What next?

I went to London today to meet Sarah Odedina at Bloomsbury to have the 'what next' meeting I mentioned a while back. I met Philippa, my agent, beforehand and we had a coffee and cake and a chat before heading up to Soho Square.

My family accompanied me to London, and we all went to see the excellent Byzantium exhibition at the Royal Academy in the morning. It was a beautifully designed show packed full of gems (in both senses of the word). The rooms shone with gold. In fact the coins alone were worth the visit. There were lots of exhibits from Venice (pillaged from Constantinople during the infamous Fourth Crusade) - some of which we recognised from San Marco. Many exhibits came from places I will probably never visit - and some from places where my wife (who has the audacity to be a woman) would not be allowed to visit.

My meeting at Bloomsbury went well. Sarah is incredibly enthusiastic and it was great to hear how excited both her and Philippa are about the new book. You can lose sight of that sometimes as a writer: that other people do not know what is coming as they turn the page, and are excited at the prospect.

So what is next? Well another novel for Bloomsbury, that's for sure. I have not lost my interest in writing short stories - not by a long way - but I am enjoying the challenge of writing something longer. But I will be writing short fiction again, I promise you that.

What is this new novel going to be like, I hear you ask. Well, all right - maybe you didn't exactly ask, but I'm going to tell you anyway. Actually - I'm not. It will be creepy, of course - I can tell you that much. And this time I think I may write something contemporary. But that's as far as I'm willing to go at the moment. I have a few things in mind and I'll let you know more as the months go by.

Assuming you're interested that is. . .

Work, work, work

I should have been drinking wine and eating canapes at the Groucho Club in Soho this evening, but I just could not afford the time off, given that I am going to see Bloomsbury tomorrow and I want to get as much done beforehand as I can and am just a little bit troubled about giving off too much of a dog-ate-my-homework kind of vibe.

Anyway, living in Cambridge means that it is almost impossible to go to an evening event in London and not stop over - not because it is a long way away (it is only 45 minutes) but because public transport fizzles out too early. I had actually originally intended to stop over. I planned to book a night at the Goodenough with the family and have a day out in London. But I thought better of it. Work, work, work.

Oh - and I would not want you to think that I eat canapes at the Groucho Club on a regular basis. In truth I have never been to the Groucho Club before. But I had been invited to the launch of the Ultimate Book Guide, for which I had contributed a few reviews.

Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror is reviewed in the book by one of the editors - Daniel Hahn - but as the review gives away the plot twists to most of the stories I would not suggest reading it if you want to enjoy the book!

Gooseberries

Valentine's Day. As usual my wife and I enjoyed a traditional romantic dinner for three. When you have children, you grow your own gooseberries - if you see what I mean.

I forgot to mention that news of a couple of foreign editions came through this week. Rironsha have published Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror in Japan. It came out last November. They are sending a couple of copies to Bloomsbury so I hope I'll see one soon. I am very excited about that. The Japanese have a great understanding of horror and things creepy so I take the fact that they are publishing one of my books as a great compliment.

I am also delighted that Raben & Sjogren are publishing Uncle Monty in Sweden very shortly. I am hoping for success in both these countries. I have not been to either country and would very much like to. So, come on - buy those books!

Raben & Sjogren sent a PDF of the cover. I'm intrigued by the fact that they have shrunk Edgar. . .

Waterland

Flood alert. I set off to the cinema to meet John and found the path led to a fast flowing river. There can be few things more redundant than a bridge that leads to water. Actually it sounds like a Buddhist aphorism doesn't it? Life is but a bridge that leads to water. Death is just a bridge that leads to water. Maybe not.

So - I enjoyed Slumdog Millionaire more than I had expected to. The words 'feelgood movie' always fill me with a particular dread. But I quite liked that conceit of using the questions in the studio and the interrogations of the police to tell the story of the character. It was Kurasowa-like. And the performances were great.

It didn't make me want to go to Mumbai in any kind of a hurry though.

Mad Men

I had two contacts from Brazil today. One was a sixteen year old writer called Vitoria Pratini (a friend of Frini) leaving a comment on my blog in Rio. The other was Merche Clark whom I stayed with when I was in Rio. Merche, you may recall if you have been following my adventures, is sister to my studio mate John Clark and owner of the Jamer Bookshop. Merche made me feel very welcome when I was in Rio. If you are in the city and you have a moment to spare, get yourself down to her bookshop and buy some books. It would be nice if they were mine, but any purchases would be greatly appreciated I'm sure.

And speaking of John Clark, I'm off to see Slumdog Millionaire with him tonight. I hope it is as good as everyone says it is, because I am dog tired and might just fall asleep.

This blog is in serious risk of degenerating into a name-dropping site, but I used to work for Danny Boyle a long time ago. He was the director of the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs and I did a couple of posters for him. I have chatted in a port-a-cabin with Danny Boyle. Are you jealous? Don't be. I specialise in working with people before they were rich and famous. It's actually quite annoying.

Mad Men is back. I was traumatised by the loss of The Sopranos and missed out on The Wire but Mad Men is superb television. It's dark, it's clever, it's sexy. It is so well acted. People used to say British TV was the best in the world (by which they meant the BBC). If that was ever true, it isn't any more.

Britain is not showing itself capable of coming up with anything as good as Mad Men. The Sopranos could never have been made here. And it's not just about production values and access to movie-making talent and facilities (though that does make a difference obviously). It is the ambition. Mad Men is art. What British TV in recent years can you say that about?

The BBC prides itself on costume drama and quite rightly so. But Mad Men is also costume drama and it shows what you can do within that format.

It can be more than slipping a sex scene into a Jane Austen novel.

Cutting and pasting

I am still deep into the rewrite. I work on a computer and there are good and bad things about that way of working when it comes to doing alterations.

The good thing is that you can move whole chunks of texts - whole chapters if necessary - by cutting and pasting. The bad thing is that you can move whole chunks of text - whole chapters sometimes - by cutting and pasting.

What I mean is, it can be too easy to change things. The text starts to come apart at the seams because it is no longer a solid mass, but a collection of floating paragraphs. And a novel needs to hang together.

I'm not just talking about plot (or the story, if you object to the word plot) here, though obviously that is very important. I want my work to read well - to sound good. Messing about with the structure of the book can play havoc with those nice rhythms you created in the first draft.

That said, I think that radical change is better than the odd tweak here and there. As long as you always keep a copy of the original you can always revert. You certainly get nowhere by being precious about your own text.

Better to be brave than tentative.

Goosebumps

We had the lovely Mardi Dungey and her son round this evening. Mardi is back in Cambridge from Tasmania for a week. It was great to see her and to hear that Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror is in the bookshops in Hobart. We miss her and Ross a lot.

Earlier in the day I went over to Sainsburys to do a rare supermarket shopping trip and Radio 3 had David Daniels as a guest. I have never really 'got' opera. It is just about the only music form that leaves me cold and I get a little tired of how it is used as some sort of cultural benchmark. I see no reason why people singing drivel in often quite silly voices should have any greater inherent value than jazz or country and western. It certainly did not have that status originally.

That said, I can't remember who it was, but I heard someone on Radio 2 picking some favourite pieces of music and one of them was David Daniels. What an extraordinary voice. It is easy to say that he sounds feminine, but that misses the point. His voice has a weird unearthly quality because he is a man and yet sings in that beautiful clear voice. I am normally immune to men with high voices (with maybe the exception of Curtis Mayfield) but David Daniels is incredible.

Just as I suggested with the very different Howard Devoto (and boy is that an understatement), download a track and bang up the volume. It will give you goosebumps.