My Writing Year 2013 and Plans for 2014

It' been an overwhelming year in many ways. Not least because I'm mainly writing in Swedish again. And I happen to live in Sweden. I haven't quite accepted it yet. I keep telling myself that nothing is forever and that I'm a citizen of the world and all that ...

I still have three main projects going on:

SWENGLISH 

The project is finished and I've written the book. It's just the whole publishing business left to deal with.

REPLACING ANGEL/UNDER THE LIP

Same, same but different. This novel has been finished forever and I haven't given up on the UK market, but at the moment I'm finishing the translation into Swedish and will start to approach Swedish publishers again.

POETRY

And then there's poetry. Performance poetry. If it wasn't for the poetry I would tear my hair and slit my wrists. Poetry keeps me on track. Poetry gets me out of the house. Poetry makes me friends. This year I took part in the National Slam Championship in Malmö and since then I've been performing regularly at festivals, slams, open mics and other random events. I also tried my luck as a "metaphor wrestler". (Pictured).

The reason I love performance poetry so much is that it's immediate and democratic. Anyone can do anything; you can write a poem today and throw it on the world tomorrow. The novel writing can be soul destroying in comparison as it involves a lot of waiting.

So. The future. In 2014 I will do everything I can to get SWENGLISH published and I will try equally hard to get REPLACING ANGEL out there. And I will step up on every stage and fill every page. Am working on some promising collaborations. Watch out!

I also got a an author page on Facebook now. Please like if you haven't already!

Happy new year all readers!

PÅ SVENSKA

A Perfect Storm at Ace Stories

When I look back at this year, thinking of things I've enjoyed the most, Ace Stories, at Hotel Pelirocco in Brighton, is high on my list. It was a true honour to be invited to read at such a well-organised event, and a good occasion for me to try out UNDER THE LIP on an audience for the very first time.

It felt a bit like introducing a new boyfriend/girlfriend to your friends, anxiously hoping that everyone will like him/her. Luckily my novel extracts went down well. The theme for the evening was sea-faring and I had picked three scenes from UNDER THE LIP where the sea features: main character Natalie arriving in Brighton, then hanging out on the beach with a punk girl, and finally escaping into the sea after an argument with her parents.


Next up was Courttia Newland, writer-in-residence at Kingston Writing School, who read a short story set by the seaside in Africa.


Actor Brendan Wyer read an extract from Jack London's classic The Sea Wolf.


And Dr Sue Currell, Senior Lecturer in American Literature, discussed The Sea Wolf with Ace Stories director Jay Clifton. I haven't read The Sea Wolf, but Sue was very engaging and told us that even though some of London's writing can come across us anti-feminist he was a great supporter of the suffragette moment.

My highlight of the evening was blues singer and musician Sandy Dillon who performed songs from the forthcoming album Shipwreck'd with guitarist Ray Majors. As well as being a good singer and player Sandy is also a fantastic lyricist. The 'shipwrecked' songs are all based on true stories.

I bought one of Sandy's CD and was lucky enough to get a chat with both her and Ray! I'm totally in love with their music. Lovely people too!

I also love the Hotel Pelirocco*, and last night I felt like a real star having "Perfect Storm" - Kraken Rum cocktails, chatting to artists and other random people. A big thank you to everyone involved in Ace Stories for putting such a great night together. As usual I took photos of the night and all pics are by me apart from the first which is taken by Sam Collins, and the last couple of pics are by Solera Russell.


*Dear Santa, please give me a night in the "Pretty Vacant" room ...

Sneaky Novel Peak at Ace Stories this Sunday

Now is your chance. For the first time ever I'm going to read a few short extracts from my English novel, UNDER THE LIP (aka Replacing Angel). At the moment my novel is under consideration for publication in both Sweden and the UK. It's just a matter of waiting, waiting and some more waiting.

So get your ass down to Hotel Pelirocco in Brighton this Sunday, 6pm.

Another good reason for coming along to Ace Stories is ... Sandy Dillon. And there's a chance of winning an electric guitar!

Where the Book has No Name

Today I was interviewed by a Swedish radio station and they asked me about my new novel (UNDER THE LIP), but this novel in question is already starting to feel old to me...

I'm between novel relationships. I'm waiting for a publisher to take on UNDER THE LIP, and I've started a new project, but it's a bit like seeing a new man/woman when you're still clinging to your ex. (Which funnily enough has been my status in real life as well!)

