The next thing

I spoke to Philippa Milnes-Smith today about the 'next thing'. I don't want to go into too much detail about what this is at this stage, other than to say it is another creepy novel, but this time contemporary and urban. Of course I will say more if Bloomsbury like what I write as a sample. I am writing a synopsis and a couple of chapters to give them a feel for what the book is going to read like. And hopefully - like any potential reader - to get them hooked.

So as well as getting to grips with the second draft of The Dead of Winter, I am also looking past that to the next book. It is always like this. No book is ever written in isolation. Or none of mine anyway. You are always writing one thing, promoting another, editing something else, jotting down new ideas, trying to convince your agent/publisher of the merits of some new book.

I sent a couple of possible synopses off to Philippa last week and, as always, she had some very cogent comments to make - one of which has made change direction in a way that will definitely improve the book. Philippa, like many agents has a background in editing, and it shows. Editors are really annoying readers. They will insist in finding plot holes and inconsistencies. Infuriating.

I was talking about the editing process not so long ago and have made it plain on several occasions that I think the editing process in books is under appreciated outside the book world and there is an excellent article about this very subject on the Guardian books blog.

The devil's dictionary

I bought a copy of Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary yesterday. It has a cover price of £3.50 in the Dover thrift edition. Now that's a bargain.

Bierce is a writer who I have always been intrigued by. I have a couple of compilations of his short stories and he pops up in mixed collections. He has a very particular tone of world-weary cynicism that I respond to. It gained him the nickname Bitter Bierce during his lifetime. He was a short story writer, political commentator, journalist and merciless critic.

But he was not your usual cynical wit though. He saw a lot of action (and was badly wounded) fighting for the Union in the American Civil War and the horrors he saw inform some of his writing. In his seventies he decided to head to Mexico and get some first-hand experience of the revolution. He rode with Pancho Villa as an observer. Then some time around 1914 he disappeared. Literally.

No one knows for sure what happened to Ambrose Bierce. It seems likely that he simply got himself shot but that hasn't stopped the mystery from fuelling the imagination of other writers over the years.

Here are some of the definitions Bierce comes up with in his 'dictionary':

Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.

Battle, n. A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would not yield to the tongue.

Bore, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.

Cat, n. A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.

And so on. . .

Brilliant.

The Black Ship sails to Holland

By a very strange coincidence Rio and the British School popped up again today as the postman brought a note from Raquel Trindade at the library in Botafogo. Raquel and Frederico were dressed as Cleopatra and Dracula respectively when I was there (it was a dressing up as a character from literature day), so I find it hard to remember them any other way. It was great to hear from her and it reminded me of a really nice day at the school with lots of bright kids asking lots of great questions.

I sent my copy of Leander Deeny's Gli Incubi di Hazel to Sarah Odedina at Bloomsbury this morning so that she could take a look and see what she made of it. I'm not sure I have said that a big part of the issue with this, is that all the foreign publishers who have acquired the rights to Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror have so far used the David Roberts cover from the UK edition (with the odd change here and there).

As yet we have not sold to Italy and therefore this use of the cover on another book by a different author is annoying to say the least. It would obviously be ridiculous to have two different books in the same market with exactly the same cover.

Speaking of foreign rights, I heard from Sarah today that Bloomsbury have sold Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror to Turkey (to be published by Tudem) and Tales of Terror from the Black Ship to Holland. The Black Ship will be published by Pimento who have already published Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror.

I was also sent some Dutch reviews - though, as I don't speak Dutch, I shall remain blissfully ignorant of their actual content.

And sometimes with reviews that's no bad thing.

Visitor from Brazil

I had a nice surprise today. Mimi Liang - the head librarian from the British School in Rio - was over in the UK and came up to Cambridge to say hi.

Cambridge was packed with visitors but we went on a tour of the city. We had a look round the market, and the lovely Round Church and walked through the gardens at Magdalene, which were ablaze with daffodils, bluebells, primroses and snakeshead fritilliaries.

I took her to Kettle's Yard museum - the fascinating house that used to belong to Jim Ede, stuffed full of paintings by his friends - Christopher Wood, Alfred Wallis, Ben Nicholson and others. I had forgotten just how special that house is. All our searching for a house in Cambridge and the truth is that Kettle's Yard is probably the one.

I'm afraid it would be closed to visitors if we owned it though.

Walking back into the centre we looked in St John's College with its lovely bridges and then went for a cup of coffee in Heffers Bookshop. From there we walked through town heading in the direction of the station, popping in to Pembroke College on the way, huge carp moving around the pond like sharks, their fins sticking out of the water.

It was nice to see Mimi and catch up on news of all the great librarians at the British School. They made me feel so welcome when I was there, though as I said to Mimi, I felt frustrated that I did not really see Rio. I spent most of my time in the back of a car or in school libraries. I didn't walk around the place the way we walked around Cambridge today and that is what I always want to do in a new place - walk around and have a cup of coffee and just see what goes on. I like seeing what people eat, what's in the shops, what music is coming out of people's cars.

Maybe next time. . .

The empty frame

I walked into Cambridge with my son today and we happened to walk through Waterstones. I showed him the Feel Good Fiction table and we had a chuckle. A member of staff walked past so I asked him if he really thought The Outsider was 'feel good fiction'.

He looked a bit nonplussed and mumbled something about it not being something he would have put under a label like that. What about 1984? The Handmaid's Tale? The Great Gatsby? A man nearby chortled at the idea of The Outsider being on a feel good fiction list and the staff member said that perhaps the label ought to read something along the lines of 'Fiction that we really like' but after a couple more chuckles from the man nearby he took the label away, leaving only the empty frame.

Somehow the empty frame seemed a lot more appropriate.

Feel bad fiction

I went into Cambridge today. It was weird weather: one minute muggy, the next chilly. Big black clouds trying to rain but never squeezing out more than a few drops. I saw a heron fly over as I walked in across Lammas Land. I'm very fond of herons, and they look so fantastic in flight - like pterodactyls.

I was wandering aimlessly after doing a bit of food shopping and wandered into Waterstones. There was a themed tabletop of books with a little banner in a frame declaring it to be Feel Good Fiction.

I have no idea why I looked at the books. I can think of few labels more designed to put me off than one with Feel Good Fiction on it - bit look I did. The first book I saw was Albert Camus' The Outsider. If you haven't read it, then you will have to take my word for it that you should not come away feeling 'good'.

Nor, with its vision of the future as a 'boot stamping on a human face - forever' is George Orwell's 1984 a book that is ever going to put a spring in your step.

Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale? Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men? Feel Good Fiction? Has anyone at Waterstone's actually read any of these books?

Two spines

A delivery van brought a copy of Newton Compton's Gli Incubi di Hazel today - the Italian edition of Leander Deeny's Hazel's Phantasmagoria that has 'borrowed' the cover from Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror.

It is a curious thing. The book is weirdly padded so that you can squeeze it and it makes a slight hissing noise as you let go (unintentional I think). It is illustrated throughout with David Robert's illustrations from the Quercus edition of the book here in the UK - and one of them pops up on the back cover. He is credited and acknowledged as the copyright holder.

The plot thickens. . .