Bridge update

13/06/10 update. Have re-written The Bridge, trying to simplify it. Am reading the McKee book, China Mieville, and a couple of novels by people of around my age. Just finished short story collections by BEE, Jay McInerney, Raymond Carver. Kazuo Ishiguro's "A Family Supper" is quite nice.

Monarchy/anonymous bands

Interviewed Monarchy, who I've been obsessed with for about six months, then broadened the piece out to anonymous musicians in general. Went to Hackney to interview them via a laptop link-up; I really liked them, they seemed bizarrely human. I was glad they'd made the effort.

Also got to interview Patrick Neate, something of a hero, over the phone. It was nice of him to take the call because I think his wife was just about to have a baby. We interviewed him for my student paper for the first issue of which I was editor many moons ago, just as he was breaking through. I've finished The Pregnant Widow, re-read Lolita, felt obliged to read the first two Stieg Larsson books but I think I'm going to stop persevering with things I'm not really enjoying. On the other hand, Wells Tower's short story collection is ace.

Short stories #2

Spent a couple of weeks writing some other stories. I went for a run on Friday night and wrote Lost Cosmonaut afterwards. The relief of having got something done was weirdly moving.

The story is loosely based on the last minutes of Vladimir Komarov, the first man to die in space. I'd picked through a couple of books on it at the British Library - Epic Rivalry, and Fallen Astronauts (which possibly has the best subtitle in history), both of which are really intriguing.

Silver Tree is told from the perspective of a park keeper who is suddenly confronted with a silver tree that makes everyone who climbs it want to jump out.

Then there was Sky Island which I'm a fan of, told from the POV of an Ivy League undergraduate who kills someone while at a party held by a billionaire on a floating venue in the sky. Been loose with the details because I reckon the character wouldn't go into too many details. I got the idea for that on the flight back.

We All Need Space was the story of an old man going mad at the bottom of his garden; he's an amateur radio operator who thinks he's detected an astronaut's heartbeat (this was a first draft of Lost Cosmonaut which I kind of stuck with). Anyway, I'm going to leave these here until I figure out what I want to do with them. My favourites are probably Sky Island, Lost Cosmonaut, Silver Tree and We All Need Space, in that order.

Alan Campbell, who is represented by Mic Cheetham - and as well as being a very talented writer he was one of the programmers on the computer game "Vice City" - read a couple and said some very promising things, which I really appreciated.

22/05. I've been reading Interzone, F&SF, Pen Pusher, Litro and Ambit. William Boyd.

Rebuilding Haiti

Did a piece on rebuilding Haiti for the last ever cover of the Indy's features supplement. It took a couple of re-writes, mostly because I felt like comparing Haiti's reconstruction to historical examples was kind of invalid, given the uniqueness of its situation. When we eventually published it, I could see where they were coming from, even if I didn't entirely agree with it.

Ellie Goulding

Hung around with her for a bit in Glasgow for the cover of our Saturday magazine. She was really down to earth. On Saturday night she invited me backstage but I was kind of worn out.

NYPC

Interviewed the band in their North London studio. I was a bit nervous (since I fell in love with their first album) but they were very brilliant and massively accommodating. 

Hot Chip

Reviewed Hot Chip playing in Brixton. Wouldn't normally post a review but it blew me away. Went around to my good friend Dan's afterwards who I later heard had a rather bizarre night which I was glad I'd bowed out of early.