Iain Rowan's Blog, page 3
June 29, 2012
Turn, turn, turn.
So.
Today I sold my parents' house.
There was no ritual handing over of keys, no final moment, no looking back. I was a hundred miles away, keys were left or sent down by post, and the last time I was there was more than a fortnight ago. I hadn't know then that it would be my last visit, but that's the way it turned out. So no chance for a last goodbye, and maybe that's a bad thing, maybe that's a good thing, I don't know yet.
We didn't grow up in that house, me or my brother or my sister, but for twenty years it had been the other place that we could go that still felt like a home, and for our children that only even more so. We all spent a lot of time there in the last three years, after my dad died and my mum was very ill. And then we've spent time there in the last few months too, in a house that had lost its soul but was full of two lives, and the history of those lives, and the history of large chunks of our lives, stuffed into photo albums and packed up in boxes, and tucked away between the pages of books.
We took the things that mattered to us, and we left a lot that mattered too, because you can't take all of it, and if you did, what would you even do with it? So we took what mattered most, and regretted the rest, and then we each left for the last time and Wednesday and Thursday a firm of house clearers came in and took everything else, and left the place a blank canvas for the people who would start a new life there, and make their own history.
This morning, I woke up at 5:07, from one of the most vivid dreams that I have ever had. Most of the time, my dreams are meaningless jumbles: entertaining, surreal, scary, with nothing more coherent than an inchoate anxiety, or confusion. This dream was different. I was back at the house, because I had to choose the things that I was going to take away and keep. But this time, it was full in a very literal sense. Everything that I had owned and loved as a child, as a teenager, in those awkward years before flying the nest, it was all there. Every bike I had ever owned. Every guitar I had ever owned. Shelves upon shelves of books. I couldn't take it all, I wasn't able to. I could maybe choose one of everything, probably not even that.
All the things I had loved, a history of my life, and I could only take what I could carry, and all the rest I would have to leave behind. Doesn't take a Freud or a Jung, that one. Stayed with me all day, and will stay with me longer yet.
Today I sold my parents' house.
There was no ritual handing over of keys, no final moment, no looking back. I was a hundred miles away, keys were left or sent down by post, and the last time I was there was more than a fortnight ago. I hadn't know then that it would be my last visit, but that's the way it turned out. So no chance for a last goodbye, and maybe that's a bad thing, maybe that's a good thing, I don't know yet.
We didn't grow up in that house, me or my brother or my sister, but for twenty years it had been the other place that we could go that still felt like a home, and for our children that only even more so. We all spent a lot of time there in the last three years, after my dad died and my mum was very ill. And then we've spent time there in the last few months too, in a house that had lost its soul but was full of two lives, and the history of those lives, and the history of large chunks of our lives, stuffed into photo albums and packed up in boxes, and tucked away between the pages of books.
We took the things that mattered to us, and we left a lot that mattered too, because you can't take all of it, and if you did, what would you even do with it? So we took what mattered most, and regretted the rest, and then we each left for the last time and Wednesday and Thursday a firm of house clearers came in and took everything else, and left the place a blank canvas for the people who would start a new life there, and make their own history.
This morning, I woke up at 5:07, from one of the most vivid dreams that I have ever had. Most of the time, my dreams are meaningless jumbles: entertaining, surreal, scary, with nothing more coherent than an inchoate anxiety, or confusion. This dream was different. I was back at the house, because I had to choose the things that I was going to take away and keep. But this time, it was full in a very literal sense. Everything that I had owned and loved as a child, as a teenager, in those awkward years before flying the nest, it was all there. Every bike I had ever owned. Every guitar I had ever owned. Shelves upon shelves of books. I couldn't take it all, I wasn't able to. I could maybe choose one of everything, probably not even that.
All the things I had loved, a history of my life, and I could only take what I could carry, and all the rest I would have to leave behind. Doesn't take a Freud or a Jung, that one. Stayed with me all day, and will stay with me longer yet.
