saving caravaggio

2006-10-24T09:59:00.000+01:00

i've been terrible at posting. been very, very busy. day job has been mad - the busiest we've ever been. And renovating my house has been worse. never believe it will be easy. will explain at another time.

meanwhile I've decided to move my blogging activities to

http://www.myspace.com/neilgriffiths

a few things

2006-09-18T17:40:00.000+01:00

Daily Telegraph

'dramatic, dark, powerfully written story...'

My best friend has just had an emergency appendectomy...

I've never been busy at work

had idea for stage play which really excites me

new ambition: a short story in New Yorker

never renovate a house - it's a world of pain, especially when pulling down supporting walls

the booker shortlist this year really doesn't do much for me.

sup to your heart's content

2006-09-05T10:55:00.000+01:00

Some people have asked that I post up the cocktails specially created for my book launch. Here they are - enjoy but beware...

Bacchus -
(25ml)Gin, (10ml)Campari, (10ml)Valpollicella & (10ml)Apricot Liqueur stirred with (25ml)Apple Juice & a touch of sugar. Garnished with a sunken Red Grape & served in a Martini glass.
This drink was designed to work with the subtle flavours typical to the Italian palate, & appear as the saucer of wine in Carravaggio's 'Bacchus'

Salomé -
(25ml) Ketel Citron, (12.5ml)Lemon Juice, (12.5ml)Cranberry Juice, Sugar & (5ml) Absinthe, all shaken together & served long topped with Prosecco & a white grape fan.
Designed to represent the Biblical Femme Fatale -Layers of Flavours veiled then unmasked to reveal the deadly allure of Absinthe. Keeping the italian wines theme with the prosecco top, this drink is beautiful - & deadly!

2006-09-01T12:25:00.000+01:00

Recovering from Launch. It went very well. Made short speech, doing the thank you bit. Then read a couple of pages. Not sure I chose very well - I went with something violent and poetic. But I think the violence was stronger than the poetry (or at least seemed that way in the 'reading in public' environement', and so might have given wrong impression. The novel, despite being a thriller, is quite contemplative - it's an existential novel.
Toby Litt turned up - a very fine writer, and it seems a very fine gentleman. That was nice. The cocktails were a success - 100 going in under an hour! I had three and feel slightly worse for wear today.

Now it's review time!

Saving Caravaggio published today

2006-08-31T11:32:00.000+01:00

Yippee.

Launch tonight...

Will report on that tomorrow...

Book Launch

2006-08-24T13:32:00.000+01:00

last night I went down to Doon, the bar where my launch is being held, to sample the two cocktails that Jim, the bar manager, has specially created: the Salome, the Bacchus. They are quite something. I will post up recipes when I get them so you can try them at home, but suffice to say they are both very Italian, decadent, alcoholic, lethal. Everyone coming to the launch gets one of each - it will be enough. Those who opt for a third won't be going to work the following day. I had half of each yesterday and felt I'd been given crack cocaine about half an hour later. The drinking experience was sublime, however. I only hope I can make my short speech, read a little from the book after drinking one...

publication approaches

2006-08-15T13:19:00.000+01:00

very exciting. hoping for wide review coverage. hoping they will be good. I was fairly certain last novel would get good reviews, and it did. this one is more problematic. it's a better novel, but there is more subversion, and that's something which might be taken against.

In other areas of my life things have never been busier - work is mad, with jobs for all the major broadcaster (as audience researcher); just moved out of house this weekend to let builders deconstruct it for 10 weeks; need to prepare 2/3 ideas for next round of radio offers; may well have comedy pilot to write...

am exhausted; not seeing enough of my children; broke (renovations gone up 30%)

mood, however, fairly chipper.

noticed today, an old acquaintence has new novel out - took him 12 years. Lost touch about 10 years ago. didn't know him well. But 12 years. It's very long. It's called The Religion, and it's by Tim Willocks. He once told me pretty sordid story about his time with Madonna. (they dated for about a month.)

we move towards publication

2006-08-04T11:06:00.000+01:00

just trying to arrange launch (you have to be a literary high-flyer for your publishers to do it these days), among all the other things I have to do. It's going to be held at Doon - a cocktail bar in central london. The bar tender is creating 2 cocktails specially for the event: a Bacchus & Salome. Should be fun!

the break-out book

2006-07-20T15:08:00.000+01:00

Saving Caravaggio is my second novel. My first, Betrayal in Naples was well reviewed, shortlisted for prizes (won one), but sales have been disappointing - basically, if you're not chosen for a promotion by one of the major book shop chains, sales will be disappointing.

Saving Caravaggio needs to win a major prize or get into a promotion to be my break-out book.

Or then it's down to the third. How many times has it been a writer's third? So many times. It seems, if it isn't your first and you're going to have one - the third is the one. Why is that?

