Grendel decided to spice up our morning breakfast routine by providing us with most of a rabbit this morning. Gone were the waistcoat and pocket watch, leaving everything south of the shoulders. Mmm... it seems that rabbit heads are every bit as crunchy and munchy as mouse ones. Big rabbit too. She Who Must Feast On The Flesh Of Dead Wild Animals now wants to train Little Miss to go hunting on our behalf, so the results can be skinned and eaten. Me? I'm not fond of game, so until the cat brings back a sheep or a cow, I'm not interested.
Friday meant a trip up to the wilds of Huntly and a visit to The Gordon Schools where I did spend an hour babbling nonsense at higher English students. And I even recognised some faces from last week's workshops at Fyvie Castle. Masochists. You’d have think they’d know to stay away after what happened last time. Now when I do these things I usually start with a reading (warning: this product may contain shouting and swearing) and then move on to the old interactive 'let's plan a crime novel using a flipchart, a mind-map, and a naked photo of Gloria Hunniford' thing. And Huntly did me proud, in the bizarre-stakes anyway. We ended up with a tale of an old woman, stabbed in the neck down a darkened alley. By her pimp. Because she hadn't returned a book of his. And the best thing of all? This crime was to be investigated by 'A Man In A Hotdog Suit'. GENIUS!
I could, totally, see myself writing something like that. And maybe I shall, maybe I shall... But not today, as I have the edit of doom to be getting on with.
In other today-shaped things, I believe the lovely people at Deadly Pleasures are announcing the winners of the Barry Awards tonight at that Bouchercon place. *sigh* no convention for poor Stuart. Still, it would have meant flying in to Chicago O'Hare and having done so already this year, I have every intention of avoiding that festering concrete cock-up for as long as possible. Nice city to visit, crap airport.
But I digress. So, yes, the Barry's tonight. Good luck to all the contenders, especially those on the Best First Novel shortlist: Megan Abbott, Brian Freeman, Randall Hicks and David Hosp. Excellent books one and all. How I ended up on the roster with you guys I'll never know. Maybe it had something to do with all those sketchy photos? Took me ages to find a Rubber 'Nurse Nipples' Dress in my size.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment with the last eighty pages of BROKEN SKIN and a dirty big blue pen.