The British Fantasy Society announced the shortlists for their annual awards (the British Fantasy Awards). And I was delighted to find I’ve been included in the list for the Sydney J. Bounds Award, given to a newcomer every year [insert debate about all possible meanings of the word "best" here].

I was even more delighted to see the other names on that list – partly because there are some wonderful books on there, and partly because I’m lucky enough to be able to call a good few of the authors of them friends – particularly Kim Curran, Anne Lyle and Helen Marshall. All three of them are doing very different things – something which extends to the rest of the shortlist, incidentally – but I’d be more than happy for any of them to win. (Of course I won’t win. Don’t be so silly.)

The point is that this is an exciting shortlist. I can’t claim to have read all the books on it – although I certainly will try to – but of the ones I have read, there’s an enormous amount of scope. There’s YA in there (and not crossover YA, either: solid, properly-teenage YA) and there’s historical fiction and there’s SF and there’s literary. And there’s urban fantasy peppered with angels and a fair amount of swearing. Cough. Moving on…

It’s a shortlist I’m immensely proud and honoured to be part of, because it’s completely unpredictable and reflects what’s emerging from writers working in genre right now.

That made me happy.

And then there was this.

Which – I’ll be honest – gave me a funny ringing sort of sound in both ears and made me need a bit of a sit down. It was a shock, let’s put it that way, and I still don’t quite have the words for how I feel. The closest I can get is a sort of “Snnnngggzzztzttp” noise, followed by a high-pitched giggle and needing to sit down again.

I cannot even begin to emphasise how much I won’t win this (because come on. Seriously.) but I will enjoy seeing someone else win it (and I know who I’d like it to be…) because it’s a fantastic party to be invited to.

It’s also a lovely thing to be able to say that the Solaris Books “Magic” Anthology is also on the shortlist for best anthology (and it’s a very tough category this year) and there are appearances by friends throughout the nominations. All in all, it’s an exciting list – and I can’t wait to see what happens.

I should also point out that Blood and Feathers being there at all has everything to do with the members of both the BFS & FantasyCon, who nominated for the shortlists. And it also has to do with the tremendous trust and hard work of my editor, Jon Oliver, and everyone at Solaris. So thank you all. You’ve rendered me speechless(ish) and that’s pretty damn hard to do.

Take it away, Dean…

It was after a Neil Gaiman signing somewhere around 2007 that I wrote “The Cloth of Heaven” – the first proper short story I’d ever done, and the first thing of mine that was published.

And when I say “after a signing”, I mean it fairly literally. I woke up at 7am the next day with the whole story in my head and wrote it longhand, while lying on the first floor landing of our house in London.

It was at that same signing that I really came to understand the real purpose of queuing for an event. I’d been to plenty of gigs which involved queueing (including a Rammstein show in Berlin where the queue wasn’t so much a queue as a random collection of picnics. I’m telling you, that was a queue.) but this was different. I’d got there hours early and was one of the first six or seven people there.

It was cold. It rained. We huddled in the back doorway of Forbidden Planet and talked – at length – about Sandman and about “Neverwhere” and about… all things Neil. At one point, someone appeared from inside the shop and said: “Neil thinks you’re all entirely mad, waiting so long to see him – and he’d like to know if you want a cup of tea?”

And that was the day Neil Gaiman sent me tea. And when I finally got to the front of the queue, I did what I have done a couple of times now and lost the ability to speak (I know. Me. Quiet. Imagine!) and beamed like a lunatic and that was that. He was  lovely; I was daft. So it goes.

It was that queue, though, which meant I was undaunted by the prospect of the lengthy wait after last Friday’s event, run by Toppings & Co of Bath, which saw the very same Neil Gaiman talk for a little while about his new (and apparently entirely unexpected) novel, “The Ocean At The End Of The Lane“, read a little and sign a lot. A LOT.

Three hours after we started queueing, we were still queueing. But more importantly, three afters after he started signing and talking to people and smiling and being lovely… he was still doing it. And this was after pre-signing a teetering pile of books for people who couldn’t wait as long as we did. And on top of a full day of promotional work. And after it, both he and the team from Headline were staring down the barrel of a journey back to London before they could finally get to bed. It’s beyond admirable.

I say “we” there, when I talk about the queue because this time, I had a friend for company. Having met up with several people for drinks beforehand, including Cav Scott, Gav Pugh, Jonathan Howard, Desiree Fischer and Emma Newman, by midnight all but Cav and myself had fallen by the wayside: lured by the siren songs of their spouses or the last train home. In the meantime, Cav and I had come up with what can only be described as a mild hysteria-induced plan.

