Sunday was one of those days when all I could seem to do was lounge on the sofa and read, in that semi-dream state where words mingle with reality. In the morning I took a sojourn among The Sea Kings of Mars thanks to Leigh Brackett. I have had the Fantasy Masterworks volume of her stories for some years, and was two thirds of the way through the titular story when I realised I had read it before. Later that afternoon, having had a nice chat with Garth Nix at World Fantasy, I returned to Sabriel and as with all good books, found a little more than I had the last time I lost myself in its pages.

I’ve been listening to audio and video recordings of Australian aboriginal speakers for the story I am researching. I would love to find a phonetic transcription so I can see the dialect represented on the page. If anyone knows of such a thing, please let me know. I’ve also been reading about the Stolen Generations. I’m wary of touching on a subject like this without any personal connection to it, but the story has taken me there so I think I have to trust it.

Stories in dreams and dream time stories. A strange Sunday.

…and coincidentally  my blog passed 40,000 visits just a few days ago. In celebration I’ve decided to return to blogging seriously and post every day even if, as today, I only have my circuitous progress through life to comment on. That and to say that for reasons I can’t quite fathom I get a tremendous amount from keeping this blog, and from connecting with all you odd folk who drop by here now and again.

Today I lounged on the sofa and read Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon, inbetween power-knaps. Its a charming novella, blending pre-medieval historical novel with Fritz Leiber influenced heroic fantasy. I’ve particularly been enjoying the build to the story’s major twist, which I’m 99% certain Chabon knew the reader would see coming a mile off and deftly plays with the fact that he knows we know he knows. Read it yourself to find out what the hell I’m going on about.

The Abbey Park fireworks were actually quite spectacular tonight. When you can feel mini concussion waves from the rockets you know the fireworks are good. We need our old pagan festivals in Britain as the sun falls out of the sky. It could have done with a wicker man, but other than that I enjoyed the night.

Twitter of the Day: “Only Barney has been documented. We know scale and skin texture, but purple doesn’t fossilize.” @pmberger in response to my query on dinosaur colouration.

I’ve been a bit quiet since World Fantasy. Blame it on recovery from jet-lag and reacquanting myself with my day job, which decided to go and get all creative whilst I was away. But I’ve told it what’s what, and I think it’s learnt its lesson.

World Fantasy was head and shoulders the best convention I have ever attended. EasterCon, FantasyCon and Alt.Fiction all have their strengths, the British fan base are extremely friendly and very passionate, but its always been disappointment for me that for many if not most of the fans speculative fiction as literature is a secondary concern to their real passions for Dr Who, Star Trek, Buffy and other mass media SFF franchises. Not only do I primarily like written SF, I also like SF literary and read much mainstream and literary fiction alongside. So I was incredibly happy to find that audience for WFC were very much in the same ballpark as me. There were no Star Trek or any other kind of costumes (with the exception of a steampunk party on one night). The panels all had genuinely insightful themes and incited real discussion about fantasy fiction (and were well attended). The dealers room was full of treasures, and there were no stands given over to self-published authors. In short, WFC was a precisely the professional convention that it biled itself as, that above all took fantasy fiction seriously. (Small whoop of joy for that please)

The greatest reward of my long journey to the convention was to meet so many other people who take fantasy every bit as seriously as I do. I got to meet for the first time many established professionals in the field who I have talked with online including John Klima, Neil Clarke, Ann and Jeff Vandermeer and John Courtney Grimwood. And many others who I encountered for the very first time. But the most fantastic surprise of the convention was rediscovering my friends from Clarion ‘08 and our counterparts from Clarion ‘09. I found very quickly that Clarion grads seem to share a bond just as strong accross years, and the best moments of the convention were spent in their company.

There were a large number of Clarion graduates at the convention, and also a number of young writers aiming to attend in future. In all there were at least a hundred writers in their 20’s and 30’s (and a little older!) who were extremely passionate and dedicated but yet to really become established. This gave the convention a much younger feel than any British con (Alt Fiction comes closest). There were also many more women at the convention (probably about half the attendance? would be interested i figures if anyone has them) which was a welcome sight. I would love to see this kind of demographic reflected at British conventions, but I have little hope that it will unfortunately.

My moment of the convention? Asking Ted Chiang if he was going to take part in NaNoWriMo this year? Almost fainting in front of Robert Silverburg? Exchanging opinions on how crappy Fosters beer is with Garth Nix? No. The best moment was the look on the till girls face when we filled up a tiny taqueria with twenty or so Clarion kids from ‘08 and ‘09.

I’ve been hit with SAD getting back from WFC and the California sunshine. My resolutions to tackle this are to get up before dawn and get as much daylight as possible, exercise every morning and blog every night to keep my mind sharp. So expect many more blogs. I’ve also made a long planned writing resolution, which I’ll announce in a few days.

A few interesting links:

Jeff Vandermeer accompanies the launch of his Booklife writing guide with a set of online resources for writers. I received an ARC of Booklife, so can recommend it as thoroughly worth any writers time to read.

Parker Peevyhouse incites a little more debate on the question of the death or otherwise of sci-fi, and reminds me that I need to expand on the idea of Post SF.