So I find it very hard to fully give myself to this new novel project (that doesn't yet have a name) as any day my agent could email me with good news. But at least it feels like I'm making half-hearted love to this one idea now instead of sleeping around with different ones ... Yet it's far too early to label this affair, hence the "no name" ...

All over the place or in one place?

If you focus on something for five years and really believe in it you're going to be successful in one way or other. That's what my ex (who gets paid to travel to tropical countries to fix computers) told me while I was working on my debut novel. And almost exactly five years after I started writing seriously I had a novel published. I did focus on my novel writing and I really believed in it. But it's not always this simple ...

What is success anyway? Are you less of a novelist if you spend five years perfecting a novel, focusing on it and really believing in it and still not getting it published ...? The optimist in me wants to believe that those people don't exist, that they didn't try hard enough .... The realist in me doesn't want to wake up because I am a dreamer ...

Another person(in his early thirties)who is a poet, MC, songwriter and musician told me that he would've been successful by now if he had focused on one thing only. I'm not sure whether to agree or disagree. Surely these areas all feed into each other, but if you're pre-occupied by making a living and having a very rich social life it's tricky. It's also matter of how much you're willing to focus, how much you're willing to offer in terms of time and money.

I've been writing seriously in English since 2007, so according to the five year focus and belief I should be published by next year. But at the moment I'm all over the place ... I'm waiting for my agent to find a publisher for UNDER THE LIP (former REPLACING ANGEL). Waiting is not a very active space to be in so in the meantime ...

*I'm making notes on a new novel, note: making notes, not actually writing

*I'm writing random poetry

*I'm working with improvising jazz musicians

*I performing poetry

*I'm reading/performing short stories

*I'm taking voice classes

*I'm going to drop-in acting classes

*I'm going to drop-in 5Rhythms dance classes

*I'm lying down in the Alexander Technique semi-supine position

*I'm reading all sorts of stuff, fact and fiction

*I'm taking more photographs than my harddrive can handle

*I'm making collages (see picture)

But above all I'm working on getting to know my body. Hence the voice classes, acting classes, dance classes and the Alexander Technique. (I can't afford to do these things every week even if I wanted to do, but I try to do at least one physical thing every week).

All my life I've lived in my head, intellectualising all my actions. Now it's time for me to get in touch with my body, and I believe this will make me a better and more confident performer. Indirectly it will also help me with my novel work as a part of "the job" is to promote your novel, do readings etc.

I took out a book from the Children's Library simply titled The Inside & Outside Guide to Your Body. I'm fascinated by the fact that under my skin there is a skeleton. It's not like I didn't know before, but I finally understand that I've got a skeleton. I'm learning to breathe.

I could skip all this body work and just plunge into working on my new novel and ignore all the other parts of me. But at the moment it's more important for me to become a whole human being.

Dating Myself in London - Inspiration & Nostalgia

Julia Cameron - the woman behind The Artist's Way - writes about the importance of Artist's Dates. And sometimes we need Artist's Days. Days when we take ourselves out to gain new inspiration and energy. Yesterday I took myself to London.


I started off at the British Library. Little did I know that it was like boarding an aeroplane. You had to check that your bag was the right size, and to go inside any of the reading rooms you needed a pass. The book I wanted to read (a John Cage one) was in Yorkshire which didn't make any sense. A member of staff said "it says DSC in the entry" as if an idiot would know that DSC meant Yorkshire. I didn't let myself get put off though.

Instead I had a look at one of the exhibitions and saw original manuscripts/notebooks from authors like Virginia Woolf and Oscar Wilde. I also put on headphones and listened to Help! by the Beatles while looking at the original piece of paper that John Lennon wrote down the lyrics on ... After all entering a library is like boarding an aeroplane: you are travelling to another place.


The British Library cafe was too full of laptops, books and conversations so I moved to a cafe across the road and spent two hours with myself, my notebook and a gigantic mug of green tea. I found my words flowing in all sorts of directions without forcing myself to writing anything good.


To feed my tummy I had an over-priced sandwich. But my mind was hungry for something else, so I decided to treat myself to Camden. (And am very proud that I found my way there without looking at the map in my bag.) Camden still feels magic to me. Camden changed my life when I was eighteen. And again when I was nineteen. It would take a whole novel to explain why, but basically it was a shock for a small town girl. Like moving from grey to neon. Like moving from safe to dangerous. Like moving from innocence to experience.

