Backing Tracking

DONE!!!!!

Final line penned (er – keyboarded) this morning – The Cold Commands is a wrap!  As they say in Spanish, Cha-Chan!!!

Of course, this is all slightly deceptive.  There's actually a fair bit of work still to be done.  The rough cut goes out to Simon Spanton at Gollancz tomorrow, and I now have to back up and read the whole manuscript through from scratch, trying to form some kind of overall impression of where we've been and what we've ended up with.  There'll be tweaking, there'll be proofing, there'll be polish to layer on – less at the front end than the back, since the earliest sections have been buffed smooth with a couple of years of constant revisiting and revising as the story inched its way forward.  The back end, though, is probably still altogether too cask-strength rough and ready in places.  Will need tempering.

Still – feels like coming through the door and setting down a very heavy pack at journey's end. Sure, I'll still need to unpack it all, do a hot wash or two, a tumble dry and put shit away, but we're home, man!  Even the gap between yesterday – when I only had about a page and a half left to write, and knew it – and today when it's done…..well, the sides of that gap feel weirdly worlds apart.

So, meantime, by way of celebration, here's a quick round-up of the soundtrack.  These albums were all wiring repeatedly through my head at one time or another during the making of  The Cold Commands:

The Black Angels – Directions to See a Ghost, Passover

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Beat the Devil's Tattoo, Baby 81, Live

The Black Ryder – Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride

The Black- (stop that! ed.) Bomb the Bass – Clear

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Let Love In

Curve – Doppelganger, Cuckoo, Gift, Come Clean

The Dandy Warhols – Come Down, 13 Tales from Urban Bohemia, Odditorium

The Dead Weather - Horehound

David Gray – A Century Ends, Flesh, Lost Songs, A New Day at Midnight

Heroes de Silencio – El Espiritu del Vino, El Mar No Cesa/Senda '91

Jehst – The Return of the Drifter

The Kills - Keep On Your Mean Side, No Wow, Midnight Boom

The Killers – Sam's Town

Kings of Leon – Only by the Night

Mazzy Star – Among My Swan

Tom McRae – King of Cards, All Maps Welcome, Tom McRae

The Rolling Stones – Let it Bleed, Beggar's Banquet, Voodoo Lounge

Sisters of Mercy – Floodland, Vision Thing

Slobberbone – Everything You Thought Was Right Was Wrong Today

Richard Thompson – Mirror Blue, Rumour and Sigh

Two Gallants – What the Bell Tolls, Two Gallants

Tom Waits – Bone Machine, Mule Variations

The Warlocks – Phoenix

You have been warned!