Iron Armour Heart

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to post updates more. Apparently, timeliness is anathema to my lifestyle and, once again, I am forced to apologise for the barren appearance of the front page of this blog. When I do post, it seems that my entries are also on the brief side.

Today’s post will alas do nothing to address these problems.

What it will do however, is hopefully give you more things to read.

Recently, I began writing articles and reviews for the website, 2012 Movies. The first of these articles is all about Christmas and, of course, monsters.

By the time I update next, I hope to have something more unconventional to offer you.

01/01/12 - 02/01/12

Today, almost a year after starting (give or take a week), I finished the last page in my little, black WH Smith’s diary, marking the end of the page-a-day project. Now all that remains is to decide what content needs to be disseminated and in what form it will appear.

Originally, I had planned to run a little competition with the prize being the actual book itself, but I couldn’t really think of a quiz, nor could I imagine why anyone would wish to possess this little artifact of 2011.

Perhaps if the contestants in the quiz ended up being publishers then maybe I’d consider this…

http://jacobmilnestein.co.uk/omake.htm

It is half four in the morning at the time of writing this, and I am listening to Christmas in Killarney, which is quite possibly one of the worst Christmas songs ever recorded.

Yet despite the fact that it feels like a low-budget advert by the Killarney Tourist Bureau, there is something implicit in its invitation both to the familiar and the unusual that compliments the feeling of this season incredibly well.

More than ever, this Christmastime has been like a little year in itself, the weather of December shifting over the course of these short weeks from bitter cold to what will purportedly be one of the mildest Christmas Days on record since the 1960s. There is no need to mention climate change here, the message is implicit. This uncharacteristic warmth brings with it a sensation of alienation from the precepts of the traditional English Christmas, especially for those of us who were gearing up for another fall of heavy snow this year. It was against this background that the details of this year’s Christmas tale evolved. Set in the Bohemia of 1585, the story involves the renown mathematician, occultist and spymaster, John Dee and the famed creator of Prague’s Golem, Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel in discussion regards the plight of a young boy who, amidst the empty streets and crowded skies, has had the misfortune of glimpsing the Wild Hunt.

This year, despite being only partially Jewish, it has been very important for me to document some of the things I have felt about religion and the idea of ethnicity. It has also been a way, albiet a very roundabout one, of providing an origin for what ‘the Blackfriars Bestiary’ actually is. Other than that, I find I have little else to say.

Christmas in Killarney has thankfully arrived at the end, my cup of Spice Imperial tea is all but finished and my small cat is snoring loudly beside me as we both sit in darkness, save for the light of the Christmas tree at the far end of the living room.

Once more, it is Christmas, and I would bid peace on Earth and good will to all.

Have a merry Christmas, dear reader, or, if you are inclined, a happy Hanukah (or both).

Good night, one and all.

Last month, I promised I wouldn’t be late with updating future volumes of The Blackfriars Bestiary. I lied.

The previous issue has been available on lulu since the end of November. Sorry.

Unlike the majority of my peers, I’ve never been very good at jumping on new trends for the sake of professional exposure. Actually, if I’m honest, I’ve never been very good at jumping on new trends for the sake of my private life either. I don’t have a Facebook account, I can’t imagine ever having one, but I am a big fan of both twitter and tumblr.

As  a day-to-day way in which to track media you’re interested in, I’ve found tumblr to be a lot of fun. There’s a lot of nonsense on there and I don’t think I really appreciated how big the site was until recently, but I’ve been using it for a good few years now and I find the ease of posting material – and re-posting material also – to be a lot more intuitive than some of the standard blogging platforms out there. Another thing I also don’t think I appreciated until recently is just how nondenominational tumblr is in regards to platform. It really is a site that can be viewed with ease on a number of devices, rather than solely on the computer.

I guess this is the direction technology is moving in nowadays.

Yet I digress.

The reason I brought up tumblr is that, despite having a personal account, I decided recently to start using a blank, new tumblr page as a sort of ‘inspiration board’ for lack of a better term.

inspiration board in progress

At present, there’s really not much there, but I like the idea of using this as a further means to adapt the manner in which a project can be charted.

I don’t want to share too much about it as, obviously, I don’t own any of the material I’m posting there (if I did, it would be less inspiration and more promotion) but I’m more than sure that you can find it if you’re determined to.

Hopefully soon, I’ll be able to post some notes on how using this method impacted the way I’ve developed upcoming projects… unless I don’t mention it again, in which case you’ll know that it didn’t work out at all.

Despite recent advances in technology, I still seem to be reletively poor at time keeping. This admission leads naturally to my confession that last month’s volume of The Blackfriars Bestiary has actually been available since, well, last month.

