A New Page

2017-10-25

So, what’s all this about? The reason for this Facebook page is, quite simply, that I am finding it increasingly difficult to know where to put stuff about what I’m doing, particularly given that it will not be of interest to the majority at wherever it ends up. While it feels like a vanity page, at the same time, it’s seriously helping me get my stuff together.

By way of illustration, here’s a few of the bigger projects I have on at the moment.

First a musical, called Super Awesome, which is a rags-to-armageddon cross between Britannia Hospital, Silicon Valley and Glee. I’ve written the lyrics (with an idea about tunes), I’m now writing it through again in iambic hexameter for the sheer heck of it. Then I’ll flesh out the music, possibly in collaboration as I always seem to write the same tune. Once that’s all done, well, I don’t know, but we’ll have a musical score.

A technology book, currently called Smart Shift, which traces the history of computing from, well, a jolly long time ago to the present day and looks at the impact it has on our society and culture. I actually finished writing it last year, just after the Panama Papers but before Fake News and Trump, all of which are symptoms of this techno-rapture we now inhabit. I’m getting some help pulling the final pieces together, after which I will either find a publisher or self-publish some time in 2018.

The Devil’s Violinist, a novel about Paganini who (I maintain) was one of Europe’s first rock musicians. His heyday was 1820-1830, occupying a post-Napoleonic Europe that was for the first time relatively free of banditry and the related hazards of travel. Suddenly artists could visit far-flung cities, as could their entourages and hangers-on, tour managers and supporting acts. Paganini had an English secretary who wrote a short book about his experiences and wished he could write more… this is currently at 60,000 words, third draft, there will be a few more before it is anywhere near ready but it’s a great set of tales.

And finally, I’m currently putting all available time I have into a… actually, I’m not going to tell you but it is going to be epic, and bigger than anything I’ve tackled before. It’s fiction. Watch This Space. Or indeed, watch this space, all will unfold.

Plenty to keep anyone busy, alongside various short stories, poems, lyrics and songs (I’ve been trying to do one a day for the past few weeks), podcasts and other attempts at getting stuff out there. I’ll be talking about all of these things as and when they appear, I very much value your feedback (good or bad) as otherwise I’m a tree in a forest, not knowing which way to fall.

So thank you, brave people for liking my page, at the time of counting all 29 of you, I hope I will not disappoint and do let me know what you think