June 9, 2012
Now, where's Elite?
Been sorting out stuff at my mum and dad's house this week. Not the happiest of jobs, but I found something up in the loft that brought back some good childhood memories.
And yes, the little black thing on the bottom right is indeed an original ZX81 memory expansion pack, which gave you a whole 16K of RAM. Yes, youngsters, that's not a typo, it was K not Mb. And according to the box it came in, it cost £29.99, which is probably about a hundred quid now.
June 3, 2012
Nowhere To Go - print edition
Hard on the heels of One of Us, my collection of award-winning short crime fiction, Nowhere To Go, is now available in trade paperback format, with a great cover courtesy of Keith at infinityplus.Available from Amazon UK for £6.99, and Amazon US for $10.99, made from real trees. Kindle versions available from Amazon (US | UK) for $2.99/£1.99 respectively, and all sorts of other ebook versions at Smashwords.
May 18, 2012
Paperback writer
Now that Amazon have sorted out their UK distribution, you can now get the paperback version of One of Us direct from Amazon UK. So that means a stable price (£7.99), and normal Amazon delivery options, like free delivery. Or next day delivery, because you're just so desperate to get your hands on a copy.
May 9, 2012
Flash. And also, Bang.
Well, that's a pleasant surprise: my very very short crime story Search History has won the Flashbang competition. Many thanks to the organisers, Sarah Hilary in particular and also to CrimeFest for the prize, two tickets to CrimeFest 2013. Very much looking forward to that, and I haven't even seen the line-up yet. Will be my first con-type thing.
Nice review for Nowhere To Go, too. Turned out to be a good day.
Nice review for Nowhere To Go, too. Turned out to be a good day.
May 8, 2012
The Other Room
Want to read a collection of weird fiction that's as good as anything I've read in the past year? What's more, do you want to read it for free?
Well, dear reader, your wishes have come true. Get yourself here and find out how to get a copy of James Everington's fantastic collection The Other Room. If you want to know why you should, read my review of it from last May. Trust me, James is going to do Big Things and if you read it now you can be all smug and 'yeah, of course I was into them way before they released their first single'.
Well, dear reader, your wishes have come true. Get yourself here and find out how to get a copy of James Everington's fantastic collection The Other Room. If you want to know why you should, read my review of it from last May. Trust me, James is going to do Big Things and if you read it now you can be all smug and 'yeah, of course I was into them way before they released their first single'.
May 2, 2012
One of Us - Reviews
Lovely review of One of Us over at Indie Ebook Review. Quite apart from the fact that it's very positive (and thoughtful, and perceptive), I really like that the reviewer got it. If you know what I mean.
Update on things previously mentioned - now through to the final shortlist of 10 in the Flashbang competition, and sadly Nowhere To Go didn't win the Spinetingler Best Short Story collection review, but not really sadly as it was a thrill to be shortlisted and Alan Heathcock's Volt looks a truly worthy winner.
Update on things previously mentioned - now through to the final shortlist of 10 in the Flashbang competition, and sadly Nowhere To Go didn't win the Spinetingler Best Short Story collection review, but not really sadly as it was a thrill to be shortlisted and Alan Heathcock's Volt looks a truly worthy winner.
April 29, 2012
On rewriting
Have posted this week's story over at 52 Songs, 52 Stories, with inspiration this week from Mogwai's 'We're No Here'.
I'd written this story a couple of days ago, and kept it in a draft post on Blogger which for some unknown reason then decided to eat all the content, and leave a draft post with the title intact, but nothing else. Only discovered it this morning, when I went to write it, and so had to write it again from scratch.
I've done this before, and it's a frustrating position to be in, because when I rewrite that accidentally-deleted story or scene, it never feels as good as the original. My suspicion is that this is entirely self-deception, and that if you made a bunch of writers do this and then posted their rewritten work together with their sneakily-restored first drafts, no-one would be able to consistently tell which is which. Still, it always feels that something is missing.
