Tag: Bits

Monday 11th

Posted on by Neal Asher

We went on two walks over the weekend. On Saturday, as about 3.00 in the afternoon, we walked to a village called Armeni in the mountains behind us. This took about three-quarters of an hour up and down hills but by road, so slightly easier. In Armeni we visited a couple we know there who, having been working away in their garden, were stopping for a beer. The health aspect of our walk went downhill from then. We ended up getting a lift home at about 10.30 at night. Here’s a few photos of that and our next walk: our kafenion, our house from above, one of the fequent roadside shrines, and Papagianades from a distance…

On Sunday, by way of punishing ourselves, we did the walk of a hundred staircases by road down to a village called Vori, then back up by the tracks through the olive groves. There’s few pictures I can show that are any different from what I’ve shown before (I hear the voice of John Cleese declaring, ‘Olive trees, and more fucking olive trees!’).

Today – Internet day – I feel slightly worn out, but intend to persevere with this. It would be nice to flatten out my gut a bit before the five months of being trapped in our house in England.

Saturday 9th

Posted on by Neal Asher

When I look at the stats on this blog it’s clear to me that when I post something about writing, my books, science fiction, I get more interest, more hits and more in the comments section. Quite obviously the majority of the people visiting this site are here looking for Neal Asher the science fiction writer, not the Cretan home owner, gardener, tobacco grower, chilli grower and chilli sauce manufacturer. They’re not here to see how I renovate chairs, repoint walls or really to learn anything about Crete, or what happens to me particular interest at any one time. However, I do hope that the posts I do here about things other than SF at least entertain.

You see, I have a bit of a problem with blogging solely about my writing. I can’t tell you precisely what I’ve written about, how I sorted out this plot or that, what I’ve done with any of the characters because I would be giving too much away. This blog would be full of spoilers. I can tease you, but that’s about it. I can tell you something about the process, within limitations, but really, it’s boring. Let me give you an example: this last week I sat down at my computer each morning over five days and wrote a total of 12806 words, of which 10950 were for Zero Point, the rest being blogs. That’s it really. Would you want every one of my blog posts to be similar?

Such comments are the kind of thing I save for my journal, that kind of anal stuff I outline in ink at the bottom of each half page: number of fiction words written, number of blog words written, alcohol units drunk, cigarettes smoked, other jobs completed, amount of exercise, number of spots popped, total of toenails trimmed…

Friday 8th

Posted on by Neal Asher

Yup, we got some heavy rain, the water butt is full again the garden is soaked and I’m now diverting the waste water down the drain rather than saving it to water plants. Being British I look at cloudy skies, rain, damp and dropping temperatures with a frown on my face, then reluctantly close windows and doors before returning to the bedroom to dust off my jeans and jumper. Not so with the Cretans. They love it when the rain comes because it’s good for the olives and other crops, the water table is filling again, and they gaze upon our glum British expressions with evident surprise. I try to explain that we get more rain in a British summer than they get in a Cretan winter, but that only evinces further puzzlement. Rain is good. I wonder how long that opinion would last if they experienced a few months of grey British winter with its endless days of drizzle, downpours and sitting inside with the lights on.

In the guide books we’re told that here in Crete there are 300 days of sunshine every year, and yes, that’s about right. And what sunshine it is. You simply do not get the same intensity of light in Britain. Our house here is dim inside, the windows small, and a trip outside on a sunny day renders me practically blind for a few minutes after I return inside. I would say that the light intensity on a cloudy but not rainy day here is about the same as full sunshine were we live in Essex, but then, that house is forty miles from London in a highly populated area and there’s plenty of crap in the atmosphere.

Traffic through our village in Essex is heavier than through the largest town here in Eastern Crete, and traffic in Chelmsford, the largest town close to us in Essex, is probably ten times that of the largest city on this entire island. Living here has brought home to me how big the difference in air quality is, and I suspect my lungs have enjoyed clean air for the longest period in my life. Bar the cigarettes, of course.

In an effort to beat the damp here in a house built before damp courses were thought of, I’ve acquired a dehumidifier which, when run for about eight hours, takes two litres of water out of the atmosphere inside the house. How much of that is actually coming out of the walls is a moot point, but it should certainly help and, next year, maybe I won’t have quite so much paint falling off of them. Installing damp courses would be preferable, but can you imagine how much fun that would be in stone walls that are two feet thick?