X-MEN: THE MUSICAL.

Heavy on effects, and a tad light on anything you’d call “plot”, it’ll involve a finale set in ancient Rome, with elephants, Spartans and Wolverine running beneath waves of red silk, shredding them with his claws. Oh, and Magneto with jazz hands. Yes. I’m telling you, it’s got “hit” written all over it. Well. Something that sounds a bit like “hit”, anyway.

And all the while we were mucking around, Neil Gaiman was still signing. And signing. And smiling. And signing.

He even smiled when I asked him to dedicate my book in the most baffling manner imaginable, because I’d had time to think about it.

“The Ocean At The End Of The Lane” is partly about childhood and looking back at it, and I wanted to be able to pass the book on. My son’s not nearly old enough for it – nor will he be for quite some time, and this gave me an idea. I didn’t want to just hand him a copy of it when he’s older – a book by one of my favourite authors, and one he already loves (having heard plenty of his stories from the time he was in a cot…). I wanted it to feel like a thing. Like it was special. And now, thanks to a still-smiling but no doubt exhausted author, it will be, because the book is dedicated not to me, and not to my little boy – but to both of us, to me – and then “and after her” to him. It feels like passing something on. Like the book is more than a book. Like it’s alive. Like it’s a life.

And that’s something worth queueing for.

That, and X-Men: The Musical.

Bleed it Out – Linkin Park

My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark – Fall Out Boy

Iron – Woodkid

In My Remains – Linkin Park

Devil’s Choir – Black Veil Brides

Hell Above – Pierce the Veil

Professional Griefers – Deadmau5 feat. Gerard Way

iLL Manors – Plan B

Titanium – David Guetta feat. Sia

Finale (Original Mix) – Madeon

Edge of the Earth – 30 Seconds to Mars

Unknown Soldier – Breaking Benjamin

21 Guns – Green Day

Like A Dog Chasing Cars – Hans Zimmer

My Body is a Cage – Peter Gabriel

Skyfall – Adele

Jar of Hearts – Christina Perri

First Responder – Michael Wandmacher

Razors.Out – Mike Shinoda & Chino Moreno

P5hng Me A*Way – Linkin Park

As usual, all of these fit somewhere – and some are probably more obvious than others. Feel free to try and figure it out once the book hits (and let me know if you do!)

One hint, though? If Michael & No Man’s Land had a theme, it would undoubtedly be this one…

A quick update: once again, the fantastic Paul (@pablocheesecake / The Eloquent Page) has been kind enough to compile a Spotify playlist of the tracks, because he’s brilliant: you can find it here.

I will never get sick of saying that, I don’t think. My author copies of Rebellion arrived last week, and as I opened the box I wondered whether anyone ever could get tired of the way that feels. All those words, all those hours, all that work (and not just mine: in any book, there’s the writer, there’s editors, copy editors, artists, publishers, PR guys, printers, warehouse guys…).

And suddenly, you’re holding a book. I’ll come back to that.

Anyway. Yes. Launching.

Blood and Feathers: Rebellion is published on July 9th. However, Solaris and Forbidden Planet have been awesome enough (for which read: I’m driving them crazy with the “YAY!” and the “WOOOHOOOO!” and my generally excited demeanour) to arrange a launch event on Thursday 27th June, at the Forbidden Planet Megastore in central London. There’s also a Facebook event page, which you’ll find here.

This means that anyone rocking up to the launch will be able to get a copy well before the actual proper publication day.

Which is on the one hand fantastic, and on the other (for me, at least) terrifying. Because the other lovely thing about the box of author copies is that they’re among the first ones that exist. It’s a kind of grace period, if you like: I get to cuddle my brand-new book without yet having to panic about what everyone else will think of it.

That bit comes later.

And it will come. I’m expecting it any time now, as it happens.

I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe, having done this once, I thought I’d be calmer about it.

No.

(Alright, Dean. Dial it down a notch, yeah?)

I am just as neurotic about the whole thing as I was before. Possibly more so. Because I’ve done this before.

There’s something about being a debut novelist. You’re all shiny and new and untested – and you have no idea what’s coming. All this in itself is worth something, and it’s wonderful. But you only get to do it once. After that, you have to earn it. More than that, you have to convince people that not only was the first thing you did worth their time and money… the next one is too. And the one after it. And the one after that…

Daunting?

