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Ninth Art has a new suit. It is sharp, and well tailored. Go look.

It’s a rotten, menacing sky outside my window right now. Suits me. I’ve been feeling drawn out and tired for the last couple of months. Disconnected. Last night was prime example: saw X2 at the cinema. Everyone else came out going “Wow! Cool!” I left going “Yeah, OK, that was fun. Can I get on with something exciting now?” I’m going to go and see it again at some point, in the hope it’ll grab me better.

Except that I don’t seem to know what exciting is, lately. My enthusiasm is shot. I can’t muster up any fire, any passion. This, I’m sure, is the root of the problems I’ve been having with writing – there’s nothing in my gut that’s pushing it forward. This was brought home to me last night, reading Warren Ellis’ Orbiter on the tube home – this is a book he obviously gave a fuck about, writing it. There’s passion in it. It’s the best thing I’ve read from him since early Transmet. (I’m glad of this, because it’s a hardcover and cost me the best part of 20 quid, but it’s fucking lovely throughout.)

My own work’s been lacking in it for months. I stalled out last year, and by the time I was writing again, the fire just wasn’t there. This time last year I was sorting out the last bits of SIx Strings, a coming about wanting to achieve – about drive and ambition, and the things we throw away for it. I wrote Six Strings with a bellyful of coffee and a headful of booze, and I think it shows. It creaks in places, but there’s a drive in it that I like. Passion. A year later, nothing. A struggle to find the spine of a short story, and the scratchiest of notes toward something new that’s still not even got a shape.

Eh. I’ll get through it, but for the moment, it’s really, really frustrating.

Lifted from Fiona, among others, and as per, don’t take it too serious. Describe myself using songs from only one band. Fiona used Birthday Party, but I think I’m better off with the Bad Seeds stuff…

Are you male or female? Long Time Man.
Describe yourself: Babe, I’m On Fire.
How do some people feel about you? The Good Son.
How do you feel about yourself? All Tomorrow’s Parties. (Yes, I’m cheating. But it’s a really good cover.)
Describe your girlfriend/boyfriend: Lovely Creature.
Describe what you want to be: God Is In The House.
Where would you rather be? Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere?
Describe how you live: Idiot Prayer.
Describe how you love: I Let Love In.
Share a few words of wisdom: People Ain’t No Good.

Flogging Molly are playing in London on the 10th of May. The best description I’ve heard of them: if you took out the punk elements, you’d have a good trad-irish-folk band. If you took out the trad-irish-folk elements, you’d have a good punk act. They’re the middle ground between The Dropkick Murphys and The Pogues. I think they’re ace, and will be there with knobs on. Anyone else fancy it?

It’s been a good weekend – mostly, I’ve done nothing (we saw Phone Booth – popcorn films do not count as Doing Anything), with friends. This is pretty much my definition of a good weekend. To fully meet the definition, it requires drinking and clubbing and cultural events and doing no work at all (or, alternatively, it means no human contact and working all weekend, depending on my mood). In the absence of that, I’ll settle for doing only three or four hours work in four days, and otherwise just relaxing. Currently drinking a rather nice Fruit Drink – fresh orange juice, blended with strawberries and raspberries. Well, mostly fruit. There may have been some tequilla involved.

Aside from some time off sick, though, I haven’t had a break since January, because of the usual “no holiday in your trial period” clause in my contract, so I was very much in need of that. But the trial period is up, and I’ve a week (sort of) off at the end of May, and a couple of bank holidays, so that’s not too bad. Now, though, I think I’ll stick a DVD on, and call the weekend done.

Our, in this case, being mine. I mean, like the man said, “It couldn’t have gone far, right?” I’m not used to having to force it, but I’m sitting here, trying to write a twelve page story, and nothing, but nothing is coming together. The best I’ve got are a couple of dodgy outlines that don’t satisfy me – there’s a flaw in each of them, chiefly that there’s no emotional heart to them – they’re just some events that happen to some characters, rather than being about anything. Even if I leave aside the “scary trees” concept that Fin and I agreed, I can’t make anything come together. Oh, and I’ve got five different start points for things without outlines – just half formed ideas that I can make coalesce. I need to find something that I want to think about, resonate off. A feeling I want to catch, or a theme to explore.

Eh. Time for bed. I’ll fight with it again tomorrow.

It’s the bog end of the week, and I’ve got very little to do. Waiting for clients to get back to me on two different projects, and the prospect of a new project to start next week with, but nothing to do right now. So I’m sitting in my chair and watching the minutes tick by, and feeling small pains crackle up and down my back, shoulders and upper arms after the gym today. I’m slowly getting back to where I was, although my progress was has been somewhat slowed by the cold I had the other week. I never ceases to amaze me how short a break from the gym one can take, and still feel progress slipping away.

In other news: Not a whole lot going on. Work on the new look for 9A proceeds. CSS continues to frustrate and delight me in equal measure. Have randomly decided that I need to look into badgers. Specifically, their mythic attributes, because just gazing into a badger would be weird. Very little reason for this, other than that they’re mentioned in China Mieville’s “Perdido Street Station” and I remember how much I used to like them as a kid. Hell, how can you not like something that’s also be known as an “Earth Bear”?

How d’you change the wording for comment tags? (So that instead of being called comments, they’re called blamanges, or something more sensible). I know it’s something in the styles section, but I’m fucked if I can make it work. Can anyone with munged comment names mail me (or leave a comment with) the code they use, so’s I can adapt it for my own nefarious purposes. Ta.

Here’s an interesting article about the challenges of translating comics, especially funny ones into other lanagues, written by the woman that translates the Asterix books. I love Asterix as a kid, so this was really interesting reading for me. Thanks to Anna for the link.