Eleven Facts, Eleven People, Eleven Questions

So, I've been nominated by Martin Cosby (a new weird fiction author who I suspect you might be hearing more of...) for one of these blog thingies; it's called a Leibster apparently, and I have to:

a) reveal eleven facts about myself
b) answer eleven questions from Martin
c) set eleven questions for eleven other people

So without further ado, eleven facts:

1. Six days out of seven I will be wearing a Fred Perry polo shirt. 
2. As I type this I am listening to the song Wonderful Excuse by The Family Cat. I also own a cat called George (or as much as anyone ‘owns’ a cat, at any rate). 
3. I have never broken any bones. Well, not my own. 
4. I suffer frequently from déjà-vu. 
5. I once dressed as ‘boy from Kes’ for a film themed fancy dress party. This involved hasty manipulation of a rubber glove, some shoe-laces, and a kestrel I coloured in with felt-tips on some cardboard. 
6. I run the Headington Shark Appreciation Society (new members welcome). 
7. The first film I ever saw at the cinema was The Empire Strikes Back. It was a double-bill with the first film but my parents got the times wrong, so I saw them the wrong way round. I suspect this explains a lot. 
8. My favourite cocktail is a Whisky Sour. 
9. I am 89% sure that my life is not a Truman Show style hoax. 
10. I contend that the best album of the 90s is Giant Steps by The Boo Radleys. 
11. I suffer frequently from déjà-vu.

Martin's questions for me: 

1. Do you write your first drafts by hand?
Yes I do. Writing by hand has lots of pluses (more speed, less distractions) and few negatives. I know some people would view having to type it up the first draft as a negative, but for me that's a plus too: it means going over every single line of prose again at least once.

2. Do you follow more than 10 blogs?
Yes - see sidebar >>>>>>>>

3. Do you play a musical instrument?
No. I'd love to be able to play guitar but I tried a few times as a teen, and good Christ I was bad. And not even bad in a sounds-cool-feedbacky kind of way, but just bad.

4. Given the choice, which opera would you attend?
Ummm, I know nothing about opera. Nothing. What was that one Mark Twain compared to an orphanage burning down? I'll go for that one.

5. e-book or paper book?
Both. I don't care if it's against the rules - both!

6. Do you use an electric blanket?
No. I don't know how to expand on that answer to make it vaguely interesting, sorry.

7. Do you write in cafes?
No, but I'd like to. Life isn't that luxurious at the moment.

8. Is there a film that has influenced you greatly? 
The Empires Strikes Back - see above.

9. Do you keep a diary?
Not a personal one, but I do have a 'writing diary'. Like so much else in my life it is sporadic, partially illegible, and woefully behind schedule.

10. Which foodstuff do you like the least?
I had something in France - the name escapes me - I love most French food, including snails and the like, but this was vile. It stank to high heaven and ruined a perfectly good piece of fish beneath it. When we looked up the translation, it just said it was a dish consisting of 'innards stuffed with innards'.

11. Do you listen to music while you work? If so, what?
Yes, all the time unless I'm doing final editing of a story. Favourite artists include The Auteurs, Laura Marling, Bob Dylan, EMA, Pavement, Viva Voce, Radiohead...

And now, my eleven questions for eleven fine people:

Alan Ryker, Iain Rowan, Robert Dunbar, Cate Gardner, Dan Holloway, Colin Barnes, Victoria Hooper, Greg James, Anne Michaud, Luca Veste and Neil Schiller.

1. Who’s the most underrated author out there that you know of? 
2. You need to pick one song to be used to torture unpleasant terrorist types, by playing it to them full volume 24/7. What do you pick? 
3. As a writer, what is your own personal definition of success? 
4. How do you like your steak? 
5. A genie grants you get an extra hour every day, meaning your days are 25 hours long. The condition is you must use this hour to take up a brand new hobby. What do you pick? 
6. What’s the most overrated piece of writing advice you’ve ever been given? 
7. If you were in a band, what would your band name be? 
8. Oxford Commas – yes or no? 
9. What’s the most embarrassing typo or mistake you’ve ever found in your work after publication? 
10. Who’s your favourite Muppet? 
11. Will you write me a haiku?

A Few Things...

Some stuff from around the web that I'm blatantly posting to revive my flagging ego:

A lovely review of The Other Room over at Eva Dolan's Loitering With Intent blog. Always nice to read a review by someone perceptive who's spotted things in the stories even I didn't think of.

How The Penny Dreadnought Was Born - a new posting by me over on the PD site.

