All I want for Christmas I already got! (Well, nearly)

Yup. This writer’s cup ranneth over last week.

Actually that’s not true. It wasn’t this writer’s cup, it was Ren Holton’s jet black coffee mug that runnethed, because Ren has just had a very long, somewhat weird and profoundly satirical steampunk story accepted at Polluto.

It’s a bit of a fanfest really. Polluto publish writers I very much admire, and illustrators more so, such as the truly estimable Vince Locke(remember Sandman, lovely people? If not, you are remiss – Neil Gaiman and Vince Locke working together was a beautiful, terrible, hypnotic combination) and apparently they quite like me (or Ren) too.

And so cracking Polluto was something that had been in the back of Ren’s mind for a while, and to do it in the last week of the year, and with what will probably be my/our last acceptance of the year, was a great and happy culmination, devoutly to be wished.

But at the moment of what one might call happy consolidation, a tiny chink of discontent emerged in Ren’s soul. Not discontent with Polluto, nor with the story (called Vasty Deep: a totally misleading title, Ren and I hope), but with the world as it is. Ren was reminded of that years ago moment, reading a particularly good Sandman issue (by particularly good, we mean it was like pouring vintage brandy onto a paper cut finger and then licking it off: that kind of good), when Ren decided to write a graphic novel or die trying …

Thus far, we have achieved neither.

So 2009 may well be the year when Ren hunts down an illustrator – anybody know any good ones looking for a warped writer to work with?

Sandman image courtesy of Hiltch because somebody stole all mine and I hope the karma has caught up with them by now …

3 Comments

  1. Spot
    20th December 2008

    Hi Kay, Great to hear your good news. Will be interested to see how the graphic novel comes together. See you soon, Ax

    Reply
  2. Mark Hubbard
    21st December 2008

    Brilliant Kay, and deserved.

    Have a great Christmas, and hopefully this is an intimation of an even better New Year.

    Reply
  3. Kay Sexton
    23rd December 2008

    Thanks Annie and Mark. Have wonderful word-filled holidays both of you!

    Reply

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