Charlie Williams's Blog, page 5

MADE OF STONE giveaway

Hey, I am giving away copies of Made of Stone to lucky prize draw winners. But there's a catch: you have to be on Goodreads. So get on that thing and sign up for this baby:
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Goodreads Book Giveaway Made of Stone by Charlie Williams Giveaway ends May 01, 2013.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads. Enter to win What's to lose?

Banks

Terrible news about Iain Banks. His Wasp Factory certainly opened a door for me in terms of what you can do with books. I rather petulantly went off him a few years ago after reading RAW SPIRIT (no link provided - for your own good), but I went back on him a couple of years later, in search of the mastery of old and finding it.

But this guy is still alive - why am I talking about him like he is dead?? Let's all go on a Banks-fest (I recommend the slightly unsung Espedair Street) while we wait for his next book, wondering if it will have an "M." in it. (No. Strangely this seems significant.)

Funny, he is someone I feel like I have met, although I definitely haven't. And during this imaginary meeting he thought I was a twat. To be fair, I was probably drunk. On whisky.

The Right Eye of the Tiger

Short Sharp Interview with me over at Paul D Brazill's place. He talks about Rocky, I talk about Rocky... we all talk about Rocky! What else is there to talk about? Oh yes - MADE OF STONE.

"Six months off for bad behaviour"

Eh up. Royston Blake makes a guest appearance at Brit Grit Alley, delicately tackling the sensitive issue of "special needs". Check it here.

Also check this footage of some 18 year old kid electrifying the world in 1998. One moment of magic like that (against Argentina of all teams) makes up for all the years of injury. Enjoy your retirement, Michael Owen. Try not to buy a pub.

And in case you haven't heard, MADE OF STONE is out.

You thought I could get through a whole post without mentioning that?

"Blakey on Tour" comes good

Today sees the publication of MADE OF STONE - Mangel book #5. And this blog is the best place to mark the occasion. Because right here is where I started writing it.

Regular readers of this blog (both of you) will recall how I did a guest blog by Royston Blake a couple of years ago called Blakey on Tour (which seems to have spawned 310 spam comments about drugs - WTF?). For some reason I couldn't find a way to sign off from it, so I continued it. Then I continued the continuation... and so on until I had about thirty of the things and no sign of an end in sight. At that point I took it offline.

Made of Stone is the end result, after a few weeks of writing, rejigging and then several months of the usual publication process. I don't know of any other writer who has done this, although I'm sure I'm not the only one. (If Norris McQuirter is reading, can you check that? If it is, I want in the Guinness Book of Records. Or just a crate of Guinness would be fine, thanks.) I don't mean taking your bloggings and putting them into a book, but writing a blog post which ends up turning into a novel. Not only a novel but the fifth novel in a series, and one which the author loved writing and reckons is OK, if he may say so himself. (He may.)

But do you know what? I'd like to do it again.

There was something about the thought that people are waiting for the next instalment - even if it's just one person - that spurs you on. I felt like Dickens when I was writing that thing. Except Dickens got a shilling for each copy of each instalment he sold, whereas I got a comment if I was lucky (or 310 about black market drugs if I was really unlucky). But do you know what? Those comments were worth more than a shilling. They were worth at least 1.5 shillings.

Anyway, Made of Stone. Please buy it (UK, US, Can), steal it, borrow it... read it. Tell your friends. If you know someone who read Deadfolk or one of the other early ones, tell them. Royston Blake is still around.

And he is on tour.

Arking around

Pssst, do you like films? You do, right? And you like them dark and noirish, right? Films that have a clear, strong storyline but that don't force-feed it to you - you like that, don't you? You like it because it acklowledges that you are an intelligent, sophisticated consumer of the cinematic medium and you can do some of the work yourself, so long as that brain of yours is engaged. This is you, right? I'm describing you.

But there is a problem.

You don't have much time.

No time to watch films because you've books to read... such as this one. Or this one which will be published next week (ahem). Plus you have to eat food, sleep, go to the gym. Get turned away from the gym because you are not a member. Pick up the kids. Get turned away from the school because you have no kids. Remember that you do have kids but you are at the wrong school. Turn up at the correct school five hours late, only to find your kids have been taken into care. Get a visit from the police, etc. That sort of stuff, right? Busy stuff. The kind of stuff that stops you watching films.

Well hey.

Your prayers are answered.

Allow me to present ARK, a short film written by me, directed by Mal Woolford and starring Simone Lahbib in femme fatale mode and Raffaello Degruttola as her high-handed paramour.

Ladies and gents, this film is only 3:49.

That's 3:49.

Even the crazy-busiest person in Crazy-Busy Land can shoe-horn that little babe into their schedule.

Watch the film, see what you think, maybe share it on Facebook or something if you dig it. Then give social services a call about getting those kids back.