Give me a second…

Yes. Daunting.

So your grace period is not only filled with “Ohmygodwillpeoplelikethis?”, it’s now mixed in with a healthy dose of “OhmygodhaveIearnedthis?”.

Of course, not only is there the knuckle-chewing neurosis, there’s the ridiculous excitement.

(No, Dean. There is no pudding.)

Because while Second Book Syndrome is just as nerve-rending – if not more so – than the first time round, you still wrote a damn book. And someone published it, and now it has a spine and pages and a cover. A cover! Someone took your crazy and actually bound it! And then put a pretty picture on the front of it!

And maybe more even than that: you remember.

You remember how it felt when the first book was fresh out there in the world, and the first person told you that they liked it; that they got it. And it was like the best kind of drug.

Am I nervous? Yes. Am I excited? You bet.

Will I ever get tired of doing this, neuroses included?

Never.

I read books – not many, given the timeframe, but 2′s respectable: Dan Brown’s “Inferno” and Julia Wurz’s “SuperEgo” (the latter I enjoyed immensely; set in the world of F1, it’s a sort of Devil Wears Prada, but with wheels instead of heels. Marvellous.) and I went and looked at Stuff.

There was Mont St Michel (which I’ll save for another time, because I have SO many photos. Seriously. All the photos in the world. I don’t think there was a single stone of that place I didn’t point a camera at) which is one of my favourite places in the world. It’s extraordinary, looming up out of the water. Even when it’s packed with tourists (like me) which it inevitably is, it’s an incredible place.

Like I say: ALL the photos… so, another time.

As well as Mont St Michel, I went to the Scriptorial in nearby Avranches – which is a museum dedicated to the medieval manuscripts made by the monks of Mont St Michel. The French Revolution had a not-dissimilar effect to the English Reformation when it came to medieval libraries, but the Scriptorial is a new purpose-built home for the collection.

Only a few of the books – and what books – are on display at any one time, but they’re regularly rotated to ensure their continued survival. There’s something magical about the “Tresor” room where they’re kept: it’s circular, with the cases set around the walls and one in the centre – and almost entirely dark to protect the books, which have their own lighting. It’s also surprisingly noisy: a side-effect of the temperature & humidity control systems for the display cases. I was lucky enough to get in there by myself: just me and a bunch of 800 year old books… (and the fans, obviously). I had a “moment”. I really did.

The rest of the museum is dedicated to both the history of Mont St Michel itself, and the development of the art of manuscripts. There was a huge amount of information on calligraphy, on the materials used and what went into the different inks… everything connected to the creation of a medieval book. It’s an excellent museum, and well worth a visit if you’re ever in the area.

Not a million miles away is Dol de Bretagne, with its cathedral and Mont Dol (where the Archangel Michael is said to have defeated the devil, leaving claw marks across the top of the hill. This whole region is very much Michael’s manor) and Medievalys. Another museum: this one dedicated to the construction of cathedrals, taking the one right next door as its reference point.

One of the best things about this place was its layout: it was designed to follow the “idea” of a cathedral from foundation (the architect’s studio on the lowest level) through to construction (an exhibition on the design and the actual craftsmen involved on the middle floors) through to the symbolism of cathedrals on the top floor, which had frankly terrifyingly detailed descriptions of how to read a stained glass window, and absolutely amazing projections of art onto raked sand. You kind of had to see it. Again, if you’re ever in the region – go. It’s beautifully thought out and put together.

The cathedral of Dol de Bretagne itself is a massive, hulking thing: unusual in that it has a double well (one shaft outside the walls, and one inside, opening in the floor of one of the chapels). It also has a big, big chapel dedicated to the Archangel Michael – as you might expect on his stomping ground.

And – just for a change – there was Alligator Bay. I have no idea why or how this ended up right at the foot of Mont St Michel, but there you go. It houses a lot of snakes and lizards (I discovered, climbing down a ladder between two glass cases of ENORMOUS snakes, that I’m not massively fond of them. Wish I’d known that at the top of the ladder…) and, yes, alligators. Lots of them. Including three albino alligators – of whom there are thought to be only 40 in the world. And who didn’t scare me anywhere near as much as the Mississippi alligators did.

Very big, and not at all like this…

Not even slightly.

Which does kind of make you wonder: are they absolutely sure it was the devil Michael fought on that rock – and not just Louis here out for a stroll…?

I don’t tend to tinker with it too much on an ongoing basis (I don’t want it to get too out of control!) so it’s been fairly quiet over there for a while, but in the next few weeks there will be more stuff popping up – starting with more locations being added to the “world” page and some introductions to some new characters.

