Generating worlds, exploring them, losing the thread.
Jack Shackaway here.
Not long ago I posted an account of a recent encounter with fine wine and free food. But the starving writer’s life is no incessant five-star carouse with mince tarts and Shiraz on all sides. Far from it.
Here it is some time in the morning, I haven’t even had breakfast, and Mad the Maid has just puked all over my balcony. She went out there to clean it for the first time since this building was … Read more
Jack Shackaway here.
The financial sky is falling. (So what’s new, eh? See here and here.). China’s economy is stumbling, the world’s share markets are tanking, and here in Bangkok anonymous malcontents have been bombing public places. Never mind. Starving writers are shielded from stock market crashes, at least, a regular feature of this life you don’t even notice if you have a pot to piss in but that’s about all.
Still, life can be good, and wine tastings … Read more
Jack Shackaway here.
I’m free. A freelance writer. A free spirit. You name it. Currently a bachelor.
So why don’t I feel better? Where’s the lift of adventure, the sense of new horizons?
In my experience, the advantages of living alone are generally clearer when you’re living with somebody. (And vice versa.) Meanwhile I recognise another unfortunate fact of nature: Money serves in much the same way a shiny new Johnson Weedless Silver Spoon does when you’re fixin’ to catch … Read more
Jack Shackaway here. I’m worried about Collin. Take a look at this e-mail:
… Read moreYo, Jack.
One of the UK publishers I most respect has just declined my 180,000-word science fiction novel, saying how much they like the writing and world-building, and how they understand and admire the structure, but for some indefinable reason they haven’t “fallen in love” with it. So we turn to other ways of generating an income from writing.
I’m thinking I’ll run this classified ad in
Jack Shackaway here. Of Kicking Dogs fame.
It’s true, as Collin says (here and here). Nearly everybody’s a writer these days. And — given all the media interest in current publishing-industry convulsions — the few who aren’t writers are experts on publishing and books.
I used to tell people I was a novelist. I don’t anymore. That’s as interesting to your average citizen as saying “Every night I go to sleep.” Who isn’t writing a novel?
But if … Read more
In the last two posts, we’ve seen how tobacco smokers and anthropogenic climate-change deniers demonstrate a similar psychology.
Jack Shackaway now looks at a third such group — those, including himself, who take motorcycle taxis in Bangkok. Jack offers this as a follow-up to both my “How I quit smoking” and my “Immortality for Joe Atheist” posts.
He claims the following sketch has been sitting on his computer since back in a time (or a … Read more
What have tilefish and superyacht owners got in common?
Collin posed this question at the end of his last post, “Pharaonic fish and flash fatcats.” And now he has invited me, Jack Shackaway, who remains unbound by considerations of political correctness, to explain.
The following passages are from a novel in progress starring yours truly — even written by yours truly though Collin will no doubt try to claim otherwise. The book is a work of … Read more
A French edition of Bangkok Noir is due out from Editions GOPE in May or June 2012.
12 nouvelles de John Burdett, Christopher G. Moore, Colin Cotterill, Stephen Leather, Pico Iyer, Timothy Hallinan, Dean Barrett, Eric Stone, Tew Bunnag, Alex Kerr, Vasit Dejkunjorn, Collin Piprell.
Plagiarism has become more tempting and easier, perhaps, in this digital age. The danger of being found out may also be greater.
Here’s a copy of the letter I e-mailed a week ago to The Tribune, New Delhi (I’ve yet to hear from either the newspaper or the writer):
… Read moreDear Editors,
I must inform you that more than half of Uma Vasudeva’s review of C.Y. Gopinath’s The Books of Answers (The Tribune, New Delhi, 7 August 2011)
Jack Shackaway not only accuses me of plagiarism, never mind he’s a squatter on this site, he has asked whether I’d post the following item for him.
Thirteen years ago, South Park writers saw clearly into the future
Check out the 20 August 1997 episode where Cartman crosses Emerson’s name off a copy of Walden, substitutes his own, submits it to a “Save Our Fragile Planet” essay contest, and wins. The reactions of everyone from Cartman himself to … Read more