SF writer Gary Gibson

I've set myself a schedule of editing fifteen pages of Angel Stations a day. At the moment work at the printing business is wrapping sometime between two and three in the afternoon. I come home, eat and chill for an hour/hour and a half until my motor's running again, rip through ten or so pages on the laptop over about an hour, then go cycling on my new Ridgeback for anywhere between an hour and two hours. Come home, watch some telly, do another five pages.

I could actually probably do more on the book front, but I'm working myself into the ground in some ways. At fifteen pages a day, I'll have the edits finished in just under a fortnight - not next Thursday, but the Thursday after that, or just before. I may do more, but only if it gets a little quieter at my other job.

I'd forgotten how much I love cycling. Today I cycled down to an area called Govanhill, which is generally run down in some parts - though when some people say 'run down', they really mean 'full of people I don't want to live next door to'. meaning people who aren't white. Fortunately all of the people I know socially are rather more enlightened than this; when I hear people say such things, they tend to be a good bit older - say, the age-range of my parents.

But there are some who express such unpleasant views. This makes me uncomfortable. The part of Govanhill which is primarily populated by Indians and Pakistanis is a very colourful ... vibrant kind of area. It feels very busy, very alive. More so than many other parts of Glasgow, which feel sterile and empty by comparison. I liked it. For a few years I attended an immensely multi-cultural primary school near to Govanhill, populated by all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds. It was great. Previously my folks had sent me to an expensive, fee-based school from a very early age, but they ran out of money and I had to attend a state school. Shock horror, eh? I'm not sure if there even were any coloured kids at that school. Maybe one, or two, literally.

I was in the area partly because it was somewhere to go on the bike, partly because I've considered house-buying in the area of Queen's Park, which is adjacent to Govanhill. At the moment, I'm actually a little more inclined towards Ibrox, where one of the football stadiums is, because I realised I can cycle across the river and get there in not much more than ten minutes from where I currently am, and once the new roadbridge is built down that way (the BBC are apparently moving there) it'll be even closer to the extremely popular (and therefore incredibly expensive) West End.