Contained within is an Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland themed Hallowe’en tale that you can read outside of the Blackfriars format over at Wrecking Ball Room.

I promise November’s updates will be more prompt than this.

Thank you for your patience.

Whilst looking through a box this morning for an entirely unrelated item, I found a host of notes relating to Angels Over Albion, Do Not Choose to Ask My Name, and Artifice Comics.

Expect an update on this sooner rather than later.

On the 268 bus to Hampstead this morning, I saw Tobit sitting upon the railings along the road leading towards Inverforth House. I knew intrinsically that it was him, the slender shape of his back, the angle his head was turned at, the rain still clinging to his smooth feathers. It was him, definitely. Without the shadow of a doubt, it was him.

I know it might seem somewhat absurd to suggest this but I’m  a strong believer in this kind of thing, the way that fiction sometimes overlaps with the real world, so it doesn’t seem weird to me to think of Tobit as my Tobit, even though I’m a person outside of the stories I write. Well, mostly.

Perhaps it’s easy for me to equate Tobit with my role as a magician, my role as a storyteller (note the small ’s’) because, at the time of writing Love Amongst Strangers, the character of the Storyteller was very much who I was back then… save for the equation with semi-divinity. So it kind of makes sense that if Tobit is the Storyteller’s familiar, then by default, he is also my familiar.

Maybe this topic is a little off the beaten track from what is essentially a record of my writing duties, yet I think this kind of thing is important enough to mention because… well, it explains something that I’ve been increasingly inclined to believe – despite everything, the events of life as they happen historically are somewhat inferior to the stories we tell about the occasions of these events.

The gospel is only as good as its meaning, not its validity.

Sitting in the Holly Bush pub in Hampstead – a place which is, in my humble opinion, one of the best kept secrets within the wider ‘best kept secret’ that is Hampstead village – with Mister Erlend Larsen, we discussed a number of things relating to the venture of writing and publishing (along with magic and sexuality). One of the most important things for me was seeing the practical application of the EPUB format on Mister Larsen’s NOOK.

Last week, I got my hands dirty and helped format the latest issue of Bento Box for e-readers. Tonight was the first time I actually had a chance to see what an ebook reader could do. Prior to this, I’d only experienced EPUB as an awkward format available for desktop readers. Seeing the vast library of titles on Erlend’s NOOK and finding the device amazingly easy to pick up and carry about, as well as read from, really made a big impact on me.

The thirteenth volume of The Blackfriars Bestiary came out at the end of last month. This issue was produced in a slightly different fashion to previous editions. In January, I am seriously considering making the leap and formatting the title specifically for EPUB and, by default, less for home computers and more for the mobile market.

These are tender first steps, dear reader. Please be patient with me whilst I make my way in this brave new world.

Tonight, I will dream about you.

I will dream that you will come back and everything will be okay again. It won’t be, of course.   In my dream, you will appear without warning, a familiar face to fill the aching left behind by your real life absence.

I won’t understand the significance of your role when I wake up on Monday morning, but I will remember feeling haunted by you. I will wonder if the dream means that you are also thinking of me.

On Monday, I will continue as usual. I will get dressed, I will clean my teeth. I will feed the cats, I will kiss my wife.

The bus to Golders Green will be late. I will be irritable. Sitting on the next bus, a connexion having been made outside the station, I will think of you as I often do. I will wonder if you feel the same way too.

I will assume you do not.

The day will pass. Customers will come in and out of the shop. We will not make target.

I will accept delivery, opening stock, counting boxes, mechanically sliding items onto shelves and adding price-tags for the most part. I will not think of you. When I do, it will be recollection of times past, a nostalgia kept breathing by my loneliness, the black dog that forever sits upon my shoulder.

I will continue to work without making comment. I will attempt to brush away all such thoughts. This is my routine.

You will appear then in my shop at roughly ten or twenty minutes before five o’clock. I will be standing on the stairs with a tray of teapots and cups, engaging in a jovial conversation with one of my staff members.

I will see you out of the corner of my eye. I will think you are someone else.

Once I realise who you are, I will begin to tremble. I will feel a great and terrible anxiety. I will want to die.

You will talk, we will both make our apologies. I will feel heavy in my heart. I will not believe we can survive this once more. I will not feel that I can go through it again. I will not tell you.

As we walk down the High Street, past Rosslyn Hill, before Belsize, we will talk only briefly of issues between us. I will try to tell you about Don Quixote. I will hold the book close to my chest so I do not reach out for you. I will catch myself leaning into you as we talk and stop myself. I will remember your last words and feel sick.

All at once, you will see the C11 bus to Archway. You will rush to meet it, promising to text me your new number.

As the doors close, I will tell you sadly that I cannot reply.

Tonight, I will dream about you.