God DAMN it, I know I promised you a second update today, with all the news from the past (hectic) six months of my life, plus details of where I am at with the postcards; however, I have been dragged into the water by an octopus; his, or possibly her, powerful tentacles have my legs and torso in an unbreakable embrace, and as I type this, holding my laptop above my head, out of the raging waters, I fear that I will soon be submerged, which, as you know, will cause possibly terminal damage to my electronic devices; and so I must press send on this Emergency Holding Update (hoping the wifi signal from our little cabin has sufficient strength to receive it, and retransmit it to the scattered computers of the world), before I hurl my laptop to my weeping wife, at the shore's edge; here we go; pray for my soul...
Jesus Christ, my prevarication has metastasised. I’m not just prevaricating about the postcards, I’m now prevaricating about my updates on the progress of the postcards. GOD DAMN IT. OK, this is a very short update to say that there will be a slightly longer and more detailed update very, very soon. (Also, Happy Christmas! And Hanukkah! And Kwanzaa! And Festivus! And pagan midwinter sex ritual! And whatever you’re having yourself!)
NUTS
Basically my life has gone nuts. Last month was pure European pinball, I never really unpacked my little wheelie suitcase. (It went like this: Germany/England/Germany/Italy/Germany/Ireland/Germany/HIGHSCORE!) And, I have just discovered, I have to move country in January. I’ve given notice on my flat in Berlin, and it is full of cardboard boxes. One of the cardboard boxes contains, at all times, a cat. I feel like Erwin Schrödinger trying to move house.
Anyway, it looks like Solana and I will be living in Limerick City for a while, from the end of January, if you live within visiting distance, get in touch. (Long story, in next update…)
Life is fine, it is all good, but oh boy it is hectic right now.
Proper update coming.
Also some postcards.
THANKS
And! Big thanks to the delightful man who works at the BBC for his lovely letter (handwritten! by post!) saying how much he’s enjoyed my updates, and their insights into what it’s like to be a wildly neurotic writer in the early 21st century, and that I shouldn't worry, it has been far more interesting than just getting the card straight away.
I am enjoying an intoxicating cocktail of shame (he wrote me a letter by hand, but I haven’t even written him a postcard!) and pride. (He likes my writing, so the weird way I live is justified!) I would name him here, but I can’t even find his letter in the chaos of the flat as we pack. (I’ve spent the last 20 minutes looking for it, and all I found was the cat, twice.)
OPTIONS
As ever, if you are one of the hundred-odd people who hasn’t received a card yet and you are NOT enjoying this wildly neurotic ride, and your patience has snapped, I totally get it. Message me here, or just email me directly (it’s juliangough, and it’s at gmail dot com), and I’ll do your card in the next batch.
If any Whiskey and Coffee Stain people still waiting for cards are about to move house, it’s OK, they can change their address here on the Kickstarter site.
Lipstick and Bullethole people haven’t received surveys asking for addresses yet, so don’t worry, you didn’t miss them. I'll tell you in an update as soon as they go out.
BLOOD
I was feeling super guilty about the (very expensive) Blood postcard, so I’ve bumped that one up the queue and done it early. Looks great. Real blood. Mine. Owch. (More details in the next update.)
Ugh, no, don’t edit this and polish it, just send it, Julian, stop overthinking. Go write some postcards.
OK, this update covers progress on the postcards, progress on the novel, and a free, illustrated, Procrastination Special PDF for you, courtesy of GREY Magazine.
POSTCARDS...
Progress is slow, but steady. I’ve just sent another 20 finished postcards to Las Vegas today, to be reposted by my book-loving friends there (Scott Seely and Drew at Writer's Block). Mostly $25 (coffee & whisky) cards, plus a couple of $10 (plain old gratitude) cards that had slipped through the net. List of those names below, so you’re not left waiting unnecessarily by your postbox, slowly dehydrating, as hope fades.
A sneaky preview of the cover of Connect
NOVEL...
Publication of my novel has been delayed from August this year to February next year because my editor, the great Ravi Mirchandani, is, er, a procrastinating perfectionist. MY DREAM EDITOR! So, a year after buying the book, he still hasn’t finished his edits on it. (Don’t worry, he hasn’t been editing my book for a year. He has been procrastinating about editing my book for a year, while he edited other weird literary books, and watched Russian dashboard-cam car-crash compilation videos, mixed in with some amusing Pink Hair Pranks and Cat Fail classics on Youtube, compulsively eating Sour Cream & Onion Pringles in his underpants, like everyone else. DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT.)
