Project PALINDROME
Famine has given way to feast, funk has yielded to frenzy. We are now moving at a breakneck pace, with the first draft of my second episode due at the end o' the month & the first draft of my third & final issue due at the end o' June. The first draft of my first issue was so long & so often delayed by the temporary ascendancy of the Dark Bastard that my sincere hope is to have both of the remaining first drafts in early, recalling an old swim team mantra: "To be early is to be on time. To be on time is to be late. To be late is to be dead." Of course, once all the first drafts are completed then we face the far more daunting task of reconciling all the disparities betwixt them so that the PALINDROME story forms a cohesive whole, then working to give each character a distinctive & consistent voice, & then going through additional draft after additional draft to make the story as good as we are able. But such is the chosen lot of the aspiring writer; please do not think I am whining, this is just my way of summing up the steps ahead. Onward, ho!

Grow or die.

The Queue
What will actually follow XPD is a mystery. No, not a mystery novel—well, possibly a mystery novel—but in this case I mean a mystery, something unknown. If Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy goes well there could be more le Carré in the pipeline; if XPD demonstrates Len Deighton's worth goes beyond Bernard Samson, I'd like to read his alternate history novel SS-GB. Plus, at some point I should get around to the *ugh* Star Wars Expanded Universe novel Ska Army gifted me. I am an avid fan of the television series Castle & adore that the tie-in novels are not simply further adventures of the show's protagonists, Kate Beckett & Rick Castle, but purport to be Castle's novels based on his time shadowing Beckett. Delightfully absurd, that.

Recently
Len Deighton, Hope
Len Deighton, Charity
Steve Matchett, The Mechanic's Tale: Life in the Pit-lanes of Formula One

Currently
Karen E. Olson, Driven to Ink

Presently
John le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Solder, Spy
Len Deighton, XPD
"Richard Castle," Heat Wave

The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day
The Asteroids Galaxy Tour, "The Golden Age" via iTunes (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: "The Golden Age" was first heard in a highly amusing Heineken ad., to which I shall now provide the hyperlink: commercelink. As a dedicated capitalist I find advertising as valid an avenue or creative expression as any other. Here are two lengthier cuts of the same advert.: longerlink & longer yetlink.

Dienstag, 3 Mai
6 Day Riot, "Run For Your Life" via iTunes (T.L.A.M.)