Not so short

Well my first cosy is done, weighing in pre-edit at 6,152 words, which seems a hell of a lot to me. Only three dead bodies in it too (if you don’t count the naked corpse in the shed at the start), so it’s positively tame. And it’s been fun to have this dalliance outside my normal genre. OK, so there’s a scene where someone gets beaten to death, but it’s got an old lady protagonist, so in my book it still counts as a cosy.

She Who Must Fall Asleep At A Ridiculously Early Hour Every Night (well, she does work for a living), is still reading Dying Light, so I can’t really get going on my final pass yet. I could try another shorty, but I think I’ll go indulge in a bit of pre-work for the third Logan book instead. After all, a couple of days aren’t enough to get back into TSA without it being a pain in the backside to drop everything and go back to Dying Light again...

Or maybe I’ll just try and sleep off this nasty cold? So many choices, I feel positively giddy*.

* But that might be the mucus talking. As it does.

Cosy Nostra

That short story is turning out to be not so short after all. I’m not sure if it’s because my protagonist is a retired school dinner lady in her late sixties with a tartan shopping trolley, or if it’s because I’m looking for a cosy-ish smell to the whole thing. Either way, it’s 2,865 words long already and I’m only just getting to a juicy violent bit.

Plus the whole trying-not-to-swear thing is a bit odd. I’ve already had to prune out some of the more fruity sayings, and I keep finding the characters coming out with the most obscene rants. I think I’m going to have to start writing about a much better class of person… Mind you, no one’s picked their nose and eaten the results yet, so maybe they’re not that bad.

Anyway, enough of the underpants of doom – it’s time to get back to work!

Revenge, thy name is Kenya

Yup, it's all Duane Swierczynzki's fault for linking to the badger song. Then Mr Winters weighs in with the Llamas of doom. And now I too must join the fray with KENYA!

Look upon these works, ye mighty and despair...

Keep your shorts on

She Who Must has started reading Dying Light, so I can expect a smack on the back of the head any day now, accompanied by a "What the hell did you think you were doing!". Or maybe a nice cup of tea and a biscuit. But probably a smack on the back of the head.

Whilst waiting for this concussive literary criticism, I thought I'd delve not into TSA, but concoct a short story instead. I've had an idea bubbling in the back of my head for a couple of weeks now, a sort of Cosy-Noir thing. Or Tartan-Shopping-Trolley-Noir. I wrote the title up on the whiteboard, when I thought of it and it's been sitting there ever since: 'Daphne McAndrews and the Smack-Head Junky Bastards'

Yesterday morning I decided to make a little mind-map plan for the thing and today I shall make a start. Normally I like to produce a short in one go -- I don't know why, but it seems to be a lot easier that way -- but there's no way I'm going to get it done today. But it'll be nice to write something new for a change, rather than editing stuff I produced over seven months ago.

And who knows, maybe I'll actually get round to doing something with this one when it's finished? First time for everything, and all that.

Journalistic Integrity

Now far be it from me to take the piss out of the glorious 'forth estate', but I feel honour bound to draw attention to the thorough and conscientious review supplied by the inimitable Lloyd Shaw of the Washington Times. What a star the man is.

I don't particularly mind that he hated the book - after all, as I've posted before it seems to be a love or hate thing with Cold Granite - but, sad though it makes me, I have to question good old Lloyd about his choice of words. Yes, he says 'Although St. Martin's Minotaur has rapidly gained a reputation for quality mystery novels, and I read this long book to its end, I frankly became bored and disgusted by it.' Fair enough - the book's not for everyone, but he charges on into: 'Perhaps this statement was necessary to keep himself from being driven out of town by the citizens of Aberdeen, who are described as having "urine-colored eyes,"…'

How cool is that? Having written the bloody thing I'm pretty sure 'urine-colored eyes' don’t feature in the book. Nor do ' urine-coloured eyes'. And a search through the document backs me up. Nada on the urine-coloured eyes front. So that means our lovely Lloyd has MADE IT ALL UP. Marvellous: don't like a book? Why not make up a lie about what's in it and pass it off as a quote? Amaze your friends, stun your enemies, make yourself look like a real journalist, earn yourself a kick in the nads from a bearded write-ist.

Pulitzer Prize material that is: Lloyd Shaw, you are a star. And you deserve everything you're going to get out of life. In the ear. With a stick.

So I've decided to create an irregular award - the Sphincter Balaclava (it's a bit like an 'ass-hat', but where a hat sits on top of the head a balaclava goes all the way down to the neck), and this month's recipient has to be none other than Lloyd Shaw. Congratulations dude, long may you continue to make this 'news' shit up as you feel like; no one's going to notice anyway.

Dying Light at the end of the tunnel*

Yes, the copy edit is back and I've been through the last of the questions, so technically you could say that it's all finished. Woo and hoo, dancing, celebrations, cake, here's your hat and what's your hurry? But no, for now comes the toughest test of all - now it must be read by She Who Must Read It. I made her promise she'd look at this one before it came back as an ARC and it was too late to fix anything.

You see, I'm lucky because Fiona is much brighter than I am - she's got a degree from St. Andrews University and everything (I dropped out of Heriot Watt after about a year and a half - thank God, if not I'd be an architect by now, rather than a write-ist**). She's the one I turn to for pointers on grammar and spelling and other such naughty word-craft things. And even though she's from Fife, she's lived in Aberdeen for a good few years now and has a much better idea of where places actually are than I do (well, I'm an ideas man...). This makes her well placed to spot where I've screwed things up, things that someone not from the area couldn't be expected to spot. Not unless they were psychic, or had some sort of winged monkeys to do their evil bidding. I don't think Sarah has any monkeys, but she does have an unfeasibly large handbag that makes the occasional, rustley ook-ing sound.