Anyway, it's done, and as I posted it I realised that this is the last story for April, and so I've managed to get through a third of the year keeping to the idea behind 52 songs of writing and posting one story a week. Which is something of a surprise for two reasons - firstly, that I've managed to stick to it which is a minor miracle in itself, and secondly, in my head it feels like we are a few weeks past Christmas, and suddenly a third of the year has gone.
April's been a good month for me. My sales are up across all of my books, although One of Us is having depressingly slow start. Some reviews should be coming through soon, which may help that. But the rest are doing well...nothing spectacular, but each month since the start of the year has been better than the last, and if that continues I'll be very happy. I entered a piece of flash fiction in the Flashbang competition (crime story in no more than 150 words), first prize a couple of tickets to CrimeFest 2012 down in Bristol, and made the longlist of 20, shortlist of 8 to be announced on Friday, and winner later in May. Think all the shortlist win things like a DVD of The Killing or some crime novels, so if I make the shortlist, it will be good regardless.
I'd written this story a couple of days ago, and kept it in a draft post on Blogger which for some unknown reason then decided to eat all the content, and leave a draft post with the title intact, but nothing else. Only discovered it this morning, when I went to write it, and so had to write it again from scratch.
I've done this before, and it's a frustrating position to be in, because when I rewrite that accidentally-deleted story or scene, it never feels as good as the original. My suspicion is that this is entirely self-deception, and that if you made a bunch of writers do this and then posted their rewritten work together with their sneakily-restored first drafts, no-one would be able to consistently tell which is which. Still, it always feels that something is missing.
Anyway, it's done, and as I posted it I realised that this is the last story for April, and so I've managed to get through a third of the year keeping to the idea behind 52 songs of writing and posting one story a week. Which is something of a surprise for two reasons - firstly, that I've managed to stick to it which is a minor miracle in itself, and secondly, in my head it feels like we are a few weeks past Christmas, and suddenly a third of the year has gone.
April's been a good month for me. My sales are up across all of my books, although One of Us is having depressingly slow start. Some reviews should be coming through soon, which may help that. But the rest are doing well...nothing spectacular, but each month since the start of the year has been better than the last, and if that continues I'll be very happy. I entered a piece of flash fiction in the Flashbang competition (crime story in no more than 150 words), first prize a couple of tickets to CrimeFest 2012 down in Bristol, and made the longlist of 20, shortlist of 8 to be announced on Friday, and winner later in May. Think all the shortlist win things like a DVD of The Killing or some crime novels, so if I make the shortlist, it will be good regardless.
April 23, 2012
Mean Mode Median
Aliyah Whiteley's an excellent writer, and for the next three days you can pick up the Kindle edition of her novel Mean Mode Median for free at Amazon. So, what are you still here for?
April 20, 2012
Penny Dreadnought: Uncommitted Crimes
“Behind every work of art lies an uncommitted crime”
(Adorno)
From the criminal minds of the Abominable Gentlemen come four tales of murder, malfeasance and malarky:
"Occupational Hazard" by Iain Rowan
"The Aerialist" by Alan Ryker
"Packob's Reward" by James Everington
"Poe's Blender" by Aaron Polson
Penny Dreadnought: Uncommitted Crimes contains approximately 14,000 words of both new and previously published fiction. You can buy it at:
Amazon [US | UK]Barnes & NobleSmashwords
(Adorno)
From the criminal minds of the Abominable Gentlemen come four tales of murder, malfeasance and malarky:
"Occupational Hazard" by Iain Rowan
"The Aerialist" by Alan Ryker
"Packob's Reward" by James Everington
"Poe's Blender" by Aaron Polson
Penny Dreadnought: Uncommitted Crimes contains approximately 14,000 words of both new and previously published fiction. You can buy it at:
Amazon [US | UK]Barnes & NobleSmashwords