I think it's because if you miss out on founding success with your first, the second one is often too safe, too reader-conscious, too panicked by the need to be a break-out book to be good enough to do the job.

Have I suffered from this, I wonder. Luckily, no. Because of BIN's positioning as a Literary Thriller (I just thought it was a novel), I wrote against the genre second time around. However, because it's about the theft of a Caravaggio by the mafia, it is full of genre cues. It is the book it is for a lot of conflicting reasons, and once my editor had pointed out the bits that needed to be taken out, it somehow coalesced into what I believe is the original work it is. So it isn't safe, reader-conscious, panicked. Indeed, someone said, your decision to give it the existential heart of the literary loner is admirable - it makes a good story a great novel; but equally the decision will affect sales. He then laughed.

2006-07-18T17:25:00.000+01:00

I can't work out how to put links here - in the right column. Anyone know how? Plus the comment application seems to have disappeared - don't know why?

It's hard this blogging thing if you don't have the time to concentrate on the minutae.

2006-07-17T13:26:00.000+01:00

The problem with being a writer and having a full time job is that everything you write outside of the full time job should be real writing, rather than compliants to BA for service (leaving us stranded in pisa with 2 infants), the resort (advertising services not available), shopping lists, notes to architect about house, unnecessary but unavoidable emails, letters to solicitors.

How much more of my novel would I have completed if I didn't write this stuff? About 10 pages. Which is a lot.

And what make it all so much worse is that I find writing all of the above as difficult as real writing. Which is not fair. As I writer they should be easy...

Book Signing

2006-07-11T11:09:00.000+01:00

I have been invited to a book signing at Waterstone's, Tunbridge Wells. For the record, T Wells is where I lived between 16 and 19 - where I first fell in love with a girl called Isobel, a love that lasted, painfully, for many years. It's a town which engenders very ambivilent feelings in me. I'm thrilled to be going, however. Most of the books that inspired me to write where bought in T Wells. So there is a good symmetry there...

how come

2006-07-07T10:26:00.000+01:00

when I can't possibly face writing, the twins are fighting, I've only got an hour before I need to leave for work, but I decide to open the computer anyway, and then - oh god, I don't want to - read a bit, maybe just try...I miraculously find myself fixing a scene that has driven me crazy for weeks? It was just a paragraph, really. I think it's an important lesson,I never really learn: not feeling like writing, unable to face it, is no excuse, and it might mean you in the mood, frame of mind, to see something, fix something, that when you are feeling like writing, you can't see, can't fix - you might be in editor mode, I suppose. I mean, what does that feel like? Anyway, I've taken the decision never to turn off my computer - to have the three files I'm working on open. Now I can just drop into my office, whatever mood. I think it's important when you can't write full time to take every opportunity - in fact you have to manufacture the opportunity, or at least create it...

I read a paragraph from Saul Bellow's The Dean's December last night. I was both inspiring and depressing - brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

Penguin

2006-07-05T15:19:00.000+01:00

Went to mini-conference on new media at my publishers Penguin last night. I was amongst the literary elite: Toby Litt, Jonathan Coe, Alain de Botton. And a bunch of historians I didn't know.

Basically it was about how novelists need to exploit new media if we are to reach a broader audience - traditional marketing is too competitive for anything but the really big names: Nick Hornby, Jamie Oliver, the Americans.

I've been blogging for years; some authors didn't know what it was; some did and eschewed it. Which is fair enough. But the event itself showed how progressive and forward-thinking Penguin are - which is nice.

Apparently my novel is being printed at the moment, so should have final copies soon. Now, that's a nice feeling... It's priced at 12.99 - but I will send anyone who leaves name and address in commend box a first edition signed copy for £10...

2006-07-04T14:52:00.000+01:00

These are my twins - delicious, aren't they? Which one has the naughty gene? This photograph is quite old, actually - Macleod's hair is curlier and bushier; Wilder's longer; redder after two weeks in the sun.

It occured to me halfway through our holiday in Tuscany (cheap part), that the only 2 getting a holiday were the 2 above, and they don't need one - life is a holiday for them. Apparently there is no solutuon. It's called being a parent.

Oh Lordy

2006-07-03T17:58:00.000+01:00

Just returned from hols. Nightmare for reasons I will go into later.

Did some writing, though. Very nice to sit outside with laptop in 38 degrees with a bottle of San Pellegrino.

new book, new blog

2006-06-16T09:17:00.000+01:00

Last blog I had suddenly requested a password from me that I didn't know. And all my (few) readers - so fuck'em. Always wanted to move to blogger.com.

Anyways - off to Italy tomorrow - holiday thank God.

New novel - published by Viking / Penguin - is out in August. This one must sell. Betrayal in Naples was nicely reviewed, generously shortlisted for prizes, and happily won one. But sales could have been better. Saving Caravaggio should do better. Must to. To quote Beethoven. Must it be? It must be.