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Hey, I have been messing around with page elements and stuff on the side panel, and have gone for one of those google friend connect widgets. Please, if you will, click on "Join this site", then you can keep up with what's going on in the wasteland that is my mind. Do it for any other blogs you like, too. It's a cool thing.

Pickin' up my boots

An update on the "hittin' the road" thing I was raving about a while back... I have set up signings at three venues:

Saturday, Aug 22, 1pm: Borders, The Bullring, Birmingham
Saturday, Aug 26, 11am: Waterstones, Eastgate Street, Gloucester
Saturday, Sep 05, 11am: Waterstones, The Shambles, Worcester

I could have set up more but it's probably best to see how these ones go first. I'm not the world's best salesman and there is no telling I will sell a single book. So... if you are around Brum, Glocs. or "the Wu" on any of those dates, I would love to shake your hand. Let me pitch the new book to you personally, pointing out its finer points and where it beats out the competition. I might even throw in a free Trucoat sealant, which combats oxidation problems.

Fragen Dazs

A little noir-themed Q&A with me over at the German site www.mordlust.de. It is in English, so chill out and go take a look. Also have a rummage around the rest of this great site - interviews with Jason Starr, Al Guthrie, Vicki Hendricks and many others.

A big danke to Myron Buennagel.

Genre Schmenre

(That title doesn't really work, does it? Ah well...)

Interested to read on Confessions that Booker-winner John Banville turns out twenty pages of a crime book to every "literary" page he writes. Not to get into the "slumming it" debate, but perhaps this is because crime is a natural form for Banville? Maybe he feels comfortable writing it, and not constrained by the pressure to strike for whatever it is literary novels are meant to strike for. Maybe, in an parallel universe where crime fiction gets all the snobbish kudos and literary fiction is seen as slumming it, he would be doing twenty lit pages to every one of crime?

FWIW, I think it's best not to even think of genre when writing. Thinking up a premise, maybe genre comes into it. But once you're off and writing, just get your head down and do what you do.

Hark the Scat-man

As you know, I hate to blow my own horn. I mean, that's sick, right? And pretty hard to do. But I must direct you towards this review of KING OF THE ROAD by the refreshingly profane Nerd of Noir:

In case you're not getting this, dear reader, I'm saying that you should pick up this fucking book toot-fucking-sweet. Damn it, read the whole trilogy. You'll thank me. Least you will if you're a sick fucker who likes shocks, laughs, and poop-mouth in your reading material (which is kind of a pre-requisite for this site, you know).

I still can't understand why KING OF THE ROAD didn't win the Booker Prize. But it goes without saying I love this review.

Friends of mine, the trilogy of which he speaks is still around. It is primed and oiled and ready for deployment out of here, here or a decent bookshop near you.

NB: Flush! An Ode to Toilets is not a part of the trilogy. Ahem.

Hittin' the road

I am going to be doing a bit of back-to-basics promotion for Stairway to Hell: in-store signings. I never did one of these before. I've done the after-hours reading events but they seem a bit arrogant for a non-famous author, presuming the mountain will come to Mohammed (which it mostly doesn't - lazy mountain!). So Mo is going to be strapping on his hiking boots and hitting that mountain trail, setting himself up at a desk right there in the shop on a Saturday. (Er, Mo is me, right? Not Mo Hayder. Sorry.) To that end...

Please drop me a line if you know of any author-signing-friendly bookshops where the punters might be interested in a book about a pub singer, two superstars of rock, armed robbery and everyday market town black magic. Got the local angle covered already: Waterstones in Worcester (details forthcoming).

(And yes, somewhere out there is a font called FrankMiller.ttf. And a procrastinating author.)

It's alive! Almost...

Like something created by Herbert West or Baron von Frankenstein, STAIRWAY TO HELL has now grown not only a spine but a back also. It is taking shape, friends of mine. Soon it will have pages. Later on, if the correct blood sacrifice can be found, WORDS will appear on those pages. And then fingers will hold the covers open and eyes will read those words.

Your eyes? A man can hope.

No architect, no building

If you have a writer credit on IMDB (even just one, for a small but perfectly formed film that operates on several levels and is visually stunning), you will know why this is good news. For me, the director is the creative head honcho of a film and it is ultimately his or her baby. But the writer is where it all starts. Everything spawns from the guy or gal holding the pen.