So anyway, I got an offer from Tor UK for 'Stealing Light', which means I'll have to get nailed down and get to serious work on the thing over the next several months. The nice thing about a new book deal is this time, large chunks of it won't be going on a deposit on a house. This time, I get to spend it all on ME.

For a start, I can actually afford to take a proper holiday for the first time in a very, very long time. Where and when is hard to say, but sometime in the summer next year seems like a good time, ie whenever I finish Stealing Light. But I've had it in mind that it might be nice to take up to several weeks off the day job and go to some places I've never been before, and certainly going to an American con has entered my mind.

First, time to spend a little money on ME. Therefore, in the words of Max Bialystock: I'm going to buy a toy. I worked very, very hard, and I think I deserve a toy. But the type you find in Dixons electric stores.

Hokay, that's one minor mystery solved: when it comes to the missing Interzone review, the pixies got to it. Or as near as damn to. Turns out since it went so thoroughly awol in the system, they're going to hold the review back until the paperback issue of Against Gravity, which should be sometime in the late summer of 2006. Which means so far I've had precisely one - one! - print review of Against Gravity.

Arse.

Paul Raven - the book's reviewer, who let me know of what happened in the first place - let me know he'll be taking his review back down soon, since it will in fact be published at some point: not quite absolute victory, but at least I gain the sense of snatching one tiny morsel of success from the slavering jaws of defeat.

Got an email from a bloke called Paul Raven, who writes some reviews for Interzone: turns out he wrote a very nice review for Against Gravity, except it hasn't actually appeared in the magazine's new issue. Which is, to put it mildly, a bummer: given that the only print review of the book I can recall seeing so far was in SFX, it does rather lend to the paranoia that people don't realise the book even exists.

You can, however, read the unpublished review at the reviewer's blog, which can be found here. Thanks again, Paul.

I've worked on magazines myself in the past, and I know how hard it can be to fit in all the available material, and how easily reviews or articles can be cut, chopped or dropped altogether in the last-minute frenzy of getting everything ready for the printing presses: so I'll be the last person to complain. But I'm hoping the review might yet appear in a later issue Interzone - it's like a direct tap into the hardcore sf audience in the UK.

Other bits and pieces - the short ten minute script didn't get any farther with the BBC, and I find myself not that bothered, partly because I've been keeping busy. Apart from the ten k outline for a new novel which is already with my agent and editor, the first thirteen thousand words of 'Stealing Light' went off in the post on Friday. Now it's a case of wait and see.

The day after that, I started writing an hour-long tv script, partly for the practice, and partly because I know a local production company is looking for material for one of the shows they produce (inside contacts). Even if it doesn't get anywhere, it might make for a kind of calling card. The same for the ten minute script: this will also get another, brief shine, then sent out elsewhere.

I think one of the things that attracts me to the whole notion of screenwriting (as if you could have failed to notice) is that you can get an entire story down in a fraction of the time it takes to write it to novel length. It's even occurred to me that a convenient way of working out the plot of a novel might be to write it in screenplay format first, and iron out the plot. We'll see.

So it's late October, and outside it's ... sunny and warm. (Adopts craggy stare of doom-saying Scotsman) ... it's the end times, I tell ye, it's no' natural: the seas are gonnae rise up and potatoes'll be worth more than gold dust, aye, we're doomed, DOOMED I tell ye, Doomed ...

I just came out of a minor attack of flu, and not a pigeon in sight. Felt well enough a couple of nights ago to make it along to the Halloween-ish meeting of Edinburgh's Writer's Bloc at the Canon's Gate pub with Mike G and Phil Raines from GSFWC, at which surely the highlight was Gavin Inglis' 'Springheeled Jock', the delivery of which should surely be the measure of all pub spoken word events. Gavin, I salute you. And your comedy fake beard, wherever it may roam.