Note the punk with the placard in the middle to the right. I bet he's the same guy who stood there when I first came up from the tube all those years ago ... (The next tube could take you to another world was the slogan on the walls then.)


After only five minutes in Camden I was exploding with memories mixed with new impressions and I just had to sit down and write again. At a crossroads someone asked "Where's the rainbow?" because at that very moment it started to rain at the same time as the sun was shining ... I didn't find any rainwbows but I found Spiral (a cafe by the canal) and that was colourful enough with hippies in green trousers and orange tops. I had Spirulina. Not something I would've done ten years ago ... It wouldn't have been "punk" enough ...


Nostalgia hit me really bad so I just had to carry on to Angel ... To Islington Green where me and a friend once sat in October, drinking before going to legendary goth club Slimelight ... This was ten years ago and I couldn't help thinking of the line from the above mentioned Help!: When I was younger, so much younger than today ...


And this is what my novel is about. Someone with a glamorous name who is not glamorous. (REPLACING ANGEL is no longer the title, but Angel is still very much the subject or perhaps the object of my novel.)


This is the real reason I went to London: I was invited to perform at Beat - a diverse but dynamic monthly poetry event at Charlie Wright's Bar hosted by ...


Andreas Grant. Who is a fellow Swede. (Some of the best Swedes have left their native country to grow elsewhere)

So ... This is one of the longest blog post I've ever written. I feel inspired and overtired, but I want to see myself again. After another couple of dates I might even fall in love ...

And if I get bored with myself I have filled half a notebook with thoughts notes hopes dreams fragments of poems and other ideas. It's funny how I had the intention of gaining new inspiration, but got this craving for nostalgia. Sometimes you have to travel to the future to find your past (path.) Oh dear ... I must be in love to write this rubbish. Lust for life la la la ... Bedtime or beertime? "Me!" my pillow calls, like London was calling yesterday ...

Attracting Lips

According to the law of attraction
you are likely to get more of what you think about and focus on. This week I've been thinking a lot about lips. Mainly because I need a new title for my novel. Below are a few ideas:

UNDER THE LIP
UNDER MY LIP
STUFF IT UP YOUR LIP
LIP SYNC
ONE FOR THE LIP

On Friday night I fell over on the pavement and hurt my lip. I wonder if I would have ended up with a black eye if I'd been thinking a lot about eyes ...

Me & My Book Baby

Nowadays some parents-to-be send pictures of their foetus as Christmas cards. So here's a Valentine's greeting to you all: me & my book baby ready to go to the doctor aka as literary agent.

I met the agent last week in his office, and he said my book foetus is mostly fine. It just needs some minor medical attention. This involves making the letters from one character to another more subtle, and yes ... I still have to cut out some of my Nick Cave references ...

I'm almost there, ready for the next health check-up, the one where every chromosomic line will be scrutinized.

And I have to think of a new name for my book baby. Replacing Angel has to go. What do you think of Under My Lip or Stuff it up your lip!? I know it's a girl, but the name can be androgynous ...

Photo: Barnaby Marriott

Two announcements:

ON WEDNESDAY 16 FEB, 8 PM, I'M DOING A POETRY GIG AT FLOETICS, RED ROASTER, ST JAMES STREET,KEMP TOWN, BRIGHTON

ON TUESDAY 22 FEB, 8 PM, A SHORT STORY OF MINE ON A SEXUAL THEME WILL BE READ OUT BY AN ACTOR AT ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY?, THE BASEMENT, KENSINGTON ST, BRIGHTON

How many drafts must a woman write ... before she throws herself off the pier?

I read an interview view Susan Hill in the latest issue of Mslexia. She only ever does one draft of a novel. She goes back to correct, check and edit, but she never rewrites.

I'm totally the opposite, at least when it comes to REPLACING ANGEL, the novel I've been working on since October 2007. My first draft was just a mess of words, me spewing out what I wanted to say. In the second draft I tried to make sense of what I wanted to say, in the third draft I tried to find some kind of plot ... The fourth and fifth drafts were about defining the characters and their motivations. And the sixth draft which I completed a couple of days ago was all about ...