Thursday 7th

Posted on by Neal Asher

On Tuesday, now the idea of swimming is losing its appeal and we are venturing down to Makrigialos less, we decided to switch over to autumn and winter mode by taking ourselves off on a mountain walk. In the pictures here you will note the main feature of the landscape surrounding Papagianades: olive trees.

I’m told that our area of Crete produces some of the best olive oil in the world, which the Italians add to their olive oil in order to upgrade it. I’m also told that the neat oil sells for ridiculous prices elsewhere in Europe, whilst the growers here get about €2 a litre. Why don’t the Cretans here get organized and cut out the middlemen? Apparently because getting them to agree on something is like herding cats.

Caroline had spotted a path leading down from the right-hand side of our village as a route we could explore. It took us down then along to the local graveyard. It all seems rather typical: spend thousands on a marble grave for your parents, go to it frequently to light a lamp no-one will see, to plant flowers and doubtless to pray. But the leaking roof on your house can wait.

We didn’t go right down to the bottom of the gorge opposite the village, but continued along one of the many tracks through the olive groves, then turned and climbed back out up to the left of the village. This was maybe the equivalent to climbing a few hundred staircases. Cretans, we are told, are the second longest-lived people on Earth. Lifestyle magazines put this down to the Mediterranean diet of fresh veg, fish, salad and lashings of olive oil. Don’t believe that for one second. In our village a trip from our house down to the kafenion at the bottom is equivalent to the average British urbanite’s weekly cardiovascular workout in the gym. Exercise is what keeps them alive here, that is, those that actually get out of their cars.

Finally returning to the village, we collected some water from the spring and made that aforementioned climb back to our house. It seemed quite easy after what we had done (that’s our house at the top of the next picture). This morning we both have aching legs, but intend to take a longer walk this afternoon.

Update:

Um, maybe not. Heavy cloud overhead and the rumble of thunder in the distance. I don’t mind a shower while walking, but this looks likely to turn into one of those vertical seas.

Wednesday 6th

Posted on by Neal Asher

To pass your Greek driving test there are certain driving techniques you must learn. Here I’ll just give you a handy guide. If there is a car in front of you it must be overtaken. It doesn’t matter if it happens to be going round a corner when you do this, nor does it matter if afterwards you slow down, thus irritating the driver of the car you have overtaken. If a car ahead is being overtaken by another car, you must attempt to overtake them both. Extra points are given if you can also do this on a corner.

When approaching a right-hand bend, you must swing out to the left to give you a better view around the corner so you can go round it faster, just like a racing driver does. This is compulsory, even if you are driving a pick-up truck in which you have yet to discover the other three gears and are travelling at 20 kilometres an hour. Also, in an attempt not to wear out your tires too quickly, you must be tardy about swinging back to your side of the road. Extra points are given here if you can drive any approaching vehicle off a cliff and into the top of an olive tree.

Let me make a quick note here about pick-up trucks. There are only two acceptable kinds of pick-up truck. The first should be worked over from nose to tail with a hammer, all the lights smashed and it loaded with crates of grapes until it is sitting down on its axel. It shouldn’t have working brakes, road tax and if at all possible should burn a pint of oil per gallon of petrol or diesel. The second is a brand new, polished to a gleam, 40,000 Euro vehicle with all the trimmings. It has the capability of climbing mountains, being loaded with tonnes of materials, the power to tow a lorry, and is used for none of these. It must then be driven at high speed everywhere, except when there are puddles in the road, which must be circumvented at two miles an hour to avoid getting spots of mud on the paintwork.

Indicators, in the Greek driving world, must never be used to apprise the driver behind of where you are going. If you must use them at all, turn them all on as hazard lights to baffle everyone, slam to a halt in the middle of the road then abandon you vehicle whilst you go and have a chat with Kostas about the price of tomatoes.

Wherever you find functioning traffic lights you must have your hand poised over the horn in readiness for when they change. Beeping your horn when way back in the queue is essential. It won’t get the guy ahead off his mobile phone any quicker, or get you through any quicker, but you can be smugly assured that you have at least irritated someone.

Double parking is a must, and extra points are given if you can gridlock a town or do so on a roundabout. Also, giving way to approaching vehicles where access is narrow, probably because of the double parking, is for wussies. Better to stop where you are and shout very loudly at the other driver.