When Ravi moved to Picador, the first book he bought was A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the National Book Award). The second book he bought was mine, so I’m happy to wait. Well, no, happy isn’t the word, but I’m prepared to wait. Yes, in my underpants, eating Pringles, damn you. (Oh, I am also getting a set of less anguished suggested edits from my American editor, the charming Daniel Meyer at Penguin Random House, possibly later this week. So shit is getting real... we even have a snazzy cover design, which I have sneaked you a look at, above. Admire that splendid jacket quote!)
This is also the reason there has been such a delay in sending you the opening chapters of Connect (the novel formerly known as Infinite Ammo, and then Infinite). I thought Ravi’s edits would arrive sooner, and I could act on them, and send you the finished, polished, fully edited opening of the book.
So the new plan is: I will send you a PDF of the original opening of the novel pretty soon, and I will send you the revised, polished, edited opening when I’ve received my notes from Ravi and Daniel and acted on them. If you just want to read the second, polished version, then simply don’t download the original, rougher version… but I think some of you would be interested to see how a book changes, and improves, during the conversation between writer and editors, and – as you’ve backed this book with your cash, and helped to make it happen – I feel I owe you a deeper insight into the process that I would normally allow. Just don't stick it up on the internet, or I will get into trouble.
Me procrastinating at an Anton Corbijn exhibition. Look at the guilt and self-hatred in those green eyes. There's a man who can no longer sleep.
A PROCRASTINATION SPECIAL PDF
Meanwhile, to show I appreciate you, to amuse you this weekend, and to reassure you that I am a procrastinating disaster in every area of my life, and it’s not just you… here’s a free Procrastination Special PDF, link below...
I published a piece called “Filling In A Form” recently, in GREY Magazine. It’s about procrastination; and it’s the product of procrastination. It explains better than anything else I’ve ever written how I feel about writing, and how I tend to obsess over everything I write (including forms, tax returns, and postcards). It is, therefore, among other things, a history of my procrastination.
That PDF is laid out as 6 individual pages, for ease of reading on a phone or small screen; but if you're a graphics and layout nerd, and would like to see the original two-page spreads, then you can go get that as a PDF here. (Thanks again, Brantly.)
Be nice to each other…
THE NAMES OF THE PEOPLE I SENT CARDS TO TODAY
Oh! The names. Today’s batch of postcards went out to:
Eamon Brett (cool pianist & composer); Robin Sloan (the novelist! He wrote Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore! I don't even know him in real life, he's just a nice guy who supports other weird novelists); Martin Conneely of Castleknock; Melanie Nelson of San Diego; Sandra Gross (the delightful Aviva Detroit on Twitter, lovely person); Riona MacNamara (I knew her as a child!); Suzanne Munshower (author of the novel Younger, which has one of the great modern thriller plots: she lives in Las Vegas already, so this won't be quite as exciting for her); Christopher Moody of Austin Texas; Andrea Armfield of Huntington Beach; Karen Broome, the queen of metadata, in LA; Brian Kennemer, one of the fine photographers of Bellingham, world capital of fine photography (my friend the photographer Phil Rose also lives there), up near the Canadian border; Fernanda Parente from just up the road in Berlin; Rhys Barter, of scenic Carnforth in Lancashire; G. Narey of London (I just realised, she edited Belle de Jour!); Andreas Merz, a charming German exiled in Dublin; Mary Mulvey of delightful Dromahair; Anna Lewis of Hove; Kevin Kearney, who hangs out in the Galway Atlantaquarium; Patrick Kelly in sunny, er, Sweden; Allan Cavanagh the splendid Galway caricaturist; and finally the lovely Julia Kingsford who runs half of my literary agency and has kicked my arse a couple of times over my procrastinating, to no avail.
Hope you like your cards...
A NOTE ON THE COFFEE STAINS
The coffee stains are almost all black coffee, because I realised, just in time, that milk is not, longterm, a good thing to have soaked deep into your valuable literary ephemera.
A postcard. Now posted. A hundred and something down, a hundred and something to go...
NEXT STEPS
I will send out the final batch or two of Coffee & Whisky stained cards. The lipstick and bullethole surveys, asking for your addresses, will only go out when I’ve cleared the coffee-stain cards. So you Lipstick and Bullet Hole guys & gals can relax, or tense, whichever you prefer. Meanwhile, you should all get a pdf of the (original) opening of the novel in the next week or two.