Cutting. 104 000 words became 84 000 words. So you might think that I've spent two intense week in Novelland just deleting words ... but it's not that easy. Cutting also means restructuring, and even adding scenes to make sense of the story. I'm happy with it now, and I'm hoping that I won't have to make more than 8 drafts! There's some interest from an agent, and he was the one who pointed out that the first third of the novel was too slow, hence the cutting ...

What I'm working on right now is the title. REPLACING ANGEL has too many associations to fantasy, Buffy the Vampire etc. As it's more of a gritty realism book I need to find something more appropriate.

Intentions for 2011

I had a good start to the year. I spent a week writing in my parents basement, only leaving the house once a day for my daily walk in the forest. The only people I spoke to were my family at meal times. I created time and space to immerse myself in the revision of REPLACING ANGEL.

Once I started the words fell into place. The hardest thing is always to start; I felt very anxious over Christmas, worrying that I would never be able to write again ... But it really helped to follow the Kaizen-method that I blogged about earlier. Just using five minutes a day to brain-storm around my novel, set me up for a good start.

At the winter solstice I asked a friend to randomly pull a card (similar to angel/oracle cards) for me, and the word I got was introvertedness. It felt very appropriate at the time as I had a very extroverted autumn, going out a lot, avoiding myself and my writing. I've been complaining that I haven't had time and space to write as much as I want to, but it's all about making time.

My intentions for 2011 is to spend more quality time with myself and stay in more. Relax. Eat slowly. Drink slowly. Take care of myself. Then I'll go out and have some fun.

Re-entering Novelland & Working in Cafes

Last Monday I spent about 3 hours in Coffee Republic* in George Street Hove, sipping the same cold peppermint tea. I don't normally like going to chain coffee shops, but it feels more all right to spend hours in a big anonymous cafe than in a small funky cafe. Restaurants are the worst. I once got kicked out of the Regency, the manager telling me it wasn't an office ... I'd spent about 2 hours in there just ordering a coffee and had covered the whole table with files and books and pens ...

I printed the Replacing Angel manuscript and managed to read about half of it, making notes, and carried on reading the rest at home later in the week. I feel hopeful about it, and am looking forward to my planned week of novel revision work in January.

It's so nice to have a novel in my head again. It feels like the short stories I've written this year have "only" been one-night stands or love affairs, some amazing, some boring, but now when I'm in Novelland again it's like falling in love and entering a proper relationship.


*I applied for a job there when it first opened back in 2002, but after going for a group interview session where we had to make potato men I got a call saying I didn't have the right skills. Thank God!

Publishable

Adjective

publishable (comparative more publishable, superlative most publishable)

1. Able to be published.

I've spoken to an agent who's read my English novel, REPLACING ANGEL. It's publishable. That's the first thing he told me.

Publishable, but not quite yet.

The first third of the manuscript drags. I'm aware of this. My playwright/drama teacher friend who has also recently read my MS is of the same opinion.

And the title doesn't work, is too cheesy, too obvious. I wasn't aware of this.

The worst though is that I've used far too many Nick Cave quotes ... (Did you know that he crashed his car into a speed camera at the end of my street this week?! Photo evidence above.)

Even though I have a lot of hard work ahead of me I feel excited. The agent suggested that I take some time to think about it all, and then I'll present him with a new version of the MS in a couple of months time. I'm already thinking of spending the first week of the year in my small boring hometown and focus on the re-write, away from the distractions of Brighton.

To Do-List, Book Launch & Book Festival

I had 11 things on my "to-do"-list today and I've done them all, apart from writing this blog post. Among other things I edited a short story, GINA'S LOVER, and sent it off to the Glasswoman Prize, proof-read my brother's course application and finished a poem for a friend's wedding. I'm proud that I did so well despite having a hangover from the burlesque club Trailer Trash last night and distracting myself with a walk through St Ann's Wells Garden and down to the seafront, having a cup of tea with Sky at Babylon Lounge.

Tomorrow I'm going to a book launch party in London. The publisher Myriad is celebrating their spring editions, and one of them is The Noise of Strangers by Robert Dickinson. I'm very excited as Robert is one of the guys who's given me feedback on REPLACING ANGEL. He kindly gave me a copy of his debut novel, and I read it a few weeks ago. It's a future dystopia set in Brighton and takes the piss out of civil servants. Well worth reading if you want to have a laugh about bureaucracy. It's also interesting the way Robert has mixed the narrative of the different characters with transcripts of dialogue at meetings, emails and newspaper reports.