So when will the last and final edit be finished? Probably not until next week. I'd set Fiona to reading the thing tonight, but she's going to have difficulty seeing straight by the time she gets back from the annual company golf outing. The people she works for do bloody good nights out - though I don't get invited to nearly enough of them - and are generous to a fault when it comes to the odd drinkie. Most of them will be three sheets to the wind by the time they get off the golf course. This is because Fiona is in charge of driving the buggy at reckless speed, dolling*** out the beer. Last year, she and her boss nearly managed to jump the electric golf cart over a sand trap on the fourteenth green. Nearly, but not quite.

Anyway, such drunken golfing will mean that no reading will be done until the weekend. And little brother Scott, his wife Catherine (no potato jokes please) and their wee boy, Logan, will be back in Scotland for a visit by then. So that's going to cut into the old reading time. But it's going to be nice to see them all again.

Never mind, only a couple more days and I can get back to TSA! Hurrah!

--- UPDATE ---

Fiona is back - it's half eleven, and there's no champagne! She got too pished, and forgot to bring the bottle home! Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh! Worse yet, she's been having hernia-laughter at the expense of some bloke. And if that wasn't enough - she's been hooting and snorting about a wee bloke at work (let's call him Alan, to protect the innocent) who was desperately trying to sing 'Champagne Supernova', but couldn't remember more than half a dozen words.... Oh the irony, considering She Who Must Smell Strongly Of Booze forgot out champagne altogether! I disapprove wholeheartedly, as a good husband should. Unless a bribe of champagne is forthcoming, I may have to biff someone on the nose.

* With apologies to Sarah from HC for stealing her email title. Sinister though it is. What with the oncoming train connotations.
** Though a certain gentleman on the Guardian might think that might've been a much better option.
*** Dolling is like doling, only prettier.

Edinburgh Festivalities

I’ve never set foot in a yurt before. It feels a bit like a tent and a wigwam have had drunken sex, and nine months later out pops the special, secret, private yurt for the writers attending the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Lin Anderson and Alex Gray – my fellow panellists – are already here, chatting to Paul Johnston who’s going to be in charge of this evening’s event. Alex, who writes police procedurals set in Glasgow, has a copy of her latest book under her arm. She’s come prepared to do a reading. Bugger. I’ve not come prepared to do anything. Readings were verboten on the panel at Harrogate, so I kinda assumed that they’d be verboten here too. I’ve not even brought a copy of Cold Granite with me. Lin’s also ready to do a reading from her book (she does a series of thrillers featuring a forensic scientist). Again: bugger. Paul can obviously see the panic in my eyes because he tells me that I don’t have to do a reading if I don’t want to, but it might look a bit odd if I don’t. “I haven’t brought a copy of my book with me.” I tell him, stalling for time. “It’s OK,” says he, “you can borrow mine.” And thrice more bugger. So this means that while they’re all chatting and getting comfy, I’m desperately scrabbling through his copy, trying to find something I’m not going to make a bloody mess of. Scrabble, scrabble, scrabble…

By the time I’ve found it, it’s time to go, so no chance to give it a quick once through. The book festival has set up shop in Charlotte Square at the west end of George Street. It’s a little tented village with covered walkways a café, a children’s bookshop, another for the grownups and a huge beer tent done up to look like the Moulin Rouge. Our event is next door to the yurt and the audience is already seated, little knowing they’re about to be subjected to an unprepared bearded write-ist. Bloody idiot.

Paul, Alex, Some Bearded Bloke and Lin

There’s some sort of Belgian Jazz playing as we walk in and get set up, which makes it feel oddly artificial, like we’re about to tape a game show or something. Paul kicks things off, does the introductions and says nice things about all three of our books, and then it’s into the readings. Alex is first – we’re going boy, girl, boy, so I’m up next – and does a fine job of it. Then it’s me. Deep breath, tell the story about having to do a reading in Norwegian, and off we go… No one throws anything. People laugh at the right bits. Round of applause at the end. Sigh of relief. Then it’s Lin’s turn and all is well with the world.

Lin and Alex have obviously done this before, because they come across as relaxed, friendly and interesting. But then they’ve been friends for years, go so far as to attend a forensic medicine course at Glasgow University together – resulting in a very funny anecdote about a crime scene, an Alsatian, a snake, and a man with an axe in his head. And not only are they funny, they’re both really nice too. So is Paul, who handles the panel like a man born to wrangle rabid hamsters.

After the readings it’s time for Paul to ask questions, bit of banter, then it’s the audience participation segment. “Who’d like to ask the first question?” says Paul, smiling at the crowd. Silence. Tumbleweed. Eventually a tentative hand is raised at the back and we’re off again. When the questions are done the Belgian Jazz is faded up again – and we all sit there like boiled melons, waiting to get our mikes unclipped, all we need is a set of credits rolling across the screen to make the whole game show thing complete.

A lot of the audience come through to the signing tent afterwards; some have even bought my book! Nice people, lovely people. “Would you like a drink?” Paul asks Lin and Alex and me before we start signing. Being a good Scottish beard I say thanks very much and ask for a wee nippy sweetie. There is nothing wee about what arrives five minutes later: it’s a massive Glenmorangie, I could have a bath in it, there’s that much. Hurrah!

