Mummy, Why Does Daddy Look Like A Doughnut?

At the moment, Tesco bakery (bless their little money-grabbing fascist socks) are selling 13 doughnuts for £1. A squid. A pund. I'm gradually working my way through them, with a little help from my friends. After all, I wouldn't like the good SF folks at Orbital in March to think I wasn't as fat as my photo! Ha!

In the words of Arnold J. Rimmer (in the body of Lister), "Let the gorging commence!"

I'm A Lumberjack And I'm OK...

OK, no girls' clothes here (athough, every now and again...) and you'll be pleased to know that after helping my mate cut down some trees (why else would I be holding a chainsaw, after all?) I still have all my limbs and fingers. So I can still write!! Yay!! Actually, re-reading that, there'll be some who wish I'd lost my fingers. Sorry to disappoint :-( I'll try and lop something important off next time.

I remember using my first chainsaw, about 10 years ago. A friend I worked with, her husband worked for a tree-felling company, and he handed over the industrial machine, kevlar pants, goggles etc with a look of great fear in his eyes. Like I was going to chop my head off, or something (possible). His words will always stick with me: "Treat this machine with respect. If you slip, it'll easily cut off your leg like a hot knife through butter". Cliched, but correct.

The most nerve-wracking bit when using a chainsaw from up a ladder is stretching out and waving the roaring machine about... Health and Safety would have a collective coronary!!

I'm Too Sexy For My Shirt- New Author Photo

As you can see by the gentle sway of my hips, I should really be appearing on the catwalk of the next Milan fashion show... And here we have Remic, modelling the latest in designer German army paratrooper trousers, combined with a quite fetching Berghaus fleece jacket (severely worn, from many mountain trips) and as you will note, his delicate, tapered fingers are holding the latest in violent bloodletting accessories. So useful that crimson is the new black :-)

Trinny and Susannah, eat your hearts out!!

"I love the smell of 2-stroke in the morning."

Author Photo (C)2008 Jim Rothwell.

Ozzy as Father-in-Law

Breaking News!!
I'm watching the Brits (well, enduring is a better word) and it strikes me as hugely amusing that Sharon Osbourne is perhaps the worst ever mother-in-law figure you could horrifically imagine! Scenario: going out with Kelly for a few weeks, she nips you back to the mansion to meet the parents and SLAM Shazza Osbourne in your damn face, screeching 'Ya pissheed, ya basturt' etc etc fade to ad nauseum. [SHUDDER]. I am quite sure I will be having nightmares tonight.

On the plus side, however, imagine Ozzy as a father-in-law!! Cool! He could teach you to mutilate bats, ride quad-bikes, take drugs, an' everything! What a role model!

Amphetamine Logic

Get this for a piece of wifey-logic. I was working on my laptop. I had a nice can of Stella beside my laptop. This is safe. I do not spill beer. To spill beer is sacrilege, and should be punishable by 5 lashes of the birch. I do this all the time, and have never spilled beer over a computer part- ever.

Anyway, my loving cuddly wifey was clearing away the childrens' dinner dishes. I was out of the room. She knocked the can of beer over the laptop, napalming several keys and giving the machine a curious but warm odour of diseased and unhealthy beer-pus.

Her defence? Like all good Generals, her defence was attack.

It was my fault. Of course it was! Because because because I left the beer next to the laptop. It was an irrelevancy, in wifey logic, that it could be her fault. No, she was just the perpetrator of the act, whereas I allowed the act to occur due to my initial prior stupidity.

Am I wrong here? Come on guys, back me up in this marital!!

Wuthering Heights

I admit, I have been a sloth whilst finishing BIOHELL. Having not mountain biked for, ooo, six months, I had a 3 hour blast over what my friends and I call The Viking Route. To get there, you have a good 30 minute climb up Heart Attack Hill, so named because it's that hard, it gives you a heart attack. This is a view halfway up, 8am Sunday morning. And yeah, I did have a hangover. BIG mistake :-)

BIOHELL complete.

The first draft of BIOHELL (that I'm happy with) is now complete (after many delays!!), and headed for agent and editor alike. It's come in at 167,000 words (oops) which is bit over-budget, and that's with me cutting about 10,000 of excess fat from the meat! Now for the next stage of the process, where Christian at Solaris take his big red pen, makes a lot of big red lines, and shouts REMIC, NO!!!

Also got the A-Format pdf for WAR MACHINE from Mark at Solaris, and the mass-market paperback out in November to coincide with the trade of BIOHELL will be a nicely chunky 656 pages, so a good fat chunk of Remic in your fist for £6.99 (or thereabouts). Bargain! Cheap as chips, I say.

Puppy Love...

Bloody mutt is chewing my boots, the wallpaper, and I caught her yesterday gnawing her way through a mains power cable, so maybe I'll change her name to Fuzzy sometime in the near future!! However, she is a little doll, but pee? She pees more than a rat. And such huge puddles!! I cannot believe a puppy bladder can contain so much! So, on that note of urinary excess, I'll let you get on. :-)

Mind Meld

I was recently asked to contribute to SF Signal's Mind Meld series, which is a really cool idea where different authors comment on a similar theme or question.

Here's mine!

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/006215.html#more

Thanks to JP.

Solaris Book Giveaway!

Fantasy Book Critic has 5 sets of Solaris books to give away- yeah, for free! And there's nothing better than for free!! (although Anders Prime might have something to say about that, hoho- sorry, in-joke).

'In support of the upcoming February 26, 2008 release of “The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume II” and Jeffrey Thomas’ “Blue War”, Solaris Books has agreed to give away FIVE Solaris Books SF Prize Packs including copies of Andy Remic’s “War Machine”, Chris Roberson’s “The Dragon’s Nine Sons”, Jeffrey Thomas’ “Blue War” and “The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume II”'

You have until 26 February 2008 to enter.

Check out: http://fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com/2008/02/giveaway-win-solaris-books-sf-prize.html

And good luck!

Fizzy Fun!

Meet Fizz, my new liccle Border Collie puppy. I'm currently taking votes on how cute she is, out of 10. She's a little terror, yes, chewing everything and pooing in my boots, but hey, that's what puppies do, right? I was certainly nagged to death by my two little boys until I gave in and got a Fizz. And so, here she is in all her gory glory!