Nice Things

Look what the nice postman delivered to me today.

Most people who know me realise that I'm not an awards kind of guy. In the past, I've heard people say that the only people who don't care about awards are those who don't win them, and, to be frank, I think that's utter bullshit. I don't write for awards, or to have my back slapped. I write because I must. It's who I am, what I do to survive in this insane world. I'd write even if nobody published me. I used to, in fact - back when I couldn't get a book deal even if I'd have threatened a publisher with a shotgun.

I do, however, understand that recognition from one's peers is gratifying on several levels, so when I won two of the brand new This is Horror Awards my initial sense of embarassment at being targeted for attention turned quickly into genuine gratitude. It would be churlish - and fucking self-centred - of me to say that receiving the above through the mail didn't make me smile and make me happy. It means that somebody somewhere gives a fuck about what I do, and in my opinion that's always worth celebrating.

So, thank you. Whoever voted for me, whoever sat down and read, and was moved by, my work. Thank you. Let's do it again next time.

I'd also like to take a moment to say that I hope these awards - just in their infancy - go on to become a permanent, and respected, part of the genre landscape. Michael Wilson and his This is Horror team are doing great things and trying so very fucking hard to promote a genre that's often misunderstood, always underestimated, and sometimes even purposefully disrespected by the mainstream.

More power to Michael, then. You'll be hearing a lot more from this talented guy in the future.

Musing

Don't just sit there and wait for inspiration to come and find you. Hunt the fucker down and bludgeon it into submission, like the wild pig it is.

                                                                                                     - Me, 2012

On Pushing

This year I'm taking on a task that feels like it might be impossible. Or at least improbable.

I'm working on two novels simultaneously, and I hope to get a presentable draft of each done by May. That's four and a half months. Not a long time, by any stretch of the imagination.

The first novel is Beyond Here Lies Nothing, which is the third novel in my Concrete Grove series for Solaris. I've already made a good start on this and have outlined quite a few chapters ahead. This one I'm calling my Weeknight Book, because that's when I work on it; week nights.

The second book is The Quiet Room, which is an expansion of my acclaimed novella What They Hear in the Dark. This is my Weekend Book, because...well, you get the idea. I've done less on this one so far, but it's slowly starting to take shape.

I'm doing this because I want 2012 to be my year. I've put in a lot of work over the last four or five years to get where I am, and now I have to move up a gear if I want to make the most of the momentum I've managed to build. I'm swimming in the same waters as full-time writers, so I need to be proffesional and make my time count, I need to keep on pushing. Because ultimately that's all we can do in this life: push.

And I'd hate to get to the end of mine and think that I could've pushed just that little bit harder if only I'd tried...

Novella

My second piece of good news for the day is that I've finally finished the first draft of my new novella, Reaping the Dark. I started this at the back end of last year and wanted to get it finished before New Year. Sadly, that didn't quite happen - but since when did these things ever go to plan?

This one's been commissioned by a publisher. I can't say too much about it yet - no contracts have been signed, and the publisher hasn't even seen the manusript - but I'm hoping that, all going well, this one might also see a 2012 release. Maybe near the end of the year, just in time for Christmas.

When I set out to write this story, the tone I had in mind was as if James Sallis had written a supernatural horror story. I hope I've managed to nail it, but even if the finished piece is slightly different to what I initially intended, I'm very proud of what I've created.

Anyway, here's a little teaser in the form of a possible back cover blurb:

A stoic getaway driver… 

A drugs raid that ends in bloodshed… 

A criminal hell-bent on revenge… 

A secret order of occultists… 

And a creature summoned from the darkest depths of nightmare… 

Who will survive this long, dark night, and how will it change them? And what manner of being will be born from the chaos left behind? 

If the old adage is true and we reap what we sow, then only evil can be unleashed by

Reaping the Dark

New Short Story Collection Due In 2012

Coming in 2012 from Dark Regions Press

The sound of shuffling footsteps across the old cell floor…

A soft voice like a strange tune echoing along the empty corridors…

Dim lights in the windows of the abandoned asylum…

Discarded case files that flip open to reveal the dreams of broken minds…

Welcome to a place where the boundaries of fact and fiction meet.

Acclaimed author Gary McMahon raids the archives of a notorious derelict mental asylum called the Daleside Institute to bring you stories of madness, horror and emotional trauma. In locations as diverse as suburban Germany, the London Underground, an Italian seaside resort and the inhospitable polar icecap, you will meet damaged people with broken lives. Here are terrifying accounts of love, hate, death and madness…

These are the Tales of the Weak and the Wounded


.

The Wind

I know from speaking to the staff at my son's before-and-after school club that young children get agitated when the wind blows. The staff live in terror of windy days; they say that the kids start climbing the walls. Animals are bothered by the wind, too. Cats and dogs go slightly crazy during blustery weather.

I live in a big old Victorian house. It stretches over four floors, including the converted roof space and the cellar. This week the wind has been insane. It's been blowing a hooligan. This evening I discovered that the wind is so strong it's been blowing sheets of rain against the front of the house, and the rain has been sluicing down the brickwork, pouring off the stone window sill and flooding into the cellar, causing water to pool on the floor. Something else that's going to need fixing in spring, along with the dodgy electrics and the leaky roof.

But the wind has a strange effect on me, too. Rather than wind me up, like those young kids and house pets, it often brings on a bout of my depression. I sit downstairs late at night and I listen to the walls and the windows being battered by the gales, and I hear the wind groaning and whistling through the gaps around the old wooden front door. Wheelybins are blown along the street. The telephone wires whip and thrum in the air between the houses. It terrifies my eight year-old son - tonight, he's sleeping in with us, for comfort - but it doesn't scare me. It makes me feel lost and empty, like sad music.

Maybe I'm scared that the wind will get inside the house and blow me away? Or that it'll get inside me. Sometimes I think that might be a good thing. It might lift me up and take me somewhere different, where the wind is a mournful goddess and the weather is always crazy...a place where anything can happen.

New year; same story

So that was 2011? Weird old year, wasn't it? Let's see if 2012 can be even weirder...and, you know what - I bet it is.

I had a few high points last year along with several low points, but the best thing that happened regarding my writing was the publication of my novels Dead Bad Things and The Concrete Grove. The former seems to have slipped under a few people's radars (unless I missed the raft of reviews it generated), but the latter seemed to catch a lot of attention.

In 2012 I have several projects to work on. Regarding novels, I have a May deadline for Beyond Here Lies Nothing (the third Concrete Grove Novel) and no doubt there'll be proofs and copy edits to handle for Silent Voices (the second Concrete Grove novel) prior to its publication in the spring/summer. I'm also working on a novel for my agent to sell - The Quiet Room, which is an expansion of my highly acclaimed story What They Hear in the Dark which was published last year as a limited edition chapbook by Spectral Press.

I  also have a major new short story collection coming out later this year titled Tales of the Weak & the Wounded (more news on this one soon) and have been working hard over Christmas to finish a crime/occult novella for the same U.S. publisher.

Other odds and sods include potentially a short film of one of my stories and several short fiction appearances.

All in all, it looks like I'll be busier than ever this year...

To finish, here's a photo of my favourite gifts from Santa this year.