One of these people has just broken wind

After that it’s off to the Moulin Rouge for a post signing beer with Alan and Debbie. Nice couple. It’s the first time I’ve been able to have a sensible conversation about the gastronomic merits of Hooters Bars and Frank’s Hot Sauce (why the hell can’t I find a shop over here that stocks it?). Mmm, buffalo wings… The effect is only slightly spoiled by the bar’s switch machine being up the kybosh, so it’s cash only. Fiona and I scour pockets and handbag to come up with enough change to buy a round. All four of us are still there come closing time, the conversation having drifted from books to cats to corpses to flying squirrels to my John Rickards impersonation. With nary a badger in sight.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go paint the house.

And we’re off...

Been a while since I’ve used that as a title, but once more it is true. She Who Must Go Shopping On Princes Street* and I are away now to the Edinburgh. Though I can leave the house and cat in the hands of the in-laws, I fear putting them in charge of the blog, in case I come back to find someone’s declared a jihad on me and the CD ROM drive full of biscuit crumbs.

So, until Wednesday (or maybe Tuesday, depending on how things go): TTFN. Have fun, and leave that thing alone – you’ll go blind**.

* God help us!
** And we don’t want God to kill any more kittens, do we?

A small lick of paint

No, not the house, the blog. And to think no one noticed… *sigh*. Never mind, if you have a chance, may I direct you to the ‘Aberdeen Blogs’ section. Worth a visit and a manly giggle.

They came from DARKEST FIFE!

Not only do we have mice, but now we’ve got in-laws as well. She Who Must’s mum and dad have invaded the house, like Martians. Except without the green skin, tentacles and propensity of eating human brains – well, only on the big religious holidays, but you know what it’s like when you have to make your own entertainment. They have come to look after Little Miss while Fiona and I are away in Edinburgh for the International Book Festival. Which is nice: we get a break (even if it is work for me) and don’t have to worry too much about The Killer of Mice.

Speaking of the Edinburgh thing, this will be the first time Fiona’s been allowed to accompany me on a jolly. Not sure if she’s going to come to the panel thing or not – she’s worried about cramping my style... Hey lovely groupie ladies, you wanna come back to my place and weed the vegetable patch?* Probably doesn’t help that I haven’t got a clue what I’m going to be doing tomorrow evening (20:30 in the Studio Theatre, come along and throw things if you like). I’m screwed if we’ve got to give a reading; I’ve not rehearsed anything, and with the in-laws here it’s going to be a bit difficult to disappear off and have a practice**.

Still, I have no doubt it will be an interesting evening. I plan on taking full advantage of Edinburgh’s burgeoning public bar system when the panel’s finished. And though I doubt I’ll get plastered enough to risk a deep-fried pizza (my innards aren’t as young as they used to be), you never know.

* And no: that’s not a euphemism for anything dirty.
** And neither is that.

I may have been a bit harsh

I had a small rant-ette on Bryon’s site last night about his plans to remove the blogger nav bar thing at the top of his site. And I quote:

"I just want to wade in on the moral majority thing: PUT THE DAMN BLOGGER HEADER BACK UP. If you don’t the whole ‘next blog’ thing is gone and I for one like that.

Plus, we get to play here for free - why not say thanks by leaving up the bar? Biting the hand that feeds and all that...

Dude - it’s the right thing to do."

OK, so it’s maybe not that vociferous, but it is heartfelt. Why the rant? Well, one thing that bugs the tits off me when I’m trolling the blogsphere as an excuse for not writing, is coming across a site with no ‘next blog’ button at the top. It’s like these people are too damn good to be part of the whole blog community thing. Not to mention the fact that we don’t have to fork out a dime to post and keep our blogs here. How much cash do you think it takes to supply and maintain all the servers and databases and internet connections sitting behind everything with a .blogspot.com address? HEAPS. The least we can do is leave up the little header thing so other people can join. And bugger off to the next blog, if ours is not to their taste.

Something else that gets my trousers in a bunch, are the bastards who’ve figured out how to do JavaScript popup bloody windows. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! Cut it the hell out! I don’t want some crappy text-message-speak-style thing popping up when I try to get the hell away from your blog! AND ANOTHER THING – why the whole ‘txt msg, z gr8 n stuff’ posts? There are vowels on your bloody keyboard: USE THEM!

What else: Oh yes, bloody companies putting up fake bloody blogs so they can get their bloody products onto the search engines. Aaaaaaaargh! And thrice more: Aaaaaaaargh! In the ear - with a stick! Not what this whole thing is supposed to be for. And let’s not forget the spam-fisted sons of the bitch who auto post their fake comments by the thousand to con people into visiting their bastard vacuum cleaning businesses! May you all rot in hell with a halibut wedged up each nostril! Wedged up HARD! So you’ve got fins poking out of your bloody ears! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!! ...

Puff, pant, and relax. Anyway, just thought I’d get that out of my system. You have a fun weekend now.

Then three come along, all at once

Coincidence is a funny thing, though not in a ‘ha ha’ kind of way, more of a ‘Why are my socks damp? Have I stood in something…? Eeeew!’ Anyway, where was I? Oh, yea, right: today’s coincidence comes courtesy of Mr White, who wants us to talk about the craft of writing, rather than the business of getting published. This coincidences me because I’ve been offered a gig in Huntly at the end of October by the lovely people at Devron Arts. I can do a reading and then a Q&A, or maybe some sort of ‘Crime Writing Workshop’, if I like.