And finally, the fabulous Eight Cuts have recently done posts of great digital and analogue Christmas presents for book-lovers. I'm delighted to say The Other Room was featured in the former, but do check out all the great books listed.

In Defence Of Short Stories #11: Dan Holloway

Today's guest blog purports to come from one 'Dan Holloway', although given the sheer scale of literary activity attributed to Dan, I suspect that name is just an alias for a group of say ten or twelve highly talented people working anonymously. How else to explain the following?

• Dan Holloway wrote one of the best self-published novels I've read: Songs From The Other Side of The Wall (UK | US)
• More pertinently to this guest blog spot, Dan wrote the short stories and poems in (life) razorblades included (UK | US)
• He also finds time to be involved in Eight Cuts, editing such works as Penny Goring's The Zoom Zoom (UK | US)
• And he also wrote The Company of  Fellows, voted in a Blackwells poll their favourite Oxford novel (UK | US). Yes, best ever.
• And he finds time to read his short stories aloud at such events as Brighton Fringe's Grit Lit, Covent Garden Poetry Cafe's Literature Lounge and Literary Death Match. See here for an example.
• And more! Dan is publishing a series of episodes of his Black Heart High, the first part of which is behind these here links: UK | US

I mean c'mon, it's hardly believable that this is all the work of one person, particularly when you take into account the fact 'Dan' has also apparently read every good book ever, and has never once failed to post on an internet forum or message board when the words 'Murakami', 'Oxford comma', or 'self-publishing' have been mentioned. And he is unfailingly enthusiastic, friendly, and genuine with what he posts.

So no, I don't believe in 'Dan Holloway', and was going to reject his In Defence of Short Stories out of hand... but then I read it. Wow. It's called Flash. And you should all read it too.

Take it away, 'Dan'...

Flash

I've been reading James’ defences of short stories for some time now, and I’ve sat at my desk thinking about putting something together, wondering what I could say. It should be easy. I write short stories. Lots of them. And not just short stories but flash fiction too.

That’s it, I thought, before I asked James if I could put something together. Flash fiction. After all, I haven’t seen too many people defend it. It’s still looked upon as a bit of a novelty, a parvenu, not at all the place where an author would have the space to attribute three whole adjectival clauses to a single noun.

The problem is I’ve never really been an apologist. Do. That’s my motto. Don’t think it, live it. And live it again, and keep on living. Just like Katelan said that night when we sat around in button back chairs telling the audience about Lilith, and embracing life so close you choke on it, and her friend Holly, who died in her early twenties but lived more than you or I ever will.

Katelan.

Of course.

It was mid morning. Fuck knows what time o’clock in New York but I called her anyway.

Hey you, she said with all the energy I remembered, and I didn’t feel so bad.

Hey.

So?

So I’m doing this piece about flash fiction.

Yeah?

Yeah, about how cool it is. No, not just that. A defence of it.

A defence of it? she said and I could hear the frown lines. What’s to defend?

Exactly, I said, it seems so obvious.

So obvious you can’t think how to put it, she said, and I just laughed, and there we were laughing down the phone together at how ridiculous it was.

So how come you’re up? I asked.

She told me she’d been on a shoot and I asked her what they’d been shooting and she said she’d spent all day riding the IRT sharing homemade cupcakes with strangers while a friend filmed the thing on his phone and I said that sounded pretty cool and she said yeah it was cool, and then she spent an hour telling me about this guy who was going to propose to his partner only he wasn’t sure and he and Katelan talked it over for so many stops as they ate and her friend filmed and they ate some more and talked some more that he missed his stop and his partner called him and he picked up his phone in the middle of a mouthful and Katelan heard her say fuck you, asshole and the guy laughed and ate more cupcakes and felt so free he rode another ten stops with her while her friend filmed.

I asked her what she was going to do with the shoot and she said her friend was just finishing the film as we spoke and was going to upload it the moment he was done. I asked her if she could send me a link and she said not to worry I was first on the guy’s list when it was ready so I said thanks and she said you still don’t know what to write, do you?

No, I said, and she laughed and I asked her why and she said I’d always been slow on the uptake but not to worry, when I got the point I was always the right one to follow it through. I shrugged and asked her what the piece was called so I could tell people about it. I heard another voice, not hers, a man’s voice and it said, I’m not the one who lived. I’m not the one who lived, I repeated and Katelan’s voice and the man’s voice were laughing at the end of the line and then they weren’t. They weren’t anything. I held the phone to my ear waiting for her to say yeah, or awesome, or goodbye or something but she didn’t, and the next noise was the ping of an incoming e-mail and I held the phone close and mouthed thank you down the line. Thank you, that’s exactly what I needed to say.