The past couple of months have actually been surprisingly busy in a fun way, which is one reason for (insert typical excuse here) my pathetic lack of blogging. What can I say? Sorry, I have a life, okay? Like Al says over at geek show, Duncan Lunan had a sixtieth at the Bon Accord several days ago: I don't know what deal the bastard's made with Auld Nick, but the fact he looks twenty years younger than he actually is ... well, it's no' natural, I tell ye ...

Writing: the ten minute script I submitted to the BBC's Tartan Shorts has currently made it as far as the longlist, but of course that's no guarantee it'll get any further. If it doesn't, it's going to my agent, who works with another agent to er, agent scripts for tv and film. People have said I'm getting my hopes up too high concerning scriptwriting, but the point isn't about getting your hopes up, it's about giving it a shot regardless of the hopeless bleedin' odds against it. You could make exactly the same series of statements about writing novels, and I got a couple of those published, so what the hell.

There's going to be another joint Writer's Bloc thing in mid-December, and I'll be back along to that: it's likely several of us from GSFWC will also be participating, so come along and say hello if you're in the area. I keep meaning to write something for it, but I'm hardly the best organised for this kind of thing - plus, I tend to set myself high standards: it's got to not only be a good story, it's got to be in a suitable style for reading aloud. Think more 'stand=up' than 'intricate prose'.

Wednesday last: disaster. I'm sitting at my usual place - laptop on coffee table, in kitchen - when the phone rings. So I stand up, reach for the phone, and my foot catches the power cord. Too late: the laptop slides off the edge of the coffee table, and hits the floor, edge first. The whole thing in slo-mo in my head.

Well, at first it looked like it was fine, but it turned out the usb ports were gubbed: I'd had a usb modem plugged into it when I stood up, and that clearly twisted and broke the internal usb slots. Oh joyous fucking day. And thank my lucky stars I hadn't stuffed my desktop pc away in a cupboard somewhere, like I'd been intending.

Thing is, since Wednesday, I've only been able to get on the net on my old desktop. And (aside from the mental shutdown mentioned in the next paragraph) I'm getting more writing done. Big surprise, really: it's way too easy to keep checking the email, look stuff up on Amazon, on the laptop. Now the work is evenly split between two machines: ancient pc for email and web, laptop for writing. One day I'll get a wifi card so I can not get around to ever sitting in coffee shops pretending it's actually possible to get work done surrounded by dozens of people talking loudly.

I crashed last weekend, and hardly did any writing, something I'm hoping to fix this weekend. Mind you, some good news: word from the agent is Against Gravity's been picked up by a Spanish publishing company for release in November 2006.

I think I mentioned before I'd put a short (ten minute) script into something called Tartan Shorts, where the BBC pick three scripts for production. The benefit isn't just to new writers, it's to producers, engineers, directors, whatever. I made the longlist out of maybe three hundred entries, which was apparently enough for me to get invited along to the BBC to talk to two producer types about how I saw the film being made, should it get so far as the top three: I had no idea what I was supposed to say, being entirely new to this kind of thing.

The story is set in an isolated religious community in the Highlands in the near future. It's very much science fiction.

At one point, one of the women said, 'you know, with the technology and the robots, it could almost be ...' She mused for a moment, before leaning forward. 'Almost sci fi.'

But it is science fic - I started to say, then closed my mouth and sat back, remembering the monthly lists of actors in Ansible saying their new movie featuring faster than light ships and aliens wasn't really science fiction, it was ... futuristic drama. I give up. I have no fucking idea what goes through these people's heads. No, I do know, but it's too depressing: what goes through their heads is Buck Rogers and flying cars and, I guess, a big blank nothing when it comes to imagining the world even a year or two from now.

So anyway, they're looking for a rewrite, for two weeks from now. What they're looking for seems faily reasonable, so that's something else to muck about with. I need a holiday.