Now I’ve never been to a writing workshop, so I have no idea what goes on in them. I did some internet trawling yesterday to get a feel of what might be expected and the one thing that sticks most in my mind is that if I’m falling asleep reading the promotional material, how good can the course be?

I have to confess that the idea of doing a workshop appeals, even if it’s just to do something new. And I’ve got an hour to fill. Call it twenty minutes for questions (if I’m lucky and people don’t just sit there staring at me in silence, wondering if there’s going to be cheese and wine at the end, and how much can they get away with drinking before someone notices and throws them out), two minutes for introductions, another five for ‘Stuff About Me’, and that’s still leaves a good half hour where people get numb bums listening to me read from a book. How exciting would that be?*

So, the question for today’s class is: were one to do a workshop, what would you expect to see / do / get out of the experience?

* Plus it brings back unhappy memories of being stuck in English class, forced to read the part of Macbeth for pages and pages of iambic-bloody-pentameter. *shudder*

Land of the rising sun

Yup, we’d like to welcome aboard the newest member of the Cold Granite family: Hayakawa, a top-notch Japanese publisher. No idea when it’s going to come out over there, but if anyone from Hayakawa is reading this: I AM available for all-expenses-paid trips to exotic locations. It’s a sacrifice, I know, but I am willing to make it for the good of the book.

And one day someone will take me up on that. I hope. Hint, hint...

Spinetingle-Tastic

The lovely Sandra Ruttan succumbed to my nefarious charm at Harrogate – it’s the beard that does it – and the fruit of our unholy union is now available online! Yes, those fine Canadian lads and lassies of Spinetingler Magazine have got a review of Cold Granite, Simon Kernick’s ‘A Good Day To Die’ and Mark Billingham’s ‘Lifeless’, along with a slew of short stories. And then, as if that particular lily needed any more gilding, there’s also an interview with me playing the role of the person being asked questions. And to think it all started because I tried to force Michael Connelly's left-over crisps* on her at two in the morning... Ah, great days.

You can download the magazine in PDF form from : www.spinetinglermag.com It’s the current (fall) issue, you’ll be lookin’ for me harties… Arrrrrrr…

Hmm, seem to have come over all Pirates of the Caribbean; must have been something I ate. That or an adverse chemical reaction in my brain to having to do a bloody VAT return today! Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh! Avast me harties!

* Ready salted if you must know. I'd always thought him to be a more prawn-cocktaily kind of guy myself, but I suppose it just goes to show: you never can tell.

Flint Michigan rocks

I found a link to the Flint Journal in my inbox this morning that put a huge smile on my face. It’s been a while since I got a good kicking in a review, most of the US notices have been positive, but this one is in a league of its own.

"Because his superb debut novel, "Cold Granite," is set in Scotland, Stuart MacBride is most likely to be compared to Ian Rankin, but this unbelievably assured and accomplished police story aims even higher. MacBride is starting at the very top with his first book, which approaches the level of Michael Connelly's best work."

Mr Forsmark is obviously an incredibly insightful and sexy human being. Though there’s always the possibility that he’d just had a huge liquid lunch.

Only trouble is that now I can’t get my baseball cap on over my swollen head. Maybe I’d better get a hair cut.

Weekend interspecies cup final

Home fixtures: MacBride: 1, Mouse: 0

Well, the clog-dancing rodent no longer occupies the attic above our bedroom. Hurrah! Stuart wins! And it was a HUGE mouse as well: big, fat, pointy headed bugger what did smell all of poo and wee. Really, really stinky. Have you ever picked up a mouldering onion – all stinky and dripping – and thought that doesn’t smell too good? Well it’s Calvin Klein’s Obsession compared to a terrified, urine-soaked and faeces-clarted mouse.

She Who Must Have Her Head Examined wanted to release Mr Mouse into the wild, just down the road from our house (fool! Doesn’t she know that mice operate an illegal underground network and he’d be given forged papers and smuggled back into Casa MacBride before sundown?), but I stood firm. Well, we were in the car, so technically I sat firm, but you know what I mean. Mr Mouse was going a damn sight further away than that.

Just in case he manages to find his way back to the homestead, I’ve alerted the Home Guard* and put up posters with Mr Mouse's face on them. OK, he may come up with a cunning disguise – like a beret, or a big moustache – but I’m betting the cat’s going to see through all that. He’ll be all “Guten Abend” and she’ll be like, “Your German is very good.” And he’ll say “Why thank you… Damn!” And then she’ll eat him.

Grendel: 2, Mice: 0

Little miss had something of a bumper crop yesterday, two huge mice sent to the great litter tray in the sky. She scarfed the first one all to herself, but was generous enough to share the second with Fiona and me. Of course, to begin with we couldn’t actually tell which end of the mouse she’d left for us – it was a featureless furry joint of mouse-meat, with flags-of-all-nations innards and intestinal balloon animals trailing out across the porch floor. On closer examination it turned out to be the back half, but she’d eaten both hind legs and the tail, just to keep us guessing. She’s such a kidder.

Mouse: 1, MacBride: 0

I’m not sure if this one makes Sunday a ‘three mouse day’ for Little Miss, or if it’s just that we have the stupidest mice in the whole country. At close of play last night I went through to chuck the chicken remnants in the bin and something small and furry scuttled across my foot. ‘Oh-ho,’ thinks I, ‘better not be that noisy, clog-dancing bugger back again!’ There follows some rapid-paced mouse chasing through the piles of junk and boxes of oddments we keep in the porch, but at last my razor-sharp reflexes and big, human brain get the upper hand – GRAB! Scruff of the mouse’s neck caught betwixt thumb and forefinger. It’s not Mr Stinky, the mouse from before. This is a new one. “Squeeeeeeak!” goes the mouse, “Squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeeeeeeak!”. Now I’m no expert, but I’m willing to bet it wasn’t saying “Unhand me you bounder! I demand to speak to the Mouseular Consul!”, no this was much more your expletive style of squeaking.

