Dan Smith's Blog, page 20

So, I made it onto Facebook . . .

Right then, I've gone and done it. I checked it out and all the other big guys are doing it, so I thought I'd better have a go. I mean, you're not anybody unless you're doing it. Mind you, as with everything else, I might be a bit late to this party.

Yup, I've made a Facebook Fan Page for myself. Hm. Not entirely sure about the wisdom of such things – especially after receiving the first comment – but . . . y'know. Anyway, it's done now,

Image via Wikipedia

and I've been careful not to include all those personal details – inside leg measurement etc – that will leave me open to fraud and ridicule. I hope.

So, if you want to check it out, go to Dan's Fan Page and have a little look. It's a good place for people to leave comments, see what I'm up to, begin and join discussions – preferably about my books.

Anything unsuitable will, of course, be removed. Natch.

Oh, and if you do pop along for a visit, please click the 'like' button. It will do wonders for my self-esteem and make me feel popular.

Thanks

Routine and Radio (with a splash of True Blood)

So, everything's pretty much back to normal now. Work has returned to the 'before Christmas' rate and the children are back at school. Routine has been restored to all things in our household. And that, as routine dictates, means that our radio alarm goes off just before 7am so that we can hear the news.

Now, I know that Radio 1 isn't the best station for news (unless you're fifteen and worried about Lady Gaga's new outfit), but that's what we're tuned to, so that's the news we get. Or don't get, as it happens. I mean, the least they could do is actually have the news on time. But no. Not the bearded, overweight DJ. And by that, I don't mean Dave Lee Travis (showing my age). No, I mean, of course, Chris Moyles. See, Moyles is too busy chatting with his mates to worry about news. He's too  busy listening to the sound of his own voice – as if they're 'down the pub' gassing about . . . well, about nothing, really. He's usually organising a night out or talking about the famous people he knows or how special he is. Loudly. Monotonously. Tediously.

I have no idea why he's still on there. He seems to have been on the breakfast show for an eternity, clinging on like he's never going to let go. Most DJs have stepped aside by the time they've been there this long, but not Moyles. I wouldn't care except that he never lets the news come on at the right time. Ach. Well. Guess I'm gonna have to break the routine. I'll have to  get the instructions out and work out how to retune the radio station, see who else is on offer.

Rant over.

On a happier note, season 3 of True Blood starts tonight – sookie is mine 'n' all that – so that should be fun. Bit of a cliffhanger at the end of Season 2 and it looks like Sookie is going to run to Eric for help. Oops, I smell trouble.

At this point I could have given you a pic of Moyles next to Dave Lee Travis with some kind of lovechild caption, but it's Friday and no one needs to see something like that right before the weekend. It just wouldn't be right. Instead, I thought you'd prefer the super-sexy cast of True Blood.

Thank me later.

Related Articles

True Blood, FX, 10pm (mirror.co.uk)
Chris Moyles signs new contract (bbc.co.uk)

Waverton Good Read (part II)

Some time ago I blogged that I'd been invited toWaverton near Chester to talk about Dry Season. I'd been nominated for the Waverton Good Read Award (check out the website for more information) which is open to debut novelists whose book is published in the year of the award – with previous winners including Mark Haddon and Paul Torday. Anyway, I made it down south (I mean, Manchester and Liverpool aren't north, not really) and met the organisers of the award who, very kindly, accommodated me for the night, fed me, watered me and looked after me very well during my stay (thank you Gwen, Peter and Wendy). Amongst all that relaxing and being looked after, I even found time to speak to a group of readers about the experiences that have inspired the places and characters that populate my novel Dry Season.

I always find it a little daunting when I first stand up in front of a group of people, but it doesn't take long for me to get into my stride. After all, I'm talking about me and my book, and no one knows about those things better than I do! Hopefully everyone enjoyed the talk – I didn't notice anyone nodding off and there were a few questions at the end, which is a positive sign – and I'd like to think that people left knowing something of the background to Dry Season.

This year, 69 books were nominated for the award and the readers of Waverton have been busy working their way through the books, producing more than 700 hundred reviews since September 2010, so that's a lot of reading. Before I spoke about Dry Season, a long-list of 25 books was announced and I was pleased to see my name on the list. (Phew, that could have been embarrassing.) Anyway, I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that I make it onto that short-list. Most of the previous winners of the award have gone on to great success, so the readers of Waverton obviously have an eye for it, and I'm proud to have made it onto the long-list.

Thanks again, everyone, for being so accommodating and making my visit such an enjoyable one.

