Current tally on STORM is three four fulls (edit as of the 18th, got another full request from a partial this morning) by request out in the big bad world. Still no news on COLD. One of the agents I have a full with seems to have dropped off the face of the earth and stopped tweeting. Perhaps he’s been eaten by CHUDS. The gent I’ve spoken to most is still alive and kicking though – looking forward to sending him STORM when he’s done rejecting COLD.

Ratio of queries to requests seems much better on STORM than COLD, but YA Steampunk was always gonna get more sniffs than Horror, right? I’m officially done with overthinking the ms – I’ve made my changes and chopped and re-arranged and now it’s getting beyond a joke. I’m overthinking and it’s stressing me right the fuck out. If the damn thing can’t sell itself now, I’m not sure what else I can do.

Have started tossing around ideas for the next ms. This one will be YA too, kinda sci-fi/horror. Post-apocalypse setting, and I’m having a crack at first person narrative. I’ve started playing in the MC’s voice and I dig her. Here’s hoping I can live with her for the six months. I’m going to kick off writing proper by the end of the month, we’ll see if we can have a first draft finished by January.

In other news that nobody will care about, I’ve started watching Spartacus:Blood and Sand, and despite heavy lashings of male on male nudity and the word “cock” being dropped like a bomb every 7-8 minutes, it’s actually quite cool (although the aus/kiwi accents in the ancient Roman setting are quite lolz).  The A-bomb and I are almost at the end of The Wire’s second season. S2 is kinda patchy compared to 1, but damned if I’ll keep watching it just for Omar.

“Oh, indeeeeed.”

BTW, very depressing, but excellent article on the publishing process here.

The news that my beloved A-Bomb is now once again gainfully employed was met with haiiiii fivez an immediate run to JB Hi-Fi. I’m listening to the new A7X album on nonstop rotation atm, and it rocks the fkn house. Was very bummed out to hear about the Rev’s death. The new Fear Factory album is superb, and the new Stone Sour is a red hot dose of rectal cancer. Two out of three ain’t bad.

According to my dashboard, I seem to be getting a few lurkers on this blog thing – hell if I know where they come from. Maybe they’re just spam bots or phishers.

HELLO SPAM BOTS, NICE TO MEET YOU

So Ronny James Dio and Paul Gray are dead, coupled with Pete Steele that make it a pretty ordinary couple of months in metal. Cranking some Slipknot now to pay some respects and wondering if the band will survive. All Hope is Gone indeed.

In good news however, the new Deftones is actually pretty damn good. What I’ve heard of the new FF sounds awesome, kinda sad that Christian and Raymond aren’t in the camp anymore, but Hoglan is a fkn beast. New BFMV was a bit disappointing. Couple of good tracks, but no flying kick to the chops like Scream, Aim, Fire was.

Saw Full Scale last night, they rrrrrrrawked. This here clip is from their comeback gig. Big lug in the crowd with the baseball cap and MH tshirt is yours truly. 🙂

Storm is sitting at 68k, which means I’ve tracked 25,000 words in about 23 days, which I’m pretty proud of. Had the A-bomb read through the WIP a few days ago, and she had a little bit of a flip out about it – dunno if I caught her in a good mood or what, but the compliments were extensive, and she’s normally loathe to say anything nice in case I get a big head. But the book feels good, and its all flowing towards the conclusion neatly, only seconds from the final bell really.

Hoping to have some good news on COLD soon too, but it could just as easily head down the path to slit-wrist-ville, so keep em crossed.

Recent flicks: Moon = Great. Terminator: Salvation = steaming pile of pus. Anyone who lets that McGee clown near a camera again should be the first against the wall when Judgement Day hits. Seriously, send a T800 back in time to prevent that film ever getting made. Forget John Connor, Skynet, we’ve all got bigger fucking problems.

Open heart transplant surgery, with a ticker recently punched so hard by a t800 that it stopped beating, jump-started with a couple of wires pulled out of a wall, conducted in an open air field hospital by a bloody veterinarian. Fuck you.

Reading Farenheit 451 atm, and it’s goddamn awesome. The Windup Girl is next on the list, and I’m pretty jazzed about reading it. The short stories I’ve read from Paolo have been 100% superfly. Re-watching s4 of BSG too, and it’s brill. I might stop watching before the last 15 minutes of the final episode, and the world will be roses.

RIP Paul and Ronnie.

Listening to: Slipknot, Volume 3: the Subliminal Verses.