Month: March 2011

It’s good to talk…

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With a new book forthcoming, a little bit of promotion goes a long way. Stuart, who runs Clinicality Press, suggested we have a chat about From Destinations Set. With the prospect of a couple of free drinks and some free promotional coverage, I wasn’t going to turn the offer down.

The resulting piece, which covers the writing process and the aims of the book, as well as a whole heap of other literary topics and writers who have inspired and influenced Destinations, is an edited, expanded and manipulated historical record of the event. Don’t believe everything you read here.

 

And if you’re loving my work, there’s more of the same (only different) at Christophernosnibor.co.uk.

Performance… But is it Art?

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One of my things is anonymity. Call it a gimmick if you like. I prefer to call it an integral part of the reading experience. Where my writing is concerned, I don’t want the reader’s opinions of the work to be coloured in any way by the kind of judgements my mug gurning all over my Facebook and MySpace page and the back covers of my books may inspire. It’s oft said you should never judge a book by its cover, and similarly, you should never judge a book by the appearance of the author. Being an ‘invisible author’ lends itself well to projects the THE PLAGIARIST. It also helps to allow me total freedom to write without having to worry about anyone coming over to me in the pub and giving me grief about the slating I gave their mate’s band the other week or whatever.

However, I also appreciate that this approach can, at times, prove to be an obstacle to the promotion of my work. Public readings, especially open mic nights, can be extremely useful for getting literature to different audiences. Not everyone uses social networking: not everyone has the same interests listed as I do. There are countless people who are potential readers, but just don’t know that what hey need is my writing, a spot of Clinical Brutality, or whatever.

I’ve done a handful of spoken word evenings in recent months, with varying degrees of success. Even when not performing, I like to attend to listen to what’s out there. Some of it’s extremely good.

The Takeover Festival, currently on at the Theatre Royal in York is holding an open mic night on Thursday, March 17th, and it promises to be good, not least of all because the King Ink guys will be there. Will I be there? Almost certainly. Will I be reading? Quite probably. Might I get someone else to read on my behalf while pretending to be me in order to retain my anonymity and to confuse the hell out of anyone who might have seen me read before? Possibly….

Takeover Open Mic is at 7:30 at the Theatre Royal, York. Tickets are £3, or £2 for performers. For more details, go here: http://www.takeoverfestival.co.uk/index.php/open-mic-night.html

Well I’m Excited…. Inching Closer to My Destination

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The publication of a new book always brings with it a degree of trepidation, nervousness, even anxiety intermingled with the anticipation that can border on excitement. It also means I have work to do: being published by a no-budget publisher run by a couple of guys – albeit very hard-working, enthusiastic guys – in their spare time means the amount of promotion that gets done on my behalf is fairly limited. So an imminent publication date means work for me, raising my profile and making people aware that I have a book due. It’s not something I particularly enjoy doing: I find it difficult. To my mind, it’s too close to cold sales calling, door-to-door campaigning, standing in the street handing out leaflets or holding a banner, i.e. the potential to be an irritant is vast, and there’s a very grave danger that everyone will think you’re a cock. Promoting your own stuff means you can preface ‘cock’ with ‘egotistical’ too.

Still, needs must and while I’m anxious about sale, first and foremost, I’m anxious about reception, specially when it comes to a book like From Destinations Set. There’s every chance that people will find the presentation off-putting, too difficult to contemplate. But then I didn’t really write the book for them: this is a book for readers who want a challenge.

It was with no small amount of joy that I read the first review of the book, by writer Leeza Coleman. She describe the reading experience as ‘intense’ – which is exactly the kind of reaction I was hoping for. Her review is on Facebook, and Clinicality are taking advance orders now. Now roll on the 28th….

 

And if you’re loving my work, there’s more of the same (only different) at Christophernosnibor.co.uk.

Thoughts, Images, Sounds….

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I hadn’t been especially late to bed and had slept reasonably well, at least in comparison to the last two or three weeks. I’m not entirely sure why, but I’ve not been sleeping well lately. However tired I am, however much or little alcohol I consume during the evening, whether I go to be early or late, whether I have to be up or not, I’ve been waking up consistently a little before five in the morning. Once awake, I lie wondering how long it is before the alarm (the clock isn’t on my side of the bed, and the hands on my old, second-hand, wind-up watch are not luminous). I’m always aware that I’ve been dreaming long and hard, but can never recall any of the details, and more often than not, even the main body of the dream evaporates on waking. All I know is that my mind has been working overtime and I’m even more exhausted on waking than when I turn out the light – or leave it on, along with the television or radio in an attempt to create a background hum that will induce rest. And while Mrs N sleeps soundly through everything, nothing works for me.

So once again I awoke before the alarm and lay, semi-comatose and half-paralysed, too awake to return to sleep, to dopey to get up and commence any kind of constructive activity. It’s a little like anaesthesia, or how I imagine a Ketamine trip to feel. I haul myself out of bed and make myself ready without breaking free of my zombified state.

I open the front door. It’s light, despite being a minute before 7am. The street is bright and empty. I feel on the one hand that Spring really is just around the corner. On the other hand, it’s cold and silent and I feel as though the end of the world is nigh, or, worse still, that the world ended in the night and I am alone in this disconsolate, pot-apocalyptic northern city. Actually, would that really be worse?