Before I spoke about Dry Season, a longlist of 25 books was announced and I was pleased to see my name on the list. Phew!

Long time no post . . .

Happy new year!

Forgive me, reader, it has been . . . thirteen days since my last post. Or thereabouts. Anyway, I'm sure it's OK; I mean, we've all been doing other things, right? Christmas/New Year is one of those times when we all switch off and shut down for a while. I've managed a bit of work, but it's never easy when there are children to entertain – although, things are easier now they're getting older. We've pushed beyond the 6am wake ups and now we're at the point where they emerge from their rooms like bears awakening from hibernation. Ah, happy days.

Well, I've managed a first draft of my new new novel. I say 'new new' because if it gets published, it'll be quite a way down the line. Dark Horizons is next (May) then, hopefully it'll be my other completed novel (which is with the publishers as we speak) and THEN we'll get to the one I've just drafted. This one is probably my most ambitious and I've had to do a touch of research (I can't claim to have lived in 1930′s Ukraine), but it's been fun to write. Just need to polish it up, now.

So. A new year, eh? I suppose the etiquette is to write a list. Top 10 books of the year, Top 10 films of the year, that kind of thing. Well, I'm not much of a list person. You want lists, talk to my wife, she does lists. Me? Naaa, I'll spare you the list.

Talking of films though, I did go to see The Way Back yesterday – enemies of the Soviet state escape from Siberian labour camp – and it wasn't bad.Colin Farrel's Russian/English accent was a bit dodgy but it was excused by the epic scenery. The story touches on some of the themes I'm writing about at the moment, although it's set 10 years or so later, and it surprises me that it's such a 'forgotten' period of history. We remember the terrible things the nazis did to the Jews but we forget what Stalin did. It's odd that people wear hammer and sickle badges/logos as fashion without thinking about what it represents. The communist revolution might have once been chasing an ideal but the executions and the deportations and the starvation of millions of people that followed . . . well, we wouldn't wear swastikas, would we?

 

On a different note, I also saw Kick-Ass. I realise I'm a bit late to this party, but Kick-Ass is a very cool film. (Is it OK to say cool? Is it still down with the kidz?) If you don't like bloody comic book violence and hearing twelve year old girls use the C word, then it's not for you, but I thought it was great fun. Stylish, colourful, funny – I'lll definitely be wtaching it again but . . . next stop, Scott Pilgrim. I know, I'll be late to that party too, but I can't always get to the cinema when I want to – though nothing's going to keep me away from the Coen brothers version of Charles Portis' True Grit. Can't wait.

 

Books? Well, I just finished Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord by Louis de Bernieres and can reccommend it. A bitter-sweet fable well told. The kind of book that makes you want to take a breath before you start another, because you're worried the next one just isn't going to be as good. Yep, still struggling with the Girl who did the Thing to the Hornet's Nest. Ah well.

 

Merry Christmas

Image via Wikipedia

Ah, Christmas. Dontcha just love it? The tree is up, the lights are on and the children are getting excited. Usually the excitement melts into arguing and fighting and grumping, but . . . well, that's just how it is. Wouldn't be Christmas otherwise, would it?

Anyway, I hope you get everything you wish for, that you get to where you're going despite the terrible weather, and that you have a lovely Christmas.

See ya after it's all over.

Spam, spam, spam, spam . . .

My blog has a pretty good spam filter that weeds out most of the crap, but sometimes things drop into my 'to approve' box that make no sense at all. Strange stuff from . . .  well, who knows where this stuff comes from. I don't know if someone actually bothers to type it or if it's randomly generated but I thought I'd share some of the comments that are waiting for me to delete them.

 

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Nice post! Your article is full of guider wisdom and really constructive.'

'I don't necessarily agree with the above post, and would like to take to task a few of the OP's points. Not everyone will agree and though I am one of them, I do respect your right to have your view.'

'Trip Withdraw,reader extend water leaf fire normal respond pretty audience deal fly dinner treatment easily drink mind secure hold lead spot expect enterprise tape murder tree justice contact look dry academic dress reader hill sale absence recent writing forward want skin pupil chairman why with hurt scientific medical reasonable north south apply threaten measure touch common formal winter restaurant characteristic correct recent difficult imply conference hot object memory machine representative mouth carefully say holiday attempt deal brief demand comparison exchange post force considerable relatively watch branch force ignore'

 

Hmm. Make of that what you will.