I’m also updating the FAQ: it’s pretty basic at the moment, so if there’s anything you want to ask about the characters or the books, then ask away and I’ll do my best to answer it…

Until now.

It appears in this week’s episode of the Tales to Terrify podcast, read by Simon Hildebrandt (the story starts at around the 24:00 minute mark if you want to skip straight to it) – and while I’ve still not entirely got used to the idea of someone reading out my stories – and you know, my actual words – he does an amazing job.

As well as the website. you should be able to get it via iTunes, too: search for the Tales to Terrify podcast and look for episode 71.

It’s the story of a group of friends who wander into their local pub one night for a drink, and find that they’ve got more than a hangover to worry about the next morning.

So if you missed it as part of Pandemonium and you’d like to hear it now (or maybe you’re brave enough to venture back to the Black Dove…) click away… and bottoms up.

If, by the way, you can ever get your hands on one of the limited edition hardcovers, I really do recommend it – and not purely because I was involved in it. There are some incredible stories in there by incredible writers, and you won’t be disappointed.

Why?

Because as well as a signed copy of the first book, I’m giving away the opening chapter of the REBELLION manuscript, marked up with notes and amendments.

This means that you’ll be able to see the changes between the draft I sent to Solaris and the text that will appear in the finished book, giving you an insight into the edits we made – as well as getting a look at the first chapter before anyone else.

Publishing being the modern and new-fangled thing that it is, all my edits are sent through in soft-copy. However, me being the Luddite that I am, I always work in hard-copy, and transfer everything back onto the screen. This does, unfortunately, mean that you’ll be getting pages covered in my scrawl, but hey.

All you have to do is tell me where you think you belong.

I’ll explain…

In the world of BLOOD AND FEATHERS, the angels are divided into choirs. Each choir has their own specific talents and gifts.

Every choir has a part to play in the battle.

Michael’s choir – like the Archangel who leads them – are the elite soldiers. They’re known for their loyalty and their single-mindedness… and the fact they tend to burst into flame. Quick to anger, they’re by far the smallest choir, but are almost certainly the strongest.

Gabriel’s choir are able to control lightning (and, by extension, electricity). They often come across as aloof and detached… but they’re simply considering all their options, and it gives them a distinct advantage when it comes to emotional situations.

Speaking of emotions: next comes Zadkiel’s choir. Able to manipulate memories, thoughts and feelings, they can read your mind – or make you see exactly what they want. It’s a more useful trick than you’d imagine. Or maybe that’s just what they want you to think…

If you’re a gambler, it pays to have Barakiel on your side. His choir are, generally speaking, lucky. This manifests itself in funny ways: some of his choir are always in the right place in the right time, some can influence the outcome of a fight or a hand of poker… some keep getting themselves in a mess. The thing is, they always get out again.

Raphael is a healer. They say time heals everything? They mean “Raphael”. Many of his choir are also healers – and others are empaths. Able to feel what others around them feel – not to alter or influence, like Zadkiel’s choir, but to understand. Sometimes, though, feeling what others feel hurts...

And then there’s the Fallen. The outsiders. The rebels. Dangerous and desperate, how many of them wish they could go back and make different choice – and how many of them like things just the way they are?

See? Easy.

Which choir do you think you would belong to, and why?

I’d love to know!

You can leave a comment on this post, tweet me or mail me. I’ll randomly draw one response this Sunday, May 19th. I’ll also collect all the entries and put them on the blog a bit further down the line – along with my own answer.

Choose your choir.

The REBELLION is coming.

Having gone and nosed around Laura Lam and Stephen Aryan‘s, I thought it’s only fair if I put mine up too. (And if you’re interested, you can even take a look at an agent’s desk, too: Juliet Mushens, who represents both Laura and me, has put up a photoblog of her day – including a desk shot…)

I’ve written in a lot of places – mostly because I’ve lived in 3 different houses in the last 2 and a half years, and stayed in a handful of short-term rentals too. This has led to me not being too picky about my writing setup. In our house in London, I used to write at the dining table in our living room. Then we got stuck in the middle of an awful move, which led to me spending a week or so writing the last third of Blood and Feathers sitting in the window of my parents’ Barbican flat, 13 floors up and looking out over Smithfield and towards St Paul’s cathedral. I also wrote a big chunk sitting on the mezzanine floor of the Barbican centre (interestingly, hell in the book is a labyrinthine complex of levels and stairways. It never occurred to me how closely this fits with how most people find navigating the Barbican…)

We then stayed in a few more places before we moved into our Brighton house: a tall, narrow townhouse by the seafront, spread over 5 storeys. I had a teeny study there, but as it had no insulation and was essentially a little box jutting out of the house, with external walls on 3 sides, it got incredibly cold… so I moved down to our basement kitchen, and that old dining table. And the underfloor heating.