Fictional Limbo

Sometimes I have a fully formed character popping into my head and staying there. But he doesn't come with a plot. Try as you might, you can't work him or her into a story. Maybe their story hasn't arrived yet, and I should just hang on until it does? Maybe they are ghosts, condemned to exist in fictional limbo for all of eternity? Maybe their sole purpose is as vehicles for bloggings like these (from eight years ago).

Keith (and Danny), I feel your time will come.

White Rabbits

Happy 2013 to all you lovely people. I know you are lovely because you are probably readers, which means you are at least halfway to loveliness. Or awareness of the human condition in all its fragility and futility, which is even better.

2013 is a year for Royston Blake. These come around when Pluto is in the fifth quadrant, Alpha Centauri lines up with the Death Star and the moon is waxing gibbous. What this means in publishing terms is that a new Mangel book is coming out in March: MADE OF STONE. This is the fifth in the series, and sees much change in the equilibrium of the town but very little change in Blakey, other than more scars. Check it out here (UK) and here (US). I hope loyal Blakey fans will want to find out what's been going on. As ever, newbies can go straight in with no prior Mangel knowledge required. Saying that, they might be interested in the other books in the series too. Plug over.

Resolution for writers
Write your own stuff. Don't piggy-back on the success of others. I'm seeing more and more copy-cat books on the shelves, Twilight this and Fifty Shades of that. Retailers love it, but I don't. Come up with something new, dear anonymous author. Just for me. (Then the rest of us can piggyback on your success.)

Resolution for Kindle owners
Maybe dip your toes into the crystal clear waters of serials this year. Amazon have a few on the go now, and what happens is that you buy the story, then new instalments are beamed down to your Kindle as they appear, via special space rays. Conceivably you could start reading something that hasn't even been finished yet. Ain't that exciting in a non-sexual way? Two to start you off: MATADOR by compadre Ray Banks and THE BETRAYER by Daniel Judson. All I can say is that these two are rocking so far, and I advise you to get on board. Serials were a popular format of fiction back in Victorian times, remember. But now you can put more swearing in.

Resolution for me
Blog more. Although I managed something on this blog for every month of last year, the total was 19 posts. That is NOT good enough. Remember the glory days of 2005, when the post count reached 166? OK, so most of them were crap... but hey, check out the quantity.

Resolution for Santa
Lay off the sauce. Really, is it any kind of example to young people, having a drink at every house you stop off at and then getting behind the reins again? We left you some Baileys this year. You were meant to have a small sip but you DRANK IT ALL. Next year you get orange juice.

Royston Blake on the royal pregnancy

I heard the Queen is pregnant, or summat, and she's off work for a bit cos of puking up in the morning. Personally I ain't buying that. I had a few high-up positions in major companies in my time - including being head doorman of Hoppers and head of summat at the Wossname Centre - and if there's one thing you learns to do when folks is ringing up sick in the morning it's this: check what day it is. If it's a Wednesday or a Thursday or summat, fair play, they might actually be a bit ill. But if it's a Monday, which is the case here with the Queen and her sicknote, they'm lying. No one gets proper sick at weekends - every fucker knows that. What has happened is they have gone out on the razz. Maybe on the Saturday, and got so caned they can't even face the world two mornings later. Maybe on the Sunday, which I personally don't agree with. Sundays was declared in the Bible as the national day of rest, out of respect for door staff and other folks who works in piss houses right up until the early hours of that day. So it seems to me the Queen has been raiding the drinks cabinet at Buckingham Castle. Or maybe she went down the Prince of Wales, which is a pub on the Barkettle Road owned by her son, Prince Charles, rumour has it. Mind you, I ain't sure I believes that rumour. I mean, if he did own it, why didn't they name it after him instead of some cunt from Wales?

New Mangel and FREE Graven

Loyal followers of Royston Blake will be relieved when March 2013 comes. That is when the big guy comes back into our lives, via the fifth Mangel book MADE OF STONE. To whet your appetites, here is the cover:


That insect is the Hurk Moth, a new species they discovered in the wooded area north of Mangel. This moth explains a few things about the way people behave around there... but you'll have to read the book to find out how. And it's not just about moths - there's a lot of other insane shit too that all seems to hang together in the usual Royston Blake kind of way. I'll say more about the background to this book nearer the time, but if you happened to be reading this blog last year and caught some of an episodic story that was playing out in real-time on these pages, you will recognise some of the early parts - the novel came from that. And I'm glad it did. Check it out (and maybe pre-order) here in the UK and here in the US.

Kindle owners who have not read my novella GRAVEN IMAGE should check out Amazon (UK, US) for the next couple of days - it will be going FOR FREE for a limited period. Do it! It's about Leon, a brothel bouncer with problems. I don't know why I keep writing about bouncers. In the pissed-up, amplified social world that a lot of us live in, they are the gatekeepers.