Our new dog Cassie. I told you about her in the last update. She's a beauty: smart, great to have around and like a shooting star if she sees a rabbit across a ploughed field. But she's an arch sniffer. And I can't seem to get her to stop. Now all dogs tend to be somewhat embarrassing with that canine propensity to sniff the genital area. No visitor to the house goes unchecked. But Cassie goes a bit further, in that she's rather too interested in the rear end of any passing homo sapiens. That is to say, she likes to get in behind anyone who comes into the house and get her nose right up there.
I don't mean a gentle sniff, either. It's a real bunt up the backside that she goes in for. It reminds me of a wine tasting course I once went on, where the instructor kept exhorting everyone to lift up the glass and "go on, get your nose right in there before you take a sip". It was like his catch phrase. "get it right in there." And now my dog has decided she is a connoisseur of the human posterior as she seeks to get it right in there for everyone who comes to the house.
I'm collecting different noises/expletives that come out from various surprised individuals. "Hoi!" is the most common male protest across the social classes, closely followed by "Whop!" from mainly middle-class women and "Na-ha!" from small children. I took Cassie down to see Chairman Bill in Keresley - who is doing well thank you all - and my dad's response to Cassie's research around his own fundament was "Chup! Hat!" I offer no deconstruction of these varied and wistful expletives, though I think there is a study to be done.
Anyway one day one of those blokes in an official blue coat came round to read the electricity meter, which in our old house is located in a tiny and somewhat inaccessible cupboard under the stairs. To get a look at the dials (and they seem to spin alarmingly fast and with luxurious consumption in the Joyce household) you have to get down on your hands and knees. Cassie was out in the garden when the man from the power supplier arrived so he didn't even know I had a dog. He was hunkered down on his knees, arse in the air, shining his torch into the spidery cupboard when Cassie trotted in and decided to investigate the proffered prize. 'Ha! Fresh new arse! Haven't sniffed this one before!" And before I could stop her she'd given him a vigorous bunt up the bum.
'Chup!' went the meter-reader, just like my dad! Same dialect and everything! I didn't know if he also said 'Hat!' because whatever he did say was muffled by the huge thump as he leapt up and hit his head on the underside of the stairs. He swore, and the dog immediately ran out of the house. The meter man backed out of the cupboard, one hand on his head and one hand on his arse. He gave me an old fashioned look like I was the one who did this thing.
'Sorry,' I said. 'but it was the dog.'
He looked around the hall. No dog. Not even any sign of any dog. No bones. No dog basket. Nothing.
'Honestly, it was the dog.'
I still don't think he believed me.
Never mind dog stories, publishing news, this is what we want. I know how many of you there are out there slavering to know when my next book is coming out. I know how it gnaws at your heart. Well we have some dates and we have some titles. Quiet a few actually. You might need a notebook and pen.
The title for my next novel will be different depending on whether you buy it in the UK or the US. If you buy it from the net, well, you'll be rewarded with the fabulous choice of whichever title you prefer, won't you? In the UK the preferred title isMemoirs Of A Master Forger, which I rather like. In the US the title will be How To Make Friends With Demons, which I also rather like. There. I'm sure you've made up your mind already, which shows you that you are a more decisive person than I am. The UK version will be published in October, and the US version, panting at its heels, sniffing its butt, as it were, will be in November. Perfect for Christmas presents I say. I'm thinking about an alternative title for Australia since I have so many new friends in Oz. Perhaps Never Blow Down The Dunny NowThey Use That Environment-friendly Sawdust. Maybe not.Better suggestions on a post-card please.
You want to know what it's about. Okay, so you're only reading this because you know something about my writing; so you already know that it won't be much like the last one, or like the one before that. I promise you, if I could be more consistent, more predictable, more branded an author, I would be. I don't do it out of cussedness. The books just keep on coming out of the bread oven different. From a marketing point of view it's a disaster I suppose. Luckily for me I have editors who believe in what I do enough to find a space on their publishing schedules, and as a writer you can't ask for more than that.
You probably guessed from the above waffle that I have no intention of telling you what it's about. Though if anyone readsThe Paris Review, there is in the latest edition (Number 83 Winter edition) a chapter from the novel that reads as a stand-alone story. But even though you should abandon the cow to calf and the baby to cry to rush out and purchase The Paris Review, it will mislead you somewhat, because it doesn't exactly reflect the novel itself.
Then there is my next YA novel, with the charming and witty, I think, title of Three Ways To Snog An Alien, which will be out in June. Titles titles titles. There is so often a transatlantic dissonance in the choice of titles that I often pause to think about the significance of the fact, but without ever reaching any intelligent conclusion. Anyway, what was in the UK Do The Creepy Thing will be out in the US, also in June, as The Exchange.
Film developments update. The Tooth Fairy option has lapsed, so nothing happening there. A shame cos we have a really good script. So the option is for sale all over again. Incidentally, yet another movies called The Tooth fairy is scheduled for production this year, starring wrestler The Rock. This dismays me somewhat if only because I'll have to spend the next three years saying, 'No, it's nothing to do with my book,' just as had to for the awful Darkness Falls and the equally crap British TF comedy. Duh. As for the French production of Dreamside I'm somewhat more hopeful, since the option was renewed and the producer/director's (Eric Barbier) most recent movie The Snake/Le Serpent has been well received. Beyond that I know nothing.
Last month I was summoned back to my old alma mater when Derby University decided to award me an Honorary Master Of Letters in recognition of my work, for which I was very touched. Chorus please of There's posh! It was a great day and the graduation ceremony for all the degree students was a very joyful one. I got to meet Roy Wood, who was being similarly honoured for his achievements in music. Roy Wood is one of the truly great British pop songwriters and is the inspiration behind 60s band The Move who gave us great songs like Blackberry Way and I Can Hear The Grass Grow, not to mentionNight Of Fear. He then went on to form ELO and Wizard and many other musical formulations in a long and accomplished career. Suzanne and I got to have dinner with several representatives from Derby University, Roy and his daughter Hollie and other Honorands (as we were titled). And what a fabulous bunch of people they all turned out to be.
But it was odd for me, and stirring, to go back to the place where I went to college (it was called Bishop Lonsdale College before it became Derby University) but in this other capacity. I got to say a few words to the graduating students and all their proud mums and dads, and it all brought back many warm memories. There is a gang of my old student buddies whom I still see on a regular basis, but the visit was made more strangely contoured by the fact that I've just used my old college setting for part of the book mentioned above, Memoirs Of A Master Forger/How To Make Friends With Demons.
Different times. There were no university tuition fees. There were more grants around. Students didn't take out bank loans to enable them to study, and very few students started their post-college careers deep in debt. I don't know that I valued my education any less just because I didn't have to pay for it. But, unforgivably, I never thanked any of my tutors formally when I left, and I should have done. Going back to speak at the degree ceremony gave me a chance to put that right, even though my thank-you was thirty years late in arriving. I was also able to say that - three decades on - I can still repeat almost word for word small chunks of some thrilling lectures.
Education education education. Tony Blair's empty slogan. Well, he didn't mean it, but plenty of people in Derby do.
Finally I want to recommend a lunatic blog I'm quite enjoying. He keeps ranting about his creative writing teacher, whom I identify with somewhat. It's quite good for learning about wine, too: http://butforthegrape.livejournal.com/