Bonus points are given if you can achieve all the above whilst speaking into a mobile phone in your right hand, your left arm hanging out the window as you flick ash from your cigarette, and whilst you steer with your knees. It is a given for all Greek drivers that a necklace of beads and a crucifix hanging from the rear-view mirror is more effective than an airbag.

Tuesday 5th

Posted on by Neal Asher

Since I’m now really got the bit between my teeth with the writing, and am typing out a blog post each morning as a warm-up exercise, I’ll just make the headings here as above: day and date.

I woke this morning at about 5.00, which is an occurrence all too common as I slip through the last months towards the age of 50. After a cup of tea, I realised I was not going to get back to sleep and decided at about 5.45 it was time to get up. This is all good for some of those fans reading this, because it means I’ll have done a few hundred words before your alarm clock goes off. There’ll be others of course who are up and about too, on their way to work, or working, or contemplating the journey home after a night shift.

Caroline said she was damned if she was getting up before the sun, since it brought back too many memories of the time when she had to do that. I too remember those winter days when driving to work at 7.30 on a soggy, cold and dark morning to operate a milling machine for eight, nine or ten hours, then driving home in the dark afterwards, stinking of coolant oil. I remember months passing when the only daylight I saw was a grey and insipid thing for a half hour lunch break (I worked a half hour of overtime during my break so didn’t have an hour free) or through a narrow greasy window on the side of the factory.

It’s because of memories like this that you get a book every year. It’s because of twenty-five years of doing ‘proper jobs’ that I thoroughly appreciate the position I am in now. And it is also the reason I get annoyed when I hear about writers delivering their typescripts late, maybe years late, or if I hear the effete whingeing about ‘writers block’ or, in one case, a lengthy moan posing the question: ‘Why do we do this? Why do we put ourselves through so much suffering for our art?’. I started writing because I loved it, I continued writing without recompense for twenty years because I loved it, and I write now because I love it and because I’m well aware of what the alternatives are.

Rick Kleffel Review

Posted on by Neal Asher

Nice email from Rick Kleffel:

Neal,

I just did an event with Guillermo Del Toro last night; hosted a Q&A with him at the Kabuki Sundance Theater in San Francisco. I gave him a copy of The Skinner to read, which I think he will enjoy quite a bit. He loves monsters every bit as much as you and I do. Hope you saw my bit on The Technician:

http://bookotron.com/agony/news/2010/09-13-10-news.htm#n091510

You are really kicking ass. I’ll let you know what he thinks of the book when next I speak with him.

best,

Rick Kleffel

I’m thinking that Mr Del Toro might already know my name, since he’s involved in that Heavy Metal movie I provided a load of material for, but The Skinner? Wouldn’t that be great…

Oops!

Posted on by Neal Asher
The previous posts concerning earthquakes I wrote on Saturday, then on Sunday at 6.20PM we bloody well got another one. I felt the floor lift slightly under my feet, and again that rumble penetrated right through to my bones. I assured Caroline that lots of mini-quakes in an earthquake area are a good thing, because they’re relieving whatever pressure is building up deep underground – better lots of little ones rather than none for a long time then a big bugger to catch up. She remains unconvinced.

Writing Update

Posted on by Neal Asher

Last week I emailed the edited version of The Departure back to Macmillan and, just ten or so minutes after that, Julie Crisp replied telling me she was already printing the thing up. Next the copy editor will be giving it a going over, I’ll see it once or twice more, and the Macmillan millstones will grind, Jon Sullivan will doubtless do something brilliant, then copies of the book will drop steaming off the presses. August, maybe.

Now I’m back on Zero Point. On beginning to read through what I’d already written, I felt uncomfortable with particular events in it and excised them, tightening up the plotting. I’m still reading through and know that there’s a particular section later on I may well remove. It strikes me as gratuitously violent for its own sake and turns what I think is a particularly well-considered villain into a bit of a parody. Now we all know that I’m not particularly averse to a bit of gratuitous violence, but there’s plenty of that in the book already, and definitely more to come.

The book is at 65,000 words, an extra 1,500 word section recently added to fill in a plot hole even before I reach the end of this read-through. I’m currently wondering about time, distances, radio delays, slingshots, planetary orbits and relativity, and wish I had an Alastair Reynolds on tap. As it is, when I’ve easy access to the Internet, I’ll have to do some of that stuff which in interviews I’ve constantly denied doing: research. Made-up solar systems are easy, but a hell of a lot is already known about our one and I could easily write something that’ll have the anoraks emailing me in protest.