It’s time to close the book on Grind Spark. Not completely, there’s still tweaks and edits afoot. But times are a-changing and new WIPs (Work in Progress, Walrus in Pants, Wet Insidious Pulses… whatever takes your fancy) with whole new earworms are calling. So it’s time to wrap up the Grind Spark playlist. I present to you here, in one place, for your most decadent earjoy, the majority of songs that I listened to while fighting words and wrestling keyboards, and also while writing Grind Spark. Genesis by Justice Utopia by Jackson and His Computerband Ain’t no sunshine by Liz…
Tag: fiction
Grind Spark Earworm #15 – John Murphy
It’s Grind Spark earworm time everybody, and this week we’re sort of staying with the soundtrack theme. Last time we listened to the hauntingly beautiful Hungry Face by Mogwai, featured on the TV series Les Revenants. This time we’re listening to a song that still sends shivers up my spine. A song that spreads out across an empty city, while a lone man looks at empty roads and wonders what’s happened. A song that sets music to zombies, with a backdrop of cruel humanity. Not that there are zombies in Grind Spark. But if I was all alone at the…
Goddamn my writerly Achille’s heels
What do you do when you’ve finished writing something like a novel, eh? Well, I mean, after the obvious bit where you get pissed on whisky and give your mum a lap dance. … what… … is that just me…? Well, whatever, we’ve all got our own parties to get on down to. (I saw you with that fluorescent orangutan. Don’t tell me you didn’t. Facebook says you did.) Anyway. After the party, what happens then? Well, the streamers get cleaned up, the balloons deflate and whither like used condoms in the corners of the room, and the left over…
Grind Spark Earworm #14 – Mogwai
HAPPY SUNDAY, GUYS! HAPPY FIRST DAY OF JUNE! Wha’? IT’S THE FIRST DAY OF JUNE, MAN! Are you smoking that shit you bought off the purple crocodile living at the bottom of the garden again? ERM… NO… Right… THAT WAS THE SEASONING FOR LAST NIGHT’S PIZZA. *Rolls over, digs in under the blankets* BUT IT REALLY IS JUNE. Which it is, as I gulp down mugs of coffee and wonder what’s happened with the rest of the year – perhaps that pizza knocked me out for months and now it’s Summer (only wet and quite cold). So now it’s time…
Grind Spark Earworm #13 – Moloko
Woah, it’s only come around to that Grind Spark playlist time again. There’s been less posts recently due to my head being buried in a couple of new WIPs and running through final edits on Grind Spark – don’t worry though, there’s wordage being stored up to shortly be spewed into bloggity format for your eyeball delectation. Last week we went on a little trip off piste to check out DJ Snake and Lil Jon’s Turn Down for What. I trust you all played it appropriately loud. This week I’m picking probably the lightest song from the playlist. Well, when…
Grind Spark Earworm #12 – DJ Snake and Lil Jon
Is it Grind Spark playlist time again? I think it might just be. Last time we went for rage and dancing with The Prodigy. This week we’re doing something different. This week we’ve got a BRAND SPANKING NEW addition to the playlist. Not spanking like paddles and chains and red lights. More spanking like Julia Childs with a nice piece of tripe. And the new addition was suggested by Gabriel Novo (find him on Twitter as @GabrielNovo). He’s a pretty darn cool dude, who seems to have got things pretty much right when he suggested my musical tastes seemed to…
Did someone say it’s International Short Story Month…?
Do you know what shit’s going down this month? Dudes? Do ya? In a month that apparently includes “STAY UP ALL NIGHT” day, “ROOT CANAL APPRECIATION” day and the most fantastic “CHICKEN DANCE” day, it’s only bloody well International Short Story Month as well. And do you know what this means? Dudes? Do ya? It means that I want to hear your best short story recommendations. They can be stories you’ve written, stories by other people you love, stories that just don’t have a home to go to so you felt sorry for them and took them in. I’ll start…
Grind Spark Earworm #11 – The Prodigy
This week I am finally able to share the news that Grind Spark hit the longlist for the Bath Novel Award – one of only 32 novels out of 649. This is all pretty darn cool and since I heard the news I have celebrated appropriately with wine, beer, chair dancing and shouting HAVE YOU HEARD THE NEWS? NO, WAIT, I CAN’T SAY YET BUT IT’S AS EXCITING AS A KANGAROO FIRING PARTYPOPPERS FROM ITS POUCH. Ok, well, maybe not that exciting. But I’m not sure anything is ever more exciting than kangaroos. But enough shouting and partying, time to…
Grind Spark Earworm #10 – Two Fingers
It’s time for the next instalment of the Grind Spark playlist. Last week we took in the jittering pulses of Radiohead’s Feral. If you were busy drowning in hot cross buns and chocolate, then listen to it now. This week I’ve been suffering from toothache. An insistent, persistent fire in the side of my face that sprouts periodically from a bored wisdom tooth. The sort of toothache that leaves you constantly checking your chin for dribble while clutching at your cheek as if your head might completely fall off. Or explode. It’s not that I ate lots of chocolate over…
