The clocks went back. It was pitch black and blowing a gale when I headed out to the pub at 7pm last night. Winter draws in. Yes it does, so it does. Need to buy some form of warm and waterproof jacket. I’m too old to be going around shivering for half the year. Maybe a hat of some sort. One that doesn’t make me look like a prick, ideally.

Related: Dublin Mean Time

I write this in a state of extreme lethargy and indolence. It’s 2.28 P.M. on Monday and I’ve been drinking heavily since 1 P.M. on Friday. Not able for three nights in a row any more. Not able for two. I drink Guinness. If I’m out for a night I might drink 8-10 pints of it. That means I’ve consumed roughly 27 pints of Guinness over the long weekend. That’s almost three and a half gallons. When I was in school I used to work part-time in a hardware store, we used to sell gallon drums of exterior masonry paint. I know how big a gallon is. That’s too much Guinness. And I like Guinness, but that’s too much. My guts—they’re not right at all. The acid sluicing up my throat is hotter than the sun.

Chris Askham has now uploaded 62 pages of completed artwork into our shared Dropbox folder. 62 lovely pages. That’s the next graphic novel almost in the bag. Bram Meehan will be working his lettering and design trickery over the coming weeks. The cover by Matt Soffe is complete. I’ve written a short essay for the backmatter about childhood preoccupations with the occult and Fortean—it’s called Phantasmagorical Foundations. (A little doff of the hat to the greatest kid’s tv show ever made.) We haven’t announced this book at all yet, but we’ve got a publisher and it should be out first quarter 2015. March, I hope. More soon. ‘Tis shaping up nicely.

What else? I finished up a collection of mostly new prose stories and sent them to one of my favourite publishers last Monday. Ten stories (two have been published before, eight are brand spanking new). So fingers crossed on that. Should hear back soon.

I’m halfway through writing the first issue of a new comic project. Just picking my way through the early section, trying to get the measure of it. Ideally, I’d like to do this as three 28 page issues. It’s a strong little story, I think. It saw a bit of interest from VERTIGO a while back, when I pitched it to those guys, but it was decided the project was too short to bring any further. I’m going to write the whole sodding thing and then see about getting an artist on-board. Pitch it to IMAGE.

Is it just me or does the onset of Winter always make you think of this?

It’s just me, isn’t it.

That public information film haunted my childhood. Even now, I find it truly amazing and affecting to watch. Just look at the colour palette they’ve used; the purples, the empty cosmic black of the stark, leafless trees, the intense yellow glow of the setting sun on the horizon. Even the Foley and soundtrack are haunting; the unexpected burst of static and cross-talk on the ambulance radio, the subtle, delicate sound of fresh snow being crushed beneath heavy boots, you can almost feel the stretcher bearers’ weariness as they trudge across the snow-covered field.

I think of winter. And I think of that short film. And then I think of mid-eighties Ireland and lazy sick-days off school, sitting on the floor in the living room in my pyjamas in front of the two-bar electric heater, watching that short public information film during the adverts before Superted came on S4C, in Welsh, and I would watch it anyway, because it was a cartoon, and they weren’t on much, and even though I couldn’t understand any of the dialogue, I could still kind of make out the gist of the story. And all through Superted I would feel bad for the little boy who fell through the ice and died. And I would think of how upset his mother would be when the policemen went to to tell her.

I’m sure there’s an interesting essay to be written on all this; hauntology, nostalgia as personal history, but I haven’t got the fucking energy.

I will leave you with Warpaint and Disco/Very. My new most favourite song.

Just returned from eight days in glorious New York. So good as to be overwhelming. New sights, beers, experiences, friends, and beers. Yes, sampling the unusual beers was good. Somehow managed to stumble into a bar where Mike Stern was playing a jazz set and sat not three feet from him while empty beer glasses slowly swamped the table.

Then a man in a pinstriped suit cycled past me as I waited to cross the street, he held a rolled up newspaper to his eye like a telescope and peered right at me as he drifted slowly past – we exchanged friendly waves as my friends laughed at the weirdness and I felt very at home.

While I was away issue thirteen of PUSH was published and, I believe, is now close to selling out. It contains my noir-love-ghost story Shattered Glass in Shingle along with lots of top-notch prose. Pick up a copy if you can.

Home now, wondering why my mutinous brain has made me dream of this. Twice.

Shall we dream of Chinatown? No.

Of drifting slowly beneath the Brooklyn Bridge on one of the most beautifully sunny afternoons we’ve ever experienced? No.

Of seeing a shitty rubber mask of Prince Charles in a toy shop on Lexington Avenue? Oh yes! Twice!

But really, what an amazing treat, to be in New York with your friends for eight days. I shan’t forget it.

Back to writing work on Monday. Need to write an essay of a crypto-zoological bent for the bonus material of the graphic novel I’m doing with Chris Askham and Bram Meehan. It’s almost there, just a few pages of artwork left to complete. Then some lettering and design. The brilliant Matt Soffe produced an amazing cover. We’ve secured a publisher and it should be on shelves early next year. Can’t wait to reveal all the details. Soon . . .

Next week will also be about putting the finishing touches to a new short story collection. Ten new stories with a supernatural and horror flavour. Once they’re at a place where I’m happy with them it’s time to submit the lot to one of my favourite publishers. And then wait. And keep the twitchy fingers crossed.

