motion romantic running sequence involving him and Rose. Regenerating! It can't really mean that David Tennant is leaving can it? Why can't Catherine Tate regenerate? And what has happened to Billy Piper's voice since she's been in the parallel world? I can hardly understand what she's saying. She seems to have twice as many teeth. I need answers and I need them now.


Off to Coventry cathedral tomorrow for Clive Hogger's ordination.

The Graveyard Book

Adrian Downie got in touch today from Bloomsbury to thank me for recommending Saki on these pages. He also brought up the subject of the website for Tales of Terror from the Black Ship. More of that another time.

He gave me a link to a site he'd just done for Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book - one version of which is illustrated by my old friend Chris Riddell. Another version is done by that longstanding Gaiman collaborator, Dave McKean.

Both are published by Bloomsbury this coming October

Proof

I got a bound proof copy of Tales of Terror from the Black Ship today from Susannah Nuckey at Bloomsbury. This is adorned with some of the great reviews we managed to garner for Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror and has David Robert's illustrations.

This is the first time I have seen David's finished pictures and he has done a fantastic job again - as you will see when you all rush out and buy the book in October!

Missing planks

I continue to nibble away at Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's Mouth. My deadline is next week and I am still not entirely happy. This stage of a book always takes longer than I think it will.

Once a book is up and running, you can coast fairly easily. The words come thick and fast and you have the freedom of knowing that if there is a problem you can always come back to it at a later stage.

This is that later stage. All the unresolved passages and glitches are now massively important. They are missing planks in a bridge. They are holes in a picture. They have to be sorted out.

I actually enjoy, in a semi-perverse way, the mechanics of making something work, whether it be a strip, a story, an illustration or a painting. There is the satisfaction of solving a puzzle or climbing a hill wedded to the sheer excitement of adding that final detail or turn of phrase that brings something to life.

Or at least that's the hope.

Do

I went to the studio this morning and saw John briefly. He was working on one of his drawings on his laptop and in the space of about five minutes explained how to use part of Photoshop that is going to really help me I think. I have never been trained in Photoshop and I just about get by. I may be picking John's brains again.

I did quite a bit of work this morning. I have been a little intimidated by my paintings lately - frightened of spoiling the good things about them and not replacing them with anything better - but today I just decided to get some more paint on the canvas. Sometimes you just have to do something. I once saw a great piece of graffiti. It just said 'Do'. That was all. Do. If I was going to have a motto, that would be a good one.

In the afternoon I was working on Tales from the Tunnel's Mouth. I am going through the whole book sharpening the writing. I think I need to get a draft printed off and actually read it through out loud. Tweaking on the computer can become a bit of a black hole. I think it adds to the feeling that everything is still in flux - which I like up to a point. But eventually I need to see it on paper. That's when it starts to feel like it's out in the real world and not still in my head.

John was in the studio again today. At one point, so was Lynette. Had Andrew turned up we'd have been a full house and I can't remember the last time that happened.

I went for another work-displacement coffee with John. This time the conversation turned to violence in cinema and games and whether it has an effect on the viewer and what that effect might be, particularly in relation to children - and to our children in particular. I always have a tendency to adopt a stance in conversations like these, but I often come away wondering whether I was talking utter nonsense.

I tend to talk as though everything is black and white, when that isn't how I perceive the world at all. I certainly don't think I have a special insight. I sometimes think I might have a special insight into my own personal lack of insight.

I am continually wracked by doubt, but I have always thought that a good thing (though not an especially pleasurable one). I think more novels and paintings are produced by doubt rather than certainty.

And I was still thinking this as I cucled home to get back to my book.