Evel, not Evil

Wandering aimlessly around MetroCentre yesterday, I spotted the 'Evel Knievel Exhibition', and was drawn towards the unmistakeable white and blue styling with stars 'n' everything. You see, I was born in the seventies, right on the cusp, so I grew up in a time when Evel Knievel was a name uttered with reverence in the school playground. When I see the image, hear the name, something calls me to it.

Anyway, at first I thought the exhibition was some kind of stunt to sell memorabilia (which it was, of course) and I thought that the bikes, the dragster and the sky cycle were replicas. But apparently not. I've checked it out and it turns out they are the honest-to-god-real-life-actual-ones that Evel himself sat upon in order to launch himself into his deah defying feats.

There was little more than a trickle of people wandering through the small exhibition – which is a sign of the times, I guess – but it got me feeling all nostalgic.

I remembered the year when Father Christmas brought me my fully poseable Evel Knievel action figure that fitted oh so snug into a sky cycle which, in turn, clipped into a  blue base with a wind up mechanism that fired that sucker across the room like it was a BALLISTIC MISSILE. Lift your legs Grandma, 'cos this baby's gonna smash through your ankles and keep on going! It was the kind of toy that would have had Health and Safety officials spasming uncontrollably.

Father Chrismas brought my brother the Evel Knievel stunt bike that Christmas, so the rest of the holiday was spent building ramps and finding things for Evel to jump over. Aah, memories. It might have even been the year we got Stock Car Smashup ( the one where you drove the cars at each other and when they collided, parts flew off them and . . . oh, never mind)

So, I did a bit of digging around the world-wide-interweb and found this spanking advert from back in the day.  Mine was the sky cycle you can see at 0:17 on the advert.

Oh, happy days.

Next on my trip down memory lane – the Six Million Dollar Man action figure!!!!

Related Articles

The Many Jumps of Evel Knievel (motorcycleinsurance.org)
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A violent way of life

Earlier this week, I was talking to a reading group about DRY SEASON, and one of the comments was that there's a lot of violence in the novel. Off hand, I can only think of three or four violent moments in the book, but two of them are particularly unpleasant, so I guess they stick in the mind. My agent tells me it's probaby because I write violence so well that those moments are so memorable.

Violence, of course, is dramatic – and what do we expect from a novel if not a bit of drama? The threat of violence is also dramatic – possibly more so – but if it's going to be there, it's important for it to be relevent to the plot, and in DRY SEASON it IS relevent. It would be impossible to tell such a story in such a place without it. It would be like writing a crime novel without there ever being a crime.

In DRY SEASON, I've tried to show the very ugly, and very real side of violence, rather than stylising it or making it 'sexy', but the flip-side is that one of my strongest memories of those people, despite their propensity for violence, was actually their good nature. And this is one of the things that most intrigues me about some of the people I met in Mato Grosso. They could be fun, friendly, charming and pleasant, but also have a side-line in murdering people for money. They had an inclination towards violence without ever seeming (to me) to be threatening or dangerous. Of course, not everyone was like that, but perhaps that's my point; it was impossible to tell. The violent were not leering caricatures and they were not the odd-ball 'quiet ones', they were just ordinary, everyday people. People who laughed and smiled and told a joke. Our gardener, according to local legend, had killed seventeen men. Workers who respected my father for making sure they were paid on time, thanked him by offering to kill people for him. Many of the men carried guns and knives – usually for hunting or for work, but when they fell out with each other, they sometimes used them. Even now I find it difficult to understand that although they were capable of bad things, they never seemed to be bad people. They weren't violent because it gave them pleasure – it was always for money, or  if they felt wronged in some way (although, drinking someone else's bottle of rum usually resulted in a show of arms, so the reason didn't always have to be a major one).

It was just their way of life. And, hopefully, DRY SEASON reflects that.

Culture Magazine December – 2010

Just spotted this in Culture Magazine and thought I'd stick it on here for all to see. The first smidge of coverage for Dark Horizons.  The cover's not quite finalised, so there will be a few minor changes, but everything else is done – I'm very excited about the book hitting the shelves next spring.

To go to the online magazine and read the full article click here

To go to the online magazine and read the full article click here

Go Away!

Right, that's enough snow, thanks. We don't need anymore and we don't want any more. I'm getting sick of clearing the drive and I'm running out of places to pile the stuff. Go away now.

And on Monday I'm talking to a reading group at Washington library and I'm wondering if anyone is going to turn up. It's happened before y'know. A dark Monday night, torrential rain, Dan giving a talk. How many people turned up? One. Actually, he was a nice guy – Graham -  but that doesn't detract from the fact that he was the only person who turned up.

Harumph.

I bet that doesn't happen to Dan Brown.