Which brings us to here. I’d planned to work (again) in the kitchen – there must be something about the proximity to the kettle and the fridge which appeals to me – but instead, I’ve annexed the not-quite-big-enough-to-be-a-proper-spare-room bedroom…

This (somewhat dark) photo should give you an idea of my desk. It’s new and tiny and the idea was that I wouldn’t be able to cover the top of it with crap like I used to do my old – much larger – one. As you can see, that plan is working out perfectly.

The “proofin’” sofa. Technically, it’s our spare bed. The rest of the time, it’s where I read – having dislodged the cat, who likes to lie right across the middle of the thing. Because we’ve not decorated the room since we moved in, most of my pictures are still waiting to be hung up, so they sit along the back of the sofa.

There’s a couple of my friend Vinny Chong’s prints (the face is one of my favourites of his. I have a few. It’s a problem, OK?), a photo of Brighton’s West Pier lit up with lasers and a Jefferson Starship LP that my husband found in a charity shop. (It’s an in-joke and you need to have watched a lot of Supernatural to get it. But they’re horrible, and hard to kill.) Frankly, I hate the cover art but it makes me laugh every time I look at it.

My shelves. The narrow ones in the middle are mostly research books, along with some copies of Blood and Feathers, notebooks, playing cards and a tin of Monster Supplies’ Escalating Panic – just in case. If you look carefully, you’ll also see my mother’s teddy bear looking after the graphic novels. Below the printer is Fred. Fred is an antique; part of the anatomy skeleton my father bought while he was in medical school back when they still used real skeletons. I’m told his hand went missing during a medical school drama production – and I think he appeared in the same club’s version of Hamlet. Lucky old Fred.

A slightly less gloomy one of the desk (note the super-glamorous black wrist brace there. I’ve had RSI in my left arm for years, and this has been an absolute lifesaver). The grey crate on the floor is my somewhat-erratic filing system. Basically, if I’m working on it in any way, shape or form, it’s in there. The notice board is all sorts of bits and bobs: mostly drawings my little boy has done. I also have a few photos around. And teetering piles of manuscript pages and notebooks. See how that “small desk” thing’s working out for me?

The view from the desk. It’s one of the best things about the room: we have a huge beech hedge running alongside the house, and I’ve watched the trees go from completely bare when we moved in to… this. On windy days (like today) the leaves make the most incredible sound. The winged mug was a present from Anne Perry and Jared Shurin – the amazing powerhouse behind Pornokitsch, Pandemonium and The Kitschies. The framed dollar on the windowsill is (and this sounds absurd, but there’s a point. I think.) the first money I ever earned from writing. It was for a story that appeared in a tiny little American magazine, and that was the entire payment. $1. But it meant so much to me that I decided to frame it. It felt important. It still does.

So there you go. Where do you work? What do you have around you, and why? Is there one area of your workspace you like the most? Take photos, tell us about your desk, your kitchen table, your office… wherever it is you do what you do. Tell us about the things there that matter to you, and link it back so we can all see and compare notes!

If you want to make cheese, you need a cheese press – but in 19th Century West Wales, not everyone could afford to buy one.

So, what do you do?

You improvise.

What’s big and flat and heavy, and easy to come by if you live in a semi-rural area…?

Yeah. That’d do it.

The full story…

Resurrection cheese is what resulted when, in the 1860s, a townsman of Llanfihangel Abercowyn, in the Carmarthen county of Wales, wanted to make cheese but didn’t have enough money for the proper equipment. He didn’t make a deal with the devil in exchange for a cheese-press; rather, he called upon his resourcefulness, made a trip to the abandoned graveyard in town, and with a few fallen headstones he fashioned his own cheese press.

Farmhouse cheeses were large — sometimes nearly two feet in diameter — and circular; and evidently, able to easily copy the inscription of a headstone. When this townsman sold his cheese at the market, with a clear gravestone inscription, one of his customers exclaimed, “You have resurrected this cheese from Llanfihangel churchyard!” From then on, its “official” name was resurrection cheese.