Of course, I do my best to reassure the rodent that all will be well, that I am in fact saving he/she/it from the clutches of the furry exterminator cat monster, but the little sod wriggles and squiggles and nearly manages to break free. Using my human-style brain I try to get a better grip with my left hand. And the little bastard bit me! Right on the thumb! Ungrateful sod! Instant welling up of blood, rivers of it. Swearing like a mouse, I fling the rotten rodent over the fence and into the field, hurling epithets after it like the foul-languaged trouper that I am.

You know in all those films where someone has to swear a blood oath, or they need a drop of blood to counter an age-old curse, they always draw some fancy dagger along the person’s palm? Big knife, right across the palm – which for some unknowable reason never merits more than a wince from the person getting cut; if it was me, I’d be swearing a blue squeak – and a dribble of blood comes out. Totally unnecessary. If you want blood for your ritual, just bring along a box of agitated mice and get everyone to stick their thumb in it. You’ll be knee-deep in haemoglobin before you can say ‘tetanus shot’.

* AKA - Grendel

Without thinking?

I bought a copy of the Evening Express this week – it’s a local paper for local people – and buried away on the Readers’ Letters page was the following glittering jewel:

Dangers of Red Light district

I WRITE to tell you about my son who celebrated his 16th birthday by going to the fun fair at the Beach with friends.

But, without thinking, they went to the red light district and lost their virginity. Now my son is suffering from a sexually transmitted disease...

This may sound like a bit of a rant on my part, but WTF? Hello? They lost their virginity ‘without thinking’? Your son’s 16 years old – he’ll have been thinking of little else since he was about TWELVE! ‘Without thinking’, my hairy armpit – it’s not like loosing your bloody car keys is it?

“Hey, Dad, Mom, have you seen my virginity about somewhere?”
“Dunno, Son, have you looked down back of sofa?”
“Wow, thanks, Dad – found it.”

‘Without thinking’. What, ‘without thinking’ he went to a cash machine, took out a wad of notes, wandered into the red light district, found a likely tart, negotiated a rate for sex and then stuck his willy in her? All without thinking? That’s some bloody achievement! Kid must be an idiot savant. Well, maybe not so much of the savant… And to prove that idiocy is probably hereditary, the kid’s parent WRITES IN TO THE PAPER ABOUT IT!

And best of all, the letter isn’t about the folly of youth, a cautionary tale for other randy sixteen-year-olds who’ve been saving up their pocket money to rent a prostitute, no, this letter is about how it’s all the City Council’s fault!

As our city council allows these girls to ply their trade in a tolerance zone should they not be responsible for some kind of register of these prostitutes?

They should ensure they are medically checked every couple of weeks...
Responsibility must fall with the city council, or the police authority.

Let's get this straight – the council and the police should ensure that your sixteen-year-old kid doesn’t go humping some disease-ridden junky in a doorway for cash. First rate piece of logical deduction. We can see where the kid gets his brains from.

But what I really want to know is – how did his parents find out? Can you picture the scene: Mom, Dad, Baby Sis and our hero are sat in front of the television on a Tuesday night. Timmy the dog is asleep on the hearthrug, legs twitching away as he chases dream-bunnies. Mom, noticing something’s not right with our hero, turns to him and says, “Darling, you’re scratching your genitals an awful lot tonight. Is there something you want to ask your Dad, or me, about?”
Our hero bites his bottom lip, has another frantic scritch at his itchy willy, and tells them the whole story...
Mom and Dad listen with sympathy and concern. Then Dad leaps to his feet and says, “Gee, Son, the City Council and the Police have really dropped the ball on this one! I’d better write a letter to the Evening Express...”

Must have been an interesting family night.

Ok, that’s my rant for the week. Have a nice weekend, and if you develop some sort of embarrassing rash, it’s probably best to tell your mum and dad. See if they can get a letter in the paper for you ;}#.

Talk about instant street-cred!

There’s a Moose Loose Aboot this Hoose

Yes, we have mice in the attic. Makes a change from bats in the belfry I suppose*. And not just any sort of mice – we have cunning mice. The little bastards have been waking me up in the wee small hours, having their damn mouse parties in the roof-space above our bedroom. Scuffling and squeaking away. Probably eating our bloody Christmas decorations. Come the end of the year we’ll unpack our trees and baubles and they’ll be half chewed. Dirty little rodent swines.

In order to curb their gastronomic vandalism I’ve been putting a humane trap up in the loft for the last couple of nights, hoping to lure them inside so that I may dispose of them far, far away. Or feed them to Little Miss** Anyway, these humane trap is basically a little rectangular tube that has a little kick up at the end. At the end of this ‘kick’ is a little lid where you put a smear of peanut butter. At the other end there’s a flip-up door thing that has teeny locking plastic bittes on it.

The idea is that Mr (or Mrs) Mouse smells the peanut butter, thinks ‘Oh-ho, not had peanut butter for a while – being that it doesn’t occur naturally in nature, or in people’s attics – think I’ll just pop into this innocuous looking plastic tube thing.’ And in he pops. To get to the peanut butter he has to climb up the little ‘kick’ at the end of the tube, and his (or her) weight is just enough to tip the thing and cause the door he came in to snick closed. Mr (or Mrs) mouse eats the peanut butter and in the morning along you come along and evict him from your property. Or batter and deep-fry him, depending on your national leanings.