I like this. Apparently there's a thing going around where people put up the first lines or paragraphs on anything they're either working on, or that's unfinished, unpublished or whatever. It came via Charlie Stross' blog, I think. So here's my contributions:

THE FRACTURE (unfinished novel)
Jacob gripped the shunt unit in his hand and glanced up, seeing a baneful Chicago moon hanging low over the alley. The unit pulsed red against his skin. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, bright afternoon sunshine spilled across crumbling stonework and mossy flagstones. He put a hand up to shield his eyes from the sudden light and turned in the direction of the stables.

WESTERN GOTHIC (unfinished wild west horror fantasy)
Rain slashed down on the south-east coast of China, turning the sky into a slate-grey wall that extended from the top of heaven down to the waves that crashed against the pebbly beach. Lawton pulled the hood of his cape tight around his neck, rivulets of rainwater somehow still finding their way inside. He felt cold, damp and miserable; under the cloak, his wet cotton shirt stuck to his skin. He cleared his throat and tasted salt.

CONVERGENT
There were memories here.
If it had a name, it would be Teacher. Humans called its kind Baskers. It lifted its pale-furred snout and scented the remembrance of other times, carried to the rocky ridge on which it stood by warm, sulphurous winds blowing up from the lake below. The Basker tasted memories and snatches of thought, pissed or spat onto rocks and the wide roots of the canopy trees that towered over the landscape.

A GIFT FROM THE ANGELS
Lian stood on the roof of the only world she had known until the age of thirteen, and felt the wind lash at her face like a frozen whip.

WONDERLAND/THE SIGHT OF THINGS UNSEEN
Jonah woke suddenly to darkness, wondering just what it was he'd heard.
The back of his head rested against the scarred and beaten leather of the couch he fell asleep on most nights, usually to the serenade of police cars wailing their way downtown. The sound of the sirens always made him think of listening to Charlie Parker, forlorn yet also hopeful at the same time. He stared up at the cracks that patterned the ceiling, like the relief map for some river valley hidden for centuries from the sight of man. The plaster was now streaked with pale moonlight that drifted through tall windows overlooking a fire escape. Jonah shivered, the gas fire to one side of the window cold and inert as an empty promise. Here and there, beyond the narrow pool of illumination cast by the single bulb hanging above the coffee table, could be seen several tall canvases, all shrouded in white sheets.

STEALING LIGHT
Sonja looked up, and saw stars.
Her breath frosted in the cold night air, puffing out from behind the scarf wrapped tight around her neck and chin as a chill winter wind whipped across the darkened courtyard. Dark blonde hair spilled out from under a knitted cap pressed down over her head. Tutor Langley stood next to her, the craggy features of his face rising above the upturned collar of his heavy black coat like an island of basalt above a wine-dark sea.

Funnily enough, Stross isn't the only writer I've found who seems to keep two blogs - one regular one, one on LiveJournal. I'm not sure why. Just one is a bad enough excuse for excessive procrastination.

I got an okayish review in SFX for Against Gravity, where it got three stars out of five: weirdly enough, that's half a star more than they give Charlie Stross for Accelerando on the opposite page, and he just won a Hugo! An object lesson, as if it were needed, in why reviews should never be taken too seriously.

At one point, the book is described as 'a film pitch in search of a green light', which I found kind of amusing, since making a movie out of it was about as far from my mind as it could get.

By the way, if you want to leave a comment in future, I've had to switch on word verification after getting deluged by comment spam.

I read on Boing Boing about a new, open source portable games machine, movie viewer, mp3 player, and text reader in one: want one, particularly since it's going for just over a hundred quid. Unfortunately, it's going to have to wait. Possibly, for a long time.

Then I tripped over a new blog by the editor of Spike Magazine (via Mumpsimus) which lists new, free books on the net. Want one even more, so I can read them on it. But what I really, really want is one of those Japanese ebook machines (Librie? Librio? Whatever) that turned up on The Gadget Show earlier this year, which, according to the presenter, did pretty much reproduce the effect of reading text off the printed page.