Photographic evidence of yesterday’s encounter at In-n-Out burger.

I’m a sucker for the counter culture. A whole city to explore and I’m back at Vesuvio taking in the Beat Chic. They serve a nice Guiness. That’s my excuse.

Every time I take a walk around SF I’m struck by what a quiet city it is. Not silent by any means, but there are long moments of stillness even in the most built up areas. And the place has a smell. An odd spice tang, mixed with the pacific ocean salt air. Somehow the famous City Lights book store seems to condense that smell down to it’s essence, as though a wiley public relations consultant bottled and squirted it around the entrance to confirm the place as a city tourist attraction. Paranoia? Obviously. But in this day and age who knows.

I’m taking a break from taking a break from thinking to write this, so back to it.

On my last trip to San Francisco I discovered In’n'Out burgers. If you don’t live in California, In’n'Out might need some explanation. Imagine the greasiest possible burger, accompanied with the worlds most artificial cheese, wrapped in a bun that almost resembles bread and chips that no one believes are even related to a potato. And there you have an In’n'Out burger and fries. It is by every objective standard barely even a foodstuff. And yet, what have I been hungry for every minute of my flight accrosd the Atlantic. Yup…you guessed it.

I’m reading David Mitchell’s first novel Ghostwritten on the flight. I’ve had this novel sitting on my shelf for about a decade, since exchanging it with a friend for a dog eared copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. No offence to Robert Pirsig but I think I got the better of the deal, even if it has taken ten years to discover.

Ghostwritten is really a short story collection, not a novel, however much the publisher and critics claim otherwise. It reads as though Mitchell wrote a short novella in each of his favourite genres and then jammed them all in one book. There is a definite literary sensibility to the writing. DM is all about the interior life of his characters, and he manages the impressive task of writing nine stories in 1st person which can be read back to back without all the characters collapsing into a mellange of the authors own voice. But the lit technique is matched with the kind of ingenuity, pace and plotting more familiar in good genre fiction. I think what shines through Ghostwritten is that DM loves stories, loves books and fiction and loves writing. You really get the sense that he is playing in the book, introducing voices simply because he can, telling stories just for the joy of telling them. I think thats what makes the writing so compelling.

Stopped reading for a while to look out of the window at the Canada wilderness going past. The world is a big place, much of it is cold and forbidding. I’m glad to be headed to the Bay Area, and can already tase that burger.

I’m sitting in The Art Organisation in Leicester, drinking tea and writing my first real blog post for some time (rather than just linking to things I’m doing elsewhere). The rain is coming down (this is Britain after all) and the troupe of jugglers and hula hooppers who have been performing outside have just run indoors. Things have that rare feeling that sometimes emerges in times of disaster, when people pull together for the common good. Feels appropriate.

The Art Organisation iss like something from a different era, back when nobody paid any heed to community arts and collective action was the only way things got done. Now we’ve had fifteen years of grant aid and lottery funding and there is probably more money in community arts than ever before. But the truth is, it still takes collective action coming up from the grassroots to really make art happen in communities. The Art Organisation is setting up shop in an abandoned former chain pub, taking a space that never did any more than get people drunk and turning it into a real space for arts in our community, all for little or no money. Round the corner is the multi-million pound Curve theatre that feels about as related to the community as Marie Antoinette. Maybe one day we’ll find a way to link the people making things happen on the frontline with the money at the top. Maybe.

I’ve spent the day preparing for my trip to the World Fantasy Convention. I have been to busy the last month or more that I had barely given a thought to this trip, and now I leave in just over a day! I think this is going to be a busy convention for me – I’m reuniting with old friends from Clarion, meeting up with a few people from the UK scene and it’s my first chance to see many online friends. And I’m doing various journalistic things during my time there and hoping to blog and Twitter the whole experience. It’s gonna be a hell of a ride!

I was nicely surprised to get an email from the eds. at The Guardian this week telling me that my blog post on ‘Are we now Post Sci-Fi?‘ is being reprinted in the The Review, The Guardian’s media supplement this Saturday. Nicely excited in that I did the Dance of Joy, although not for three moons. Go and buy a copy on Saturday from any nearby newsagent (if you are in the UK). And I also mange to put in an appearance on this weeks Guardian book podcast, talking about Eoin Colfer and Hitchhiker’s.

Sci-fi has made many predictions about the future, but did any of them forecast that in the early years of the 21st century everyone would be watching … sci-fi? Our TV screens are filled with Dr Who, Lost and now FlashForward. Each summer brings more blockbusters in the Lord of the Rings and Star Trek vein, and a flood of superhero franchises. In comics and video games, sci-fi is the norm. It’s not just part of mainstream culture, it is arguably the dominant cultural expression of the early 21st century.

Read more at The Guardian book blog.

I’m reading at the lovely Shortfuse event on 20th October. It’s their halloween special so I’m reprising my short story Cthul-You for the occaision.

And I’m taking part with a sci-fi themed panel discussion as part of the Hockley Hustle in Nottingham, alongside Mark Charan Newton.

And after that I will be at the World Fantasy Convention in San Jose. Really, I couldn’t be more excited if you filled me up with sherbet and shook me vigarously.