The only trouble is that every time I go up into the attic I see the trap’s been sprung. Hurrah! And then find that there’s no bloody mouse in there. Not Hurrah. The trap is a mouse-free zone. Nada on the mouse front. The little buggers are just setting it off to play with me – evil mouse-flavoured mind games from the rodents in the attic.

Well, it’s either that or they’re too damn stupid to figure out you have to go INTO the trap to get to the peanut butter.

So why don’t we set the CAT OF DOOM loose in the loft to hunt them down like little furry dogs? … Emm … Good question. For some reason I don’t like the thought of Grendel running amuck in the roof space. Don’t know why, I just don’t. Maybe I just don’t want her eating the Christmas decorations too?

* Though She Who Must Be Watched Like A Hawk If There’s Chocolate On The Go still has more than a few.
** But for some reason Fiona is strangely averse to that. Methinks it’s because it’s more fun for Grendel to catch and eat outside mice, rather than being fed inside ones. I tell her: I say, “Just because the mice live inside, it doesn’t make them pets!”

Less or more...

Today I was planning on writing something very unpleasant. Something nasty and visceral and a bit on the macabre side. But in the end I didn’t, pulled back at the last second and left it in darkness. I’m still not sure it was the right thing to do – after all, in the plan it says, “Write Nasty Thing Here!” Mind you, the plan says a lot of things…

I did a big plan, which I don’t usually do, and it’s beginning to chafe a bit. I’ve already decided to add in another day, throwing everything else out by 24 hours. So maybe it’s time to ditch the plan? I’m not using it to try selling the book as an unfinished work, so what’s the point in having it stapled to my forehead? Why not loosen up a bit and have some fun?

You see – this is why I could never do those writer-for-hire gigs one keeps hearing about (and no, I’ve never been offered one, and I don’t see why anyone would look at me as a good candidate for that in the first place, I’m just, you know, talkin’ here). I think I’d probably go mad having to stick rigidly to some plan, especially one that has to be approved by a committee. Mind you, I suppose one should never say ‘never’ (even though you have to say it twice to say that), who knows what the future will bring – maybe it will be marshmallows, maybe it will be lemon and black pepper pickled onions? Both are nice, but not at the same time. Unless you’re pregnant I suppose, then all bets are off.

Oh, look – a bee!

Deep-frozen, or deep-fried?

There are a lot of cultural differences in the world. Some people take salt in their liquorish, some people eat snails, others eat locust, some even mush up midges and make a sort of burger out of them. And the Scottish deep-fry things.

There’s a bit in Cold Granite where the main character – DS Logan McRae, has an argument with a Glaswegian reporter about the relative merits of Aberdonian cuisine. The reporter has a go at the noble Rowie*, and Logan retaliates by saying, "You can talk: your lot invented deep-fried pizza."

I found out – when a friend of a friend, who reads Norwegian got hold of a copy of Kald Granitt – that this exchange ended up being translated as ‘deep-frozen’ pizza, instead of deep-fried. Why? Because Lasse, who is a top notch translator, couldn’t believe we would do anything so bloody stupid as deep-fry a pizza. Not surprising really, if I handn’t seen (and eaten) it myself I wouldn’t have believed it either.

Then this week I was going through some questions from Göran, who’s doing the Swedish translation. Never met the man, but he seems nice – hopefully I’ll get to meet him when the book comes out over there next year. And just on the off chance I thought I’d ask him what he thought of the deep-fried pizza reference… They'd done exactly the same thing - couldn't believe ANYONE would be daft enough to deep-fry a pizza, and had translated it as ‘deep-frozen’ instead.

That’s two for two. So I emailed my Italian editor Raffaello, just to check that they weren’t likewise flabbergasted by the Scottish propensity to chuck just about everything into boiling-hot fat. Not heard back yet, but that may be because we’ve given him a heart attack just thinking about this dreadful violation of his national cuisine.

I got to talking to Agent Phil and the lovely Isabella at Marjacq (she’s the real power behind the throne) and she tells me that there’s a few slight similarities in genuine Italian cooking, but only if you stretch the definition of deep-fried pizza to include things that aren’t actually fully submersed in hot fat. This is, of course a poor substitute for the real thing:

Deep-Fried Pizza (serves 2)

Preparation time – 10 minutes
Cooking time – 5 minutes

Ingredients

One 14 inch cheese, mushroom and tomato pizza cut in half (pre-frozen is fine)
Four large potatoes cut into half inch thick ‘fingers’ (AKA: chips)
One large industrial deep-fryer full of vegetable lard, or sunflower oil
Salt, vinegar and brown sauce (optional) to garnish

Method

Heat the deep-fryer to very hot. If you’re gadget mad, you can employ a spotty youngster to do this for you. Fold the pizza bits in half so that the sauce, toppings and cheese are on the inside. Now drop this in a deep-fat-fryer for five minutes. Meanwhile, throw the ‘fingered’ potatoes into the fryer.
Remove the chips and pizza from the hot fat and cover with salt, vinegar and brown sauce (optional). Eat while still full of scalding napalm-style cheese and dripping with grease.
For that authentic twist, you should consume at least six pints of beer, or strong cider as an aperitif.

Isabella feels that the folding over makes it a kind of calzone**, only not sealed round the edges, or lovingly baked in an oven. Too true – this is a fourteen inch defrosted pizza chucked in a deep-fat fryer.