No, paper books are a long way from being replaced. I agree. But it does occur to me that when we can extensively read even from popular newspapers on our computer screens, it's really a short jump from there to reading ebooks on the subway or bus, especially when (or if) a lot more textbooks, say, end up being published electronically. Imagine if you never had to lug those heavy great tomes around uni. Students of the world unite, you have only your etexts to gain.

So I've been busy, writing different outlines for Tor and waiting to see which, if any of them, fit the bill for whatever it is they're looking for. More discussions led to more frantic scribbling, and after two weeks of solid hardcore creative action a fresh outline (eight thousand words, hey, they said they wanted detailed) went sailing through the ether Friday last. So, back to waiting and wondering.

I made the horrible mistake of pulling some childhood favourites from the shelf in a fit of nostalgia, partly driven by a conversation in the pub with Hal Duncan in which he mentioned re-reading a lot of Alfred Bester lately. So I dug out 'Star Light, Star Bright' and re-read the first two stories, Adam and no Eve, and Time is the Traitor. Horrible mistake. Horrible, horrible mistake. Book goes back on shelf. Have I learned my lesson? Do I turn away from the execrable fiction of yore? Do I hell. Next down is The Best of AE Van Vogt, with one of those Seventies paperback covers that screams second hand bookshop at you. Got halfway through 'Weapon Shop' before doing everything but bouncing it into the wastebasket. Sod nostalgia. I reached for my copy of Shepard's 'The Jaguar Hunter' and got on a lot better with that.

The weird thing is, I started this blog so I could, you know, talk about writing. What's weird about that is, the farther you get into the whole professional side of things - the business of writing, as it were - the less you feel free to talk about it: the important stuff, the stuff that's occupying many of your thoughts, is between you and your editor and your agent. So I find myself in a curious position I suspect a lot of writers do, where you gradually sort of self-censor yourself because to do otherwise would be to divulge what are, really, confidentialities. Which is a shame, because there's a lot to tell.

Another reason for a lack of writing here is I've been busy working on outlines. Lots of outlines. Several outlines. Outlines coming out of my freaking ears. That's my life just now: I go to the part time job, I come home, and I type. A lot.

So, Gary: what're you up to?
Writing outlines.
Cool: want to talk about it?
Nope.
Why not?
Because I'm, you know, hanging in a limbo-like void here, man. The future is indeterminate. I can't really talk about my writing until I know whether I'm going to get a second contract.
Wow. Can't you tell us some things?

Well, I've got enough book ideas to last me about ten years, for a start. Curiously enough, very few of these are in the 'space opera' mode. I did space opera with Angel Stations. Lots of running about, shooting, and blowing up things. I did slightly less running about, shooting and blowing up things with Against Gravity, which wasn't really a space opera at all, and was meant to be more 'serious' (stop laughing at the back, there).

Some of the other stuff I've been working on includes 'Wonderland' (also known as 'Things Unseen'). This covers a period roughly between the end of WW2 and the mid-Seventies. It was inspired by a book about CIA and KGB covert involvement in the development of the arts, including modern art - Jackson Pollock, and so forth. That's all up to maybe sixty thousand words. Once I've got all the other writing work out of the way in the next couple of weeks, I'm going to try and go back to it and get as close as I can to finishing it. I'm expecting it to top out at maybe 150k, so the chances of actually finishing it anytime soone# are slim, but I'll see how far I get.

Another project I've got in the pipeline is having a go at writing an episode of an existing TV show. Every now and then I go to the scriptwriting workshop I've been hanging out at in recent weeks, and have a conversation with Claire (the person who runs the workshop) that goes something like this:

Gary: So how much do you get paid for writing an hour long TV episode?
Claire: About eight thousand pounds.
Gary (giggling): Say it again, Claire. But the other stuff too.
Claire: Eight thou, when they buy it. And another eight thousand, when they start filming it.
Gary (weeping hysterically, clawing at the table, both legs twitching violently): No. Say it properly. Say it the way I like it. With all the good bits in.
Claire (shaking head sorrowfully): Eight thousand to buy it, eight thousand again when they start filming it, another eight thousand on the first day of transmission ...
Gary (bursting into erratic, hysterical laughter): Say it! Say the good bit!
Claire: ... and the same again, if they repeat it.
Gary slides under the table, pawing at the carpet, making ecstatic snickering and grunting noises to generally appalled expressions.
Gary (briefly popping his head back up, a glazed look in his eyes): and how long is the average hour TV script? In words?
Claire: About fifteen thousand words (or sixty pages, in TVland parlance).
Gary: passes out from sheer joy.

