Chart / December

Has writing become a pastime of the rich once more? I earn okay, but I’m still feeling the cost of living crisis (especially here in Greece, where electricity and food prices are some of the highest in Europe) to the extent where I simply can’t write every day anymore. Where once I would turn down paying work to write my own fiction/non-fiction, my personal writing is now the first thing I jettison if it means I can score a few extra pennies for the bruised-but-not-yet-out bank account. Yesterday I read that Kate Nash has set up an OnlyFans account to earn money from risqué pics just so she can cover the costs of going on tour. Sure, I’m not going to do that (yet), but it kind of shows how low art’s standing is in the grand scheme of things. I need to eat and pay rent, and, as much as I wish otherwise, I won’t be doing that by spending a couple of hours writing about a man wilfully turning himself, piece by guresome piece, into a car in a vacant multi-storey.

So where does this leave me? No updates on this website for more than four months. An essay in Quillkeepers Press accepted and then cancelled because the press ran out of money. Barely two novels written in two years, neither of which are past the first draft stage. No other short works submitted because many publications are now charging upwards of $15 or $20 PER SUBMISSION just to keep the lights on (I think). When I started all this in 2015, it was by no means an easy landscape to navigate, but now it’s just relentlessly depressing. I’ve now finally reached the stage where I write only as a form of therapy for myself, rather than out of any sincerely-held belief that I might be published in a meaningful way. Yes, my current publisher would probably put out any of the novels I have stored on my hard drive (Meking Lights, The Distance, the one I wrote last year if I put my nose to the grindstone), but my question is: What’s the point? Fighting for scraps and having to spend thousands on promotion just to secure said scraps isn’t fun.

No, when it comes down to deciding between not paying bills and maybe, maybe getting a week in the sun with the latest publication, it’s time to give up those lofty goals of changing people’s lives through writing. The outcomes of the process are now for me and me alone. I still have endless ideas and energy and inspiration, but I need to eat and pay bills, and this has to come first.

Still, I’ll start posting here more regularly again. And if I find any (close to) freebie submissions, I have many, many essays ready to fire out the word cannon and into the inboxes of publications that’ll fold six months from now due to lack of funding.

One small piece of publication news: Some project that I contributed to a billion years ago has now finally been published. Titled 42 Stories Anthology Presents: Book of 42², my story is called ‘Caution: Maintain Your Biodome Regularly’, possibly in an homage to Philip K. Dick, and it is a grand total of 42 words in length.

Also: Finally finished the ghostwriting/translation project commissioned by a well-known composer. Proud moment pour le petit vieux. If it ever gets a wider release, you can be sure I’ll be slapping it up here faster than the rainwater flows down Athens’ ancient, drainless streets.

Throw all your musics into a bowl and swirl them around:

1 Kelly Lee Owens - Dreamstate

2 Red Axes - Some Lights

3 Satori, Unders - Syria

4 Tirzah - No Limit

5 Eartheater - Supersoaker

6 Tommy Richman - Messy

doonstairs.

Chart / January

NEWSFLASH: I’m back.

It’s been a while since I did one of these….September, in fact. The reasons are myriad: I relocated to Athens, Pacific State needed a promotin’ (number #1 for cyberpunk in the USA last week!), and I have a few projects keeping me busy. Two days ago I wrote the last line of a neo-Western thriller I’ve been working on for a year. Perfect timing, because from mid-February I’ll be in residence at JOYA: AiR, a not-for-profit, carbon-positive arts residency supporting artistic projects “at the intersection between creativity and the environment”. My residency will last for three weeks, during which I hope to sketch out the structure for a new masculinity and climate-focused novel and write the first chapter.

Book of the month: Hyperion by Dan Simmons. I’d been aware of this book for many years, but I’d never actually paid it much attention beyond the gnarly cover art. For some reason, I’d assumed it was written in the 1960s. WRONG. It’s a mashup of Conrad, Gibson and Homer. And it’s fantastic. Not since the Three-Body Problem have I read science fiction so rich, with 10+ fully fleshed characters all with their own incredibly well-constructed stories. The world-building is flawless, the language varied and the dissection of religion compelling.

Film of the month:

In November Criterion put up a selection of ‘end of the world’ films, with some of the usual suspects including Mad Max, Threads and Escape From New York. I’m still working my way through the titles I’ve never heard of. Two I did watch were Dead End Drive-In and Night Of The Comet. Both distinctly B-movie, both rough around the edges, both with dodgy pacing, paper-thin characters and editing choices (Night has a pivotal scene where most of the world is turned into red dust by a comet passing overhead…all we see of this catastrophe is one woman closing her eyes and uttering a bored ‘oh’). The saving grace: the sets, costume design and cinematography (particular for Drive-In). Wow. Neon-soaked cities, orange horizons, bloodied skies. It more than makes up for dialogue like “Yeaaaah my name’s Crabsy, because people thought I had crabs, But I don’t”. That’s the protagonist saying it. Our hero. The guy we want to believe in.

Buena Vista Music Club:

1 The Beaches - Blame Brett

2 Phoebe Bridgers - Scott Street

3 sign crushes motorist - theres this girl

4 Pinegrove - Need 2

5 flyingfish - wonder if u care

6 Soap&Skin - Me and the Devil

remember where we’re parked

My Favorite Bit with Mary Robinette Kowal + Pacific State reviews

Pacific State, my second novel in the Sundown Cycle, is up and running, and it seems to be quite the hit among reviewers both of the print persuasian and the garden variety. Foreword Magazine was effusive in its praise and rating (5/5), stating:

the book excels at worldbuilding, dropping evocative hints at the full scope of its dystopia. It’s peppered with slang references to foodstuffs, new technology, and organized crime that pique interest in its wider world. It mixes oracular pronouncements with striking descriptions in prose that is stylish and sometimes beautiful, as when a building is described as having a “dreadnought silhouette” that creates “a negative space in an overcast sky,” or with notes about “sodium-lit streets” and a “spit-shined moon hung up on display.”

Then we have reviewers such as The Dragon’s Cache (nice), who picked up on all kinds of throwaway world-building elements, which I find wonderful, ultimately declaring that “Price…decries our casual disregard for climate change, reminds us of the dangers of unrestrained commerce, and argues that risking our lives to stamp out cruelty can be a noble cause.”

Another fun one is Pagefarer, who sums up what we’re all thinking by writing, “It’s a great book. It’s tightly written, full of believable and three-dimensional characters, and the worldbuilding is excellent.”

Also, a special shoutout to….this cool guy for describing the novel as follows: “it's like Gibson and Stephenson had a brainchild and it's all chromed up in neon and existential dread.” Very nice indeed.

ELSEWHERE…

I wrote a short article for the website of Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Mary Robinette Kowal about my favourite aspect of Pacific State. This is my second appearance on the site, with my first entry waxing lyrical on the use of flashbacks in everyone’s plucky post-apoc champ, By the Feet of Men. This time around, I’m in a more linguistic mood as I discuss a shorthand, corporate-only language I conceived for the novel called Whicolla. As always, I tie it into the climate crisis, because we’re still sleepwalking to our collective doom.

Read the full article right here.