Is there any wonder Scotland has the highest incidence of heart disease in Europe?

* For those of you with a baking bent, you can try making your own rowies...
** incidentally, apparently 'Calzone' is the Italian/Florentine for 'pantalone' = trousers. Mmm, trouser pizza… On second thoughts, let’s not go there.

The curse of coincidence

There's a disturbing amount of coincidence going on at the moment. On Sunday She Who Must Read Horse Magazines Non-Stop and I were plonked in front of the telly, watching Rumpole of the Bailey when we should have been tidying up the house ready for Brother Christopher and his slightly pregnant wife Kim to come for lunch. 'Rumpole and the Heavy Brigade' it was called. It's been a long, long time since I've seen Rumpole on the telly, but there it was, tempting us. "Don’t tidy the lounge," it said, "watch me instead!" Well, the beef was ready to go in the oven and everything else was prepared. And it did ask so nicely…

So, watch it we did. And there's Leo McKern as Rumpole, called in to defend a wee scroat who's accused of stabbing poor old Tosher* MacBride**. Now, aside from being a first-rate bit of the old tellevisual malarkey it was something of a funny coincidence. MacBride isn't that common a name, not where I come from at least. Pretty darn rare. McBrides, you sometimes hear about, but MacBrides not so much.

Then over the next couple of days I've fallen over the name a couple of times, on other telly programs, on the internet… Once even on the radio. Nothing for years, and now some weird convergence has occurred and all the MacBrides are coming out of the woodwork. Maybe it's some weird cult?

This all connects with the dilemma I was mentioning the other day*** – the one I are been mostly thinking about whilst fighting with the guttering. TSA has two very different threads, which are bridged by one character, who isn't the protagonist. Now I COULD just throw in some convenient coincidence to draw my main character into the main thread, but that seems like cheating. That kind of thing tends to make me wince a bit when I come across it in books and films, even though we all know that coincidence and luck do play a big part in successful investigations. Where possible I like to make what happens a logical extension of the what the people are doing. Only trouble is, I have no idea what that's going to be for this book. I know there has to be one, I just don’t know what it is yet. And thinking about it isn't helping much.

I suppose I'll just have to keep on writing and hope the old subconscious knows what it's doing.

By the way – if you get the chance, try out the Rumpole books by John Mortimer. Very good.

* Tosher T.O.S.H… before anyone makes with the funnies.
** As 'That good man Tosher MacBride' is dead before the show starts I've no idea if he's spelt 'Mc', or 'Mac', but it's my blog and if it's the 'Mc' spelling it kind of puts a kybosh on this whole post, so let's all just play nice and accept the fact it's 'Mac', OK?
*** You see, you knew there was a point to this somewhere. Not much of one, but a point nonetheless.

These are a few of my least favourite things...

As of today I have a new second-least-favourite thing to do. Eight and a half hours I spent: dangling off a ladder, or contorted across the slates on the roof some fifteen feet above the stone-strewn ground. Sodding about with a paintbrush and ten litres of exterior black gloss. How much fun is that? No, don't trouble yourselves thinking about it, the answer is bugger-all.

Today we finally had a whole day where it wasn't supposed to be peeing down at some point, so the writing malarkey was given the old heave ho, in favour of personal torture scrubbing the guttering with a wire brush before painting it. Boy, the fun never ends, does it?

Still, there is one good thing to come out of the day's horrible labours: thinking about TSA. I have a dilemma you see, and thinking is what's needed. And there's little else to do while you're dangling miles above the paving slabs, chuckies and rocks. Nope, thinking is the thing. Think, think, think…

Didn't actually come up with anything, but as they say: it's the thought that counts.

Mystery meat update

Sandra has complained about the lack of mystery-meat-related posts over the last couple of days. I apologise to mystery meat fans around the world – the public has a right to know!

Thursday’s mystery meat was:

More Brown

Or ‘Also Brown’ I suppose. Turned out to be Goulash. Which is all fine and dandy, but we have a tendency to eat most of the actual bits of steak out of the stuff when we have it the first time, leaving behind little more than sauce with the occasional lump. Mmm, lumps. Most of which seem to end up on the plate of She Who Must Snaffle All The Best Bits When Stuart Isn’t Looking.

Friday’s mystery meat was:

Not Mystery Meat at all – it was chicken fresh from the shops. Jointed at home into its constituent bits and secreted into the spaces recently cleared by the consumption of mystery meat. BUT Friday’s chicken breasts were wrapped with streaky bacon and stuffed with duxelle, which did come from the land of mystery meatdom. I thought it was some leftover bolognaise when I defrosted it for lunch yesterday. Not quite the same thing.

And mighty shall be his wrath…

If he can find one of those blue bits with six nodules on it. Just when I was beginning to think that the Internet was good for nothing, Christopher (Googling younger brother with a faint whiff of the Pot Noodle about him) sends me a link to a website that makes the bible accessible to everyone with a modem and a love of God and Danish construction blocks.

Ladies and gentlemen, we respectfully direct your attention to:

The Brick Testament
A fine example of what you can achieve with loads of Lego and FAR too much time on your hands.

A parcel from Sweden

Or so I thought*… Hey, hey, Mr Postman, what you got in your sack for me? Not something I actually say to the bloke who delivers our mail, just in case he thinks I’m sexually harassing him. Today Mr Postman had a big green plastic bag, about the size of a large pillowcase, bound at the neck with cable ties. The bag said ‘Sweden Post’, the address label said ‘Stuart MacBride’ and the postman said, “It’s probably Futtrets**.” But it wasn’t. It was books.

