MELD LIKE TEAM SPINACH

My appearances on this blog have been brief and irregular lately: my day job eats my life, and leaves me little time to do more than throw the occasional shout out at my Facebook page at the moment. It'll be a bit like this for a couple of months yet: bear with me. My day job/ home life balance should sort itself out soon, and I might find some more time to come here and post long, interesting, witty lines of banter to fulfil my dancing monkey obligations.

In the meantime, I've popped up and made an appearance as part of an SF Signal Mind Meld on the subject of heroes v protagonists, alongside a raft of other authors including Angry Robot stablemates Jo Anderton, Maurice Broaddus and Chris Holm. Which was nice.

And with nanowrimo rapidly approaching, I've signed on again to act as ML for my third consecutive year, and will be devoting my time to completing the back half of Father Muerte & the Divine now that I've delivered Marching Dead to the Robot Overlords. I'll try and post some word count updates along the way, as well as a snippet or two to pique your interest. As a sop to blatant currying of public opinion, here's a first draft extract to get you started:

Understand that, just as there are men who stand apart from the general populace, whose greatness of deed and nobility of stature ensure their names echo throughout history, so there is Benito’s special cafe bombon. It is the Odysseus of coffees, the Muhammad Ali, the Kal-el of Krypton. Coffee black as tar, as thick as a demon’s blood, crouched upon a base of condensed milk sweet enough to cause diabetes amongst innocent bystanders. Drinking it is like hosting a championship wrestling bout in your mouth. Bitterness and sweetness pummel each other for the singular honour of being the one to give you a heart attack.

Most mornings I have three.

I have little time or inclination for luxuries. Hard, bitter, highly caffeinated coffee, milk supersaturated in glucose, both contain high levels of energy. And what I do requires superb amounts of energy. I live in Costa Satanas, a village on a coast you can only visit when the need arises, at the edge of a sea that has changed names so many times over the century that you can only see us if you use the right map to travel, and even then, only if the sky matches the day on which it was drawn. The village exists because I do. Were I to lose my concentration, even for a moment, it would go back to its natural state, and be lost. I would survive, but I would be alone.

There, now. Wasn't that worth hanging around for?