Shunning thoughts of the 2012 prophecy to the back of my mind and plugging myself into my MP3 player – not a slick iPod with infinite capacity, but a 2-Gig Alba purchased 3 years ago from Netto – I head townwards with The Psychedelic Furs’ eponymous debut in my ears.

Walking onwards, ever onwards, and encountering no other pedestian and only a handful of cyclists who speed past me, I kept my eyes open and absorb whatever presents itself. I inhaled deeply and drank in the cool morning, my senses unravelling and my receptors slowly coming to life. The air was cold and clear, the ground dry, a frost on the roofs glinting against the clear sky. A mist hung over the Ouse. The water level was relatively low and the water still save for the occasional ripple of rising fish. Lendal Bridge was reflected almost perfectly, the infrequent cars crossing the bridge also crossing in them inverted version on the water below.

The bus is on time. I take a seat and pull my copy of Chuck Palahniuk’s Diary from my bag. I’ve only been reading it for the last three days (and I only get to read in small chunks) but I’m already 30 pages in. The best thing about the bus part of the journey is that I’ve recently discovered that I can read on busses without becoming travel-sick. Two stops on and I’m compressed into half of my seat as some gargantuan, lumbering, fantasy-novel-reading behemoth had parked herself beside me. Her massive bulk occupies a full seat and a half and she’s still hanging into the aisle, her Kindle e-book reader looking like a PDA in proportion to her colossal, hulking frame. She smells, too. I feel nauseous, but fight the gag reflex in favour of soaking in the details of her pungent wet do aroma, her plum-coloured quilted coat, like a giant slippery sleeping bag. I can hear her wheezing even over the sound of ‘Flowers’. It’s painful, awkward and uncomfortable, but I remind myself, ‘this is research’.

For once, I am relieved to arrive at work.

And if you’re loving my work, there’s more of the same (only different) at Christophernosnibor.co.uk

Things That the Everyday Folk Leave Behind

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So I’ve had a pretty busy time of late, what with a couple of interviews I’ve conducted and am conducting for various publications, not to mention interviews and promo bits and pieces for From Destinations Set which is out on the 28th, and a spate of gigs and a tidal wave of new releases to review (90 reviews this year to date), and as a consequence, the blog’s something I’ve let slide a bit (again).

With so much to do, places to go and people to see, I find I spend all of my waking hours rushing about, and my non-waking hours spent with my mind churning through all of the things I’ve done and have got to do and should have done but haven’t yet. To an extent, that’s pretty normal for me, but lately I’ve been so preoccupied and absorbed in all of this activity that I noticed that I’ve stopped noticing things. This concerns me. I’ve always maintained that being attuned to one’s surroundings is the key to being a writer of merit (and while my merits as a writer won’t ultimately be determined by me, it’s something I like to feel I at least aspire to). Besides, it’s not something that’s entirely optional: drawing on the details and minutia of the everyday is a compulsion, it’s something I can’t help, at least under normal circumstances. Observation, those details of life and snippets of overheard dialogue have long provided me with an abundance of material for my writing, be it fiction or blogs or whatever, Absorbing information from the world around me is integral not only to my work, but who I am. Small wonder I was beginning to feel that the workload was swallowing my life: I was beginning to lose myself.

As a consequence, I resolved to pull myself back to life, and I’ve begun to try to observe my surroundings again. I have no idea why I was remotely surprised by the sensory overload this retuning induced, given that I find the wealth of extraneous information dizzying the majority of the time, but having effectively shut down for a period of time, engaging once again with my environment proved to be an immediate culture shock.

So on leaving the house this morning, I was elated to note that day was breaking. It was the first time in months I had hit the pavement in daylight. The air was cold but still. Birds were singing – something quite uncommon given the density of the housing, the lack of gardens and trees and the large number of brutal cats in the neighbourhood. On arrival at the bus stop, I was amused – and also bemused – to see that on one of the seats moulded into the shelter was a handbag. Abandoned, forgotten. Beside the handbag, stretched and strewn across the next two seats, a pair of tights. I wondered if the tights and bag had the same (former) owner. Must’ve been one hell of a night.

It’s not just physical objects that are discarded at random. Conversations, sounds, ideas, all contribute to the flotsam and jetsam. Before long, I’m on the bus, surrounded by blank individuals. The journey is soundtracked by the album The Disaster of Imagination by Sense of Scenery. It doesn’t entirely drown the chatter of the other passengers. I’m reading $20,000 by Bill Drummond. The sensory overload I’m accustomed to is back. Snippets of dialogue filter into my consciousness, on the bus, at the office. Most of it mere babble, some of it so inane it’s beyond belief. ‘Is she still Spanish?’

I’m being flooded with material, more material in a day than I can use in a lifetime. I pick them all up, all of the bits and pieces, and stow them, ready for when I need them. I never know when I might need that discarded handbag, the left-behind tights, the fragments of dialogue, the half light and the birdsong. I’m living the experience that I was supposed to be creating to an amplified degree in THE PLAGIARIST. It’s not funny any more. This is the world.

I’m back and I’m firing on all cylinders….

And if you’re loving my work, there’s more of the same (only different) at Christophernosnibor.co.uk