For a minute I though it was something in from Forum – the lovely people who’re bringing Cold Granite out in Sweden next year – but as they’re only just on the translation at the moment what could it be? Oh… It’s not from Forum at all. In fact it’s not really from Sweden. It’s a consignment of Cold Granites from St Martin’s Press – including one which has been signed by the team at Minotaur. Hurrah!

I started doing this in Norway, at a fine eatery called Ylajali, where I got the lovely Ingeborg, Monica and Lasse (he’s more manly than lovely, but it’s the thought that counts) to sign a copy of the Norwegian edition for me. Then, at the launch party in Aberdeen I forced the HarperCollins all stars to do the same. And now I have US versions too.

It’s a hobby.

*You see that? That’s your dramatic tension, right there. Is I a write-ist, or what?
** Futtret, n. A weasel-like, carnivorous mammal (Mustela putorius furo) related to the polecat and often trained to hunt rabbits, or stick down one’s trousers for a bit of a laugh. Apparently Sylvester McCoy holds the world record for this (at least according to Russel he does).

1,506

That’s the number of new words managed yesterday. Not exactly breaking any records, but then I suppose it’s not too bad, given that I’ve not touched this book for two and a half months. It takes me a little while to get to know the characters again, wake them up from the old subconscious and embarrass them into doing their thing.

And I did have to go through everything I’d written before on this thing, including all the plans, and do a bit of an edit. But it’s still 2,000 words less than my daily target. Perhaps today will be better. Today I’ll settle for an even 2,500. Build up gradually and all that (and yes, I know Lynn writes more words than that while brushing her teeth, but we can’t all be Wonder Woman).

And Wednesday’s mystery meat is...

Sausages.

Which are usually mystery meat at the best of times.

Back to the darkness

Today is my first day back on the standalone, or TSA as it is known in posh circles. I’ve not laid a finger on it for ages, not since getting dragged into the heady world of editing Book 2 (have to get used to calling it ‘Dying Light’).

Thirteenth of May: that was the last time I put finger to keyboard on the thing and I’ve been looking forward to getting back to it. In an absentminded kind of way. It’s only 58 pages long at the moment, a lot less than I thought I’d written, probably because I did so much pre-planning on this one (I was going to try selling it on the basis of a few chapters and a plan, so the whole thing needed mapping out) that I know most of what’s going to happen, long before I get there. Which is unusual for me.

This book is being written speculatively; it’s not part of my three book deal with HarperCollins. Like John’s people, they want to make sure that the series is properly established, before they let me go sodding about all over the landscape with unconnected books. And like Mr Rickards I have no problem with that whatsoever. I LIKE writing Logan books. I like the characters, spending time with them is fun. Especially when I get to torture and mutilate them. Bwahahahahaha… *ahem*

As such TSA won’t be out this year, or the next. Hell I’d be surprised if it sees the light of day before 2007 or 2008. Heck-fire and tarnation, it may never see the light of day at all! But it’ll keep me busy until later in the year when I embark upon Logan’s third book. If I’m lucky, and the books are selling well, HC may consent to move me up to two books a year, but that’s not going to be for a while yet.

But in the meantime, I get to write something much, much darker than anything I’ve ever done before, which is nice. In a noir-ish kind of way.

Right, that’s enough of this blogging malarkey – to the Bat Cave!

And Tuesday's mystery meat is...

Brown.

No idea what it is, but it’s brown. Might be chilli, or stew, or bolognaise, or goulash, or even a really dark curry. Brown. How appetising does that sound?

** Urgent Dinner Update **

Turned out to be beef and mushroom stew. Very tasty. But mostly brown.

And tonight’s mystery meat is...

Salmon.


It’s been lurking in the freezer for a while, corrupting the fish fingers and ragging on the frozen peas. We’ve decided that the reason there’s no more room in the freezer, is that we keep putting stuff in, but not taking it out. So this week will see a concerted effort to consume the Mystery Meat Mountain. Then maybe some defrosting will occur.

God, it’s like being in a rock band, isn’t it? The hedonism never ends...

More than half a mouse

I was going to post a picture of the present Little Miss left on the porch floor this morning, but there might be vegetarians visiting and I didn’t want to unduly tempt them back to the world of meat. We’ve been getting an assortment of rodent body parts deposited at the back door of late. Legs, bums, once, just a nose. Nothing else, just the nose. Maybe the mouse in question had a cold? I wouldn’t want to eat that bit either, not if it was full of mouse bogies.

But today it was a good chunk of field mouse, only the rump and one back leg missing, so she’d saved me the best bits. And very tasty it was too. Mmm, mouse tartar...

Apparently the farm down the road is pretty much overrun with badgers. Not in the sense that they’re stealing tractors and vandalising the cattle sheds with their aerosol badger graffiti, it’s more of a ‘running amuck and making fun of prominent local citizens’ thing. According to the farmer man who did hail me from his big yellow digger last week, they’re vicious little buggers and will attack and kill anything they can get their evil paws on. But he may have been taking the piss. I’ve never met a badger socially, so I’ve no idea what they’re like with a drink in them.

But the fact remains that there’s oodles of them hereabouts. And given the rate at which Little Miss Kitten Fish is decimating the local mouse and shrew population, I wonder how long it’s going to be before we’re finding half badgers on the back step.

I think they’d go nicely with a spot of ratatouille. Or mouseatouille, if there's any left.