It’s been a great summer, one of the best. But Autumn draws in and I am listening to Warpaint a lot. Son, in particular.

It’s dark by 7pm now, and my favourite season, Winter, lurks just around the corner. And I’m fine with that.

Reading: I Was Dora Suarez by Derek Raymond.

This is brilliant, just absolutely bloody brilliant.

Was happy to hear yesterday that my short story Shattered Glass in Shingle will be appearing in the next issue of PUSH. Issue 13 should be out in around 3 weeks, I believe. All details at the link.

Pick up an issue if you can. If it’s good enough for David Peace, it’s good enough for me (and you, you slags).

Pic taken from PUSH editor Joe England’s blog.

Unofficial Britain is a celebration of the uncelebrated.

A champion of the overlooked.

A history of the forgotten.

Click that link to visit a most interesting new site curated and run by Gareth E. Rees, author of Marshland: Dreams and Nightmares on the Edge of London.  I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Gareth was kind enough to post some odd ephemera of mine, London Murder Poems, which you can view here.

This August my short story Echoes will appear in DREAMS OF SHADOW AND SMOKE – Stories for J.S. Le Fanu, a tribute anthology from Swan River Press, edited by Jim Rockhill & Brian J. Showers. SRP’s publications are things of beauty, just incredibly well put together hardback books, and it’s an honour to be included in such a fantastic line-up.

All details here.

Great cover by Jason Zerillo.

Then in September my short science fiction story Me am Petri will be reprinted in the Futures 2 anthology, a collection of 100 stories that have appeared in the Futures section of Nature over the last few years. Published by Tor. Really great to be included.

They haven’t revealed the full cover yet but here’s a cropped version.

A lengthy and very positive review of my Crowley book appears in issue two of The Green Book, a superbly interesting journal published by The Swan River Press.  Well worth checking out.

Just so you know, I’ve got some of the Aleister Crowley: Wandering the Waste limited edition hardcovers in stock. Not too many of these left and when they’re gone they’re gone. Click here for details.

My latest story appears in this week’s issue of Nature. You can read it here, if you fancy it.

Another short story sale to Nature.  Howard Loves Polly will appear within a month or two, I should reckon.

David Longhorn has posted a nice review of my just-released short story collection Get It Down and Other Weird Stories on the Supernatural Tales blog.

This is, I think, a pretty impressive collection of stories, most of which pack a lot into very few words. Strong stuff, interesting stuff, and above all promising stuff from a writer with the ability to surprise.

Click here for book and ordering details.

This is pretty bloody brilliant. The renowned Atlantis Bookshop on London’s Museum Street will be holding an exhibition of Roy H Stewart’s original artwork from the graphic novel Aleister Crowley: Wandering the Waste.

The exhibition opens as part of Atlantis’s annual Crowleymass celebrations on Sunday the 1st of December, 2013. 2-5PM. Roy will be there talking about his art and process, and I’ll be there too – chatting, looking shifty, and generally milling about.

There will be over 80 pieces of framed original art on display, along with several grimoire-like sketchbooks which Roy put together while we were working on the book. And everything is for sale. Prices start at £25.

The exhibition will run until the 24th of December.

If you’re planning to attend, the Atlantis Bookshop would appreciate it if you could RSVP at the email address on the flyer. You can also contact them there if you’d like to reserve a particular piece of artwork.

Hope to see you there!

Two new reviews of Aleister Crowley: Wandering the Waste this week.

The ending really is something quite interesting and special, Hayes and Stewart finding a really involving, and yes, a magical way to end their tale, to end Crowley’s life. But the thing the graphic novel leaves us with, as it should, is that Crowley’s desire to transcend death, and to live in the imagination and the memory of the world, was accomplished. Death took the man, but his legacy lives on.

Richard Bruton on the Forbidden Planet blog.

The impressionistic style often bleeds over into the real world scenes, kind of like how the world of magic often comes into the everyday life of Crowley. I enjoyed both styles but I particularly enjoyed the “Interlude” chapter which was entirely in the first style and was a nice change of pace and break from the often haunting imagery of the impressionist style. Overall, I really enjoyed this book.

David Ferguson on Irish Comic News

Reading Morrissey’s Autobiography. Very enjoyable. My favourite line so far: Morrissey summing up an incident in which his father crashed the family car into a front garden…

The gentle householders of old take us in to sooth our nerves, whereas today’s indignation generation would pellet writs at us from upper windows.

Afternoon.

There’s a bit of a write-up and interview with me about comics and what-not over on downthetubes.net. Grateful thanks to John Freeman.

Further to the info in the article linked above, my malformed short story collection Get It Down and Other Weird Stories will be released at some point in October.

Went to the Roger Waters show last Wednesday, a great gig.

And to the Manic Street Preachers gig last Friday, which was even greaterer.

(Not my video)

Brilliant show.

Writing projects soldier on, some with trench-foot and the odd missing limb. Wheels are still turning. Gears are still spinning efficiently and shedding teeth in equal measure. So much stuff either half-finished or half-outlined that it’s not remotely funny.

A pint. Yes. That’ll make it better.