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desperance...So that was Friday, and then there was Saturday, and I guess you could call it an exercise in contrasts.
Got up early-early and got on a train, and sat there for hours and hours; and I was in the quiet coach - where people aren't supposed to use phones or other electronic noisery, tho' of course they do - and for a wonder it really was quiet. So I drank extraordinary amounts of coffee, and changed my habits completely. Train-time is traditionally sacred, it's reading-time, ontold hours undisturbed by guilt or guile. This time, I alternated reading (Sarah Monette's 'The Virtu', of which more hereafter) with writing, doing real work, a thousand words all told. And the nice boy who sold me all the coffee was reading Robert Jordan, so I took a leaf out of m'friend'n'colleague Juliet's book, and gave him the 'if you like Jordan, you might like these others' pitch, along with a copy of The Write Fantastic's brochure and a flyer for 'Bridge of Dreams'. And tried to slide away before he rumbled me (not taking that much of a leaf from Juliet's book - she's really good at this stuff, and I'm really not) but was too slow, so had to let him say how interesting he thought it all was, and what kind of books did I write, and all of that.
And so to Derby, where m'new friend Alex Davis had organised Alt:Fiction, a sort of one-day genre convention funded by the city council. Lots of my favourite writers there - Ramsey Campbell, Pete Crowther, Simon R Green, Justina Robson, all of TWF, and like that - plus some of my favourite booksellers - Iain from The Aust Gate, Erik from The Fantasy Centre - and a really good turn-out of genuine punters. I did a reading and Q&A session with Mark Chadbourn; I read from 'Bridge of Dreams' and talked about 'Phantoms at the Phil', and Iain sold out of both books fairly rapidly afterwards (to the point of ripping my own copy of 'Bridge...' from my cold dead hands and selling that too; the boy's a natural).
After that, I had nothing to do but enjoy myself: which meant hanging out in the bar, listening to readings from Simon and Ramsey, then going off for a curry with twenty-odd people. Delete hyphen? Yes, delete hyphen. This is a familiar ritual, from years of FantasyCon; the extraordinary thing is that in the middle of a party city in the middle of a Saturday night, we always can find a curry house willing and able to cater for such a group. (Our thanks to Saffron of Curzon St: an interesting menu, good food, friendly staff, and all for twenty quid a head...)
And then back to the hotel and more drinking, dearie me; and yet up betimes this morning, on a train at half nine and so eventually home again. Travelling by train at weekends is a tedious process, or often lack of process, because there are always engineering works; this time it was taking two and a half hours to get from Newcastle to York, which is normally a swift hour's run. And this morning the quiet coach was depressingly noisy, a relay of students, middle-aged women and small children competing to see which could wind me up tightest. I did no work at all, and struggled to find focus enough to read, which is unusual to the point of being almost unheard-of. I think I have a naturally law-abiding soul; I'm good about rules, by and large, and get deeply frustrated when other people aren't. Especially, obviously, when that acts to my detriment. Cyclists on the pavement, cars that don't indicate before turning corners, mobiles going off in the quiet coach: it's the little things, and they drive me crazy. I wouldn't be half so bothered in a regular coach; it's that drive towards martyrdom that makes me seek out the promised sanctuary, just so that I can be outraged by its violation.
Got up early-early and got on a train, and sat there for hours and hours; and I was in the quiet coach - where people aren't supposed to use phones or other electronic noisery, tho' of course they do - and for a wonder it really was quiet. So I drank extraordinary amounts of coffee, and changed my habits completely. Train-time is traditionally sacred, it's reading-time, ontold hours undisturbed by guilt or guile. This time, I alternated reading (Sarah Monette's 'The Virtu', of which more hereafter) with writing, doing real work, a thousand words all told. And the nice boy who sold me all the coffee was reading Robert Jordan, so I took a leaf out of m'friend'n'colleague Juliet's book, and gave him the 'if you like Jordan, you might like these others' pitch, along with a copy of The Write Fantastic's brochure and a flyer for 'Bridge of Dreams'. And tried to slide away before he rumbled me (not taking that much of a leaf from Juliet's book - she's really good at this stuff, and I'm really not) but was too slow, so had to let him say how interesting he thought it all was, and what kind of books did I write, and all of that.
And so to Derby, where m'new friend Alex Davis had organised Alt:Fiction, a sort of one-day genre convention funded by the city council. Lots of my favourite writers there - Ramsey Campbell, Pete Crowther, Simon R Green, Justina Robson, all of TWF, and like that - plus some of my favourite booksellers - Iain from The Aust Gate, Erik from The Fantasy Centre - and a really good turn-out of genuine punters. I did a reading and Q&A session with Mark Chadbourn; I read from 'Bridge of Dreams' and talked about 'Phantoms at the Phil', and Iain sold out of both books fairly rapidly afterwards (to the point of ripping my own copy of 'Bridge...' from my cold dead hands and selling that too; the boy's a natural).
After that, I had nothing to do but enjoy myself: which meant hanging out in the bar, listening to readings from Simon and Ramsey, then going off for a curry with twenty-odd people. Delete hyphen? Yes, delete hyphen. This is a familiar ritual, from years of FantasyCon; the extraordinary thing is that in the middle of a party city in the middle of a Saturday night, we always can find a curry house willing and able to cater for such a group. (Our thanks to Saffron of Curzon St: an interesting menu, good food, friendly staff, and all for twenty quid a head...)
And then back to the hotel and more drinking, dearie me; and yet up betimes this morning, on a train at half nine and so eventually home again. Travelling by train at weekends is a tedious process, or often lack of process, because there are always engineering works; this time it was taking two and a half hours to get from Newcastle to York, which is normally a swift hour's run. And this morning the quiet coach was depressingly noisy, a relay of students, middle-aged women and small children competing to see which could wind me up tightest. I did no work at all, and struggled to find focus enough to read, which is unusual to the point of being almost unheard-of. I think I have a naturally law-abiding soul; I'm good about rules, by and large, and get deeply frustrated when other people aren't. Especially, obviously, when that acts to my detriment. Cyclists on the pavement, cars that don't indicate before turning corners, mobiles going off in the quiet coach: it's the little things, and they drive me crazy. I wouldn't be half so bothered in a regular coach; it's that drive towards martyrdom that makes me seek out the promised sanctuary, just so that I can be outraged by its violation.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-08 06:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-08 07:16 am (UTC)