Fan Con Part 3

…I’m breathing again.

Re-discovering the magic

My editor has told me to get some sleep. Good advice, but harder to put into practice. You see, for the past three nights my imagination has gone into over-drive, and the results are some pretty weird, lucid dreams like being an extra in the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine. At times it feels like I haven’t slept at all.
Exhausting, yes.
But oddly comforting, and I’ll tell you why…

In the last blog entry I mentioned that I had lost something since graduating from university – notably the environment to discuss pertinent subjects on existence and fantastical worlds. But there was another thing that I lost, which has come back to me in waves, and that’s the feeling of being surrounded by my own imagination and other inspiration, that’s like having this warm bubble of magic envelope you with bright and wondrous experiences. I guess in a very real sense I can describe the feeling as thus:

When I was about sixteen years old, during those early Autumnal weekends, I used to sit by the patio window in my parent’s house. The garden stretched out before me on the other side of the glass, still green, but a patchwork of browns, reds and golds, from the fallen leaves of the ash trees at the back of the lawn. The sun would blaze (low-lying) into the room, and it was warm enough to sit with just a t-shirt and jeans in the dazzling light, with the smell of my mum’s potpourri kissing the air, while U2 or 10CC played on in the background. It was in this spot, sitting with my back against the wall, a few inches from the cold touch of the glass in the morning (it warmed up by the afternoon) that I would read book after book after book. Indeed, I used to sit for hours with a small pile of books on one side of me, a few magazines (usually FEAR), a glass of juice (with one ice-cube only – two would dilute it too much) and a note-pad and pen just in case inspiration struck straight as an arrow, driving me to scribble down some ideas.
Around me the world existed only as a bright warm glare, the gentle and slow corruption of nature by the seasons just out of reach, and the very safe worlds spilling from the prose on the page, sweeping me away into other places…

And that’s what it feels like – inspirational tranquillity and comfort, like nothing really mattered outside that magical bubble, because inside it I was creating epic worlds of the fantastic.

Due to the pounding banality of the day-job, I haven’t felt that way in years, until now. And I have no doubt this is down to the Fantasy Con last weekend. Something rubbed off on me, possibly the strange and the powerful, but probably the inspirational. And yeah, like when I was sixteen, my sleep is breaking up like toffee being hit by a hammer. And yeah, restless nights are a pain, but that “magic” is an old friend that I won’t wish away too quickly, I can tell you.


Reading and more reading

I knew it would come back to this, the whole business of reading. When I confessed a while back I didn’t read as much as I knew I should, for me it was a big confession, kinda like a professional footballer saying he doesn’t watch enough football. My reading deficiencies came to the fore at the Fantasy Con last weekend after buying enough books to last me a year or more, realising that I used to go through twice as many books as I do now. Those I spoke to at the Con read through shelves of books in a year, reeling off names and titles I plan to read but have no idea when. The reasons for this low output of reading on my part are minor, but many, and to be honest a lot of them are self-imposed.
So after coming back from the Fantasy Con, with the riches stacked up in my Writer’s News bag, I made a firm commitment to read a lot more. So far so good, as I plough through American Gods (which I’m enjoying immensely) and I have other books stacked up in the wings. I guess the lesson I’m learning here, is that you make time for the important things in life…


A pause for sanity

From the hectic and surreal pace of the Fantasy Con, I did find a natural pause on the Saturday night – to meet friends from Nottingham for a bite to eat and a chat. It was good for a couple of reasons – one it was cooler than the Con (which was a little warm at times), and secondly the friends were nothing to do with writing, and so you could talk about the mundane as well as the ego-stroking writing successes etc that were swallowed up so quickly beneath the heavy-weights attending the Con.
And there was also a chance to talk about non-fantasy writing stuff. Smith - my near future thriller - is very much in my thoughts right now, and I outlined the whole plot to my Nottingham pals and they took to it very well. As it turns out, the conversation might lead to a great piece of research for the book i.e. riding along with the local inner-city police as an observer. How cool is that? All I can say, is that Sarah looked at me with raised eyebrows, noting my excitement at being told that I would wear a flak jacket and luminous greens while on patrol. It all needs to be set up, and there is a chance it could be “shot down” before I get to experience it – but it’s something I’m really looking forward to – (the threat of mortal injury outside of that)!
Following the meal, I trekked back to the Con feeling a little clearer and calmer, and then promptly decided to spend the next couple of hours drinking and chatting with Dave Budd and Conor Corderoy (more of that in the next blog entry!).


And now for another pause … Yes there are many of these, and yes I’ve gone back on the promise to update the original blog entry to having separate entries, but there’s so much to get through and sometimes it’s a little tiring to read a blog entry that scrolls forever!