So I saw Primer tonight, at the Glasgow Film Theatre, and came away mightily confused. I'd heard about it first through a couple of reviews. Every now and then you get a science fiction movie with no effects budget: critics hail this remarkable development, while getting confused over having to call it a science fiction movie despite the lack of effects (after all, if it doesn't have special effects, it can't be a science fiction movie, right?): and despite these occasional mini-revolutions Hollywood goes right along churning out an eternal sequence of Disneyesque CGI fantasies that have little to do with what I regard as science fiction.

So it's annoying in the extreme when someone sets out to make a zero budget science fiction film which is clearly full of intelligence and ideas, yet produces something that still left me completely befuddled as to what the hell was going on.

The basic plot is, a couple of engineers working on some project discover they've invented a time machine. It's just a metal box: you sit in it for a couple of hours, and when you come out, you're a couple of hours back in time from when you first entered the box and switched on the machine. Fair enough.

Except much of the movie is done in a particular 'cinema verite' style, which demands that everyone speak at once, with voices constantly overlapping, and those barely discernible over a background of clattering dishes, rushing traffic and noisy offices. As a result, I even had trouble discerning the names of the characters.

That I've managed to figure out as much of the plot as I have is largely down to the fact I'd already had the basic story described to me by Phil Raines at the weekend. I think I know what it's about, but if it demonstrates one thing, it's the value of having actors who speak clearly, and of a script that at all times stresses what the hell is actually going on.

I'm not talking about a dumbed down plot, but this is a film so determined to avoid any of the over-dramatic cliches of so much of Hollywood that it's very, very difficult to get a handle on what in God's name is happening. Even a series of voice-overs don't make it clear what the sequence of events are. There's a character called Rachel who's apparently pretty central to the plot, except I spent so much of this movie leaning forward in my seat trying to understand what the hell anybody was saying, and trying to absorb each piece of information before the next went rushing by, that I still have no idea who she is.

I'm particularly annoyed by this because if there's one thing we really, really do need, it's more low-budget zero effects intelligent science fiction movies. And this is one, I'm sure of it. As soon as somebody explains it to me. Or - and I can't believe I'm saying this - somebody gives the guy enough money to do a major studio remake where he gets to make the incomprehensible finally comprehensible.

It can be done. Look at Pi, still one of the finest science fiction movies of the past couple of decades. I still don't know whether to laugh or cry when people express amazement at the idea it's a sf film - after all, it's not got a big effects budget, has it?

Gary Gibson: worldconned.

Right now, there's not a great deal to blog about, mainly because I'm waiting on some news. I'm waiting for the man, as it were: and when I get that news, sometime hopefully in the next couple of weeks before I go nuts waiting, I'll have something to blog about: either to celebrate or curse. Whichever way it goes, we'll see.

So instead of all that, I've been concentrating on setting up a free flickr account on which to store not only many of my own photos, but those of other members of GSFWC, who happened to take pictures at the Worldcon. Most specifically, most of the pictures I've uploaded to Flickr came via Paul Cockburn.

Other bits and pieces: John Berlyne of SFRevu has put up a report on the Worldcon, which makes for very entertaining reading. There's a couple of pictures of GSFWC members, including four of us crammed around a dinner table in a restaurant being interviewed on camera.

Weirdly enough, I almost look healthy, an illusion abruptly shattered by the picture placed at the end of the report.

Concerning that last picture in John's report: I think the only appropriate description is 'worldconned.'