Starting work on a new book today. The book will be called “Glade”. Actually, much of it is already written, but there is still a fair amount of the story to do. I’ll give more details on that at a later date. I wrote an early draft for “Glade” at the end of September way back in 2000. Most of it was written whilst I sat in a dingy internet cafe in Korea surrounded by Starcraft gamers and the smell of stale cigarette smoke and cold cup-ramyeon. I was fortunate to have the terminal by the only window and was able to look out over the street below as workers surgically tore up the road to implant the new subway line beneath. Beyond the grey uniformity of the buildings and the constant flow of traffic there was a splotch of green; a small island of colour in a bland cityscape.
The ‘park’ was nothing more than a few car lengths in size, but was large enough to have a wooden bench beneath a solitary tree. The tree looked old and tired. I liked to think that the tree looked up and saw me watching it and for a fleeting moment it revealed to me a time when it was young and the land was different. It was a nice thought. It was actually in that internet cafe when I first decided to plug in my headphones and listen to music to drown out the sounds of Zerg aliens devouring Terran troops. Back then, I made do with whatever I could find in the way of radio station streams tunnelled through Real Media Player. I can’t remember the radio station I found, but it played a lot of goth and industrial tracks along with the odd alternative artist now and then. It might have been called “Gothic Radio”, but I can’t be sure (if anyone actually knows what I mean then please drop me an email). The girl I was dating at the time had something about her that just seemed to capture the essence of spring’s bloom and summer’s dawn. It was wonderful to behold. She served as an inspiration during the early formation of “Glade”. I doubt very much that she will be reading this, but, if you are, thank you. Anyway, I should get back to my work. I had hoped to publish in January/February, but that is probably going to be put back to February/March now. It’s still going to be tough to meet this new deadline as I have to deal with moving on sometime in the new year and that will require a lot of packing and planning. It’s not the first time though and it will certainly not be the last. The road is ever long… 
I really like the face on the tree. Nicely done!
Cheers! It’s actually a leather face mask that I picked up some years ago while travelling through Morocco. I have three in total, but this one has a piece of drift wood wrapped in the leather at the base. I drafted a short story based upon it, but haven’t had the time to return to it in years.
Loved the rememebrace of the café. I would sometimes write in cafés when I was in Dublin. It’s a strangley inspiring experience 🙂
Cafés are great places to write, but I also like writing in pubs too. If there’s character about the place then that’s even better. I remember a wonderful pub called “The Wykeham Arms” in Winchester, England. The atmosphere is perfect.
Here’s a link: http://www.wykehamarmswinchester.co.uk/about
I’ve always wanted to sit on a boat and write. A couple of months around the greek islands would be nice, although that’s probably a project best left for the future 😉