What Next?

I've been doing a lot of ranting lately. Angry, angry ranting that involves shouting at the television, or at the radio, or at all those slack-jawed halfwit gitbags who are somehow allowed in charge of automobiles, even though they clearly aren't qualified to pick their own noses without impaling their brains on a questing fingernail.

Seriously, if you're doing 30mph in a 60 zone, you should maybe rethink the whole driving-while-fast-asleep thing. And see those stick things on either side of your steering wheel? One of them makes a light on the outside of your car go all blinky, so people can tell where the hell you think you're going. What, did your driving licence come free with a packet of Cornflakes?

But I digress.

For some reason the quantity, quality, and all round bitterness of my rants has increased dramatically since I handed Book Number The Fifth over to my publisher. I blame post-book-delivery blues, and politicians. Slimy sods. Every time I see one on the telly it feels like taking a bath in a tub full of phlegm.

But I'm digressing again.

One of the things that's been weighing heavily on the old bearded noggin this past week is the question of what I'm going to do next. And not just in the short term - that's going to involve making a cup of tea - but in the longer term. My current contract with HarperCollins ends with Book Number The Sixth (a plot for which is already fermenting at the back of my head, like a dead sheep in a septic tank), and that's just one book away. Or it will be if I survive the second draft of Book Number The Fifth.

What to do after that?

I've been thinking about taking up plumbing. It pays pretty well and the hours aren't too bad. Yes, you occasionally end up knee-deep in jobbies, but at least it isn't normally your fault. And it's someone else's jobbies too... Hmm... does that make it better or worse? Neither would be pleasant, but at least you'd know where your own ones had been...

But I'm doing that digressing thing again.

If I do decide that there's a future in this writing thing, what will I write? More Logan books? I know that anyone who writes a crime novel set in Scotland is eventually going to be called 'the next Ian Rankin', but could I really spend 20 years writing about the same character? I think I'd probably go mad. Then I wouldn't just be ranting at politicians when they come on the telly, I'd be investing in a cricket bat studded with six-inch rusty nails and paying the bastards a visit. "Look what you've done to the National Health Service!" WHAP, WHAP, WHAP!
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
"Stop claiming rent-boys as a business expense!" WHAP, WHAP, WHAP!
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, Jesus, please stop hitting me with that!"
"Try giving a straight answer when you're asked a question on telly!" WHAP, WHAP, WHAP!

I'm kinda in that sort of mood.