I'm spending the night in London as I'm leaving from Heathrow early Tueday morning to go to a Book Festival in Gothenburg, Sweden. Another thing on my list was to rehearse the talk(s) I'm going to do at a school, and make sure my PowerPointPresentation is up to date. I always feel a bit weird talking to myself in front of a pretend audience, but the photographs on my door of some friends helped.

With the daffodils being in full bloom in Brighton it will feel like time travelling going to Sweden. I just hope the snow and ice will be gone ...

Time Management

I want to have time to:
*read trashy novels for pure pleasure
*read classics and understand them
*paint my nails twice a week
*use teeth plackers
*write letters
*listen to a whole CD album and read the lyrics

I thought I'd have time to do these things, now that I've finished my novel, Replacing Angel, and sent it off to agents. But funnily enough it seems like I've got LESS time when I'm not working on a particular project...

I become more organised when I write; my life has a structure and I feel focused. Now I'm drifting like a discarded water bottle in the sea. Do I have a message inside me? I don't know. When I shuffled my iTunes to start writing this blog post the first song that started playing was Lou Reed's "There's no time"! My message to myself and everyone else is that you have to make time for things - if you don't you'll drift to a distant shore of a desert island where there's nobody to pick you up ...

Despite all this drifting I've had the first really productive day for about a week.
*I washed my clothes
*Re-wrote Steal from the rich and give to the poor, a short story that I wrote a year ago, and sent it off to a couple of people for feedback (am planning to submit it to SPARKS - a short fiction night)
*Worked on a poem for a friend's wedding
*Booked a night at a hostel in London as I need to stay there on my way to a literature festival in Gothenburg at the end of March (and in London I'll attend a launch party for 3 Myriad novelists)
*Wrote a very short postcard and posted it
*Power-walked along the seafront and did some food shopping on the way back
*Went through my writing workshop "It's raining words"(that I'm doing at Hove Library next Monday) with my friend Sophie
*Made some notes and prepared stuff for the workshop
*Booked a train ticket to London (£3 advance on the national rail website)
*Printed Google maps of parts of London and Gothenburg

And now ... it's 10 pm and I've been up for 13 hours, and the only real leisure time I've had was when I had breakfast and read Patricia Highsmith's Carol. I don't feel sorry for myself. I designed this day (made a list before going to bed last night) and am very happy and grateful that I achieved so much. It's a mystery though that there's a still a pile of socks and knickers on my bed waiting to be sorted out after being in the tumble dryer ... Hopefully I'll get to bed before midnight.

Celebration Time!

I had a great time visiting my friend Laura in Edinburgh this weekend celebrating
a) the completion of my first English novel Replacing Angel
b) my 28th birthday

Two good reasons to drink absinthe ... (and absinthe also features in my novel :).


We didn't spend the whole weekend drinking though ... We had vegetarian Haggis at Henderson's, admired installations at National Gallery of Modern art, danced to punk & rock at Studio 24, and went for a snowy walk in the Pentland Hills outside Bonaly. It was great to have a proper holiday, feeling very free now that I've sent off Replacing Angel.


Laura is also a writer and one of the people who has given me feedback on Replacing Angel, so she was the right person to celebrate with! Not sure how much she enjoyed the snow trudging though ...

BIG THANK YOU TO EVERYONE FOR BIRTHDAY CARDS, TEXTS, FACEBOOK MESSAGES ETC. I'm happy to know so many great people.

Postnatal

I'm off sick today. I didn't get much sleep last night because I had a bad stomach ache and wanted to throw up, but couldn't. I'm still feeling a bit queasy and all I want to eat is ice cream.

On my way to the nearest ice cream vendor (Co-op) I stopped off at the post office and sent off REPLACING ANGEL. So maybe I'm feeling sick because I'm suffering from postnatal novel depression ...

It's like I'm no longer capable of looking after my book baby, and therefore the nanny agents will take care of her and let me know when I'm fit to look after her again. They'll also let me know if my baby is all right, and if she needs to go through another health check (draft.) It sounds horrible, but I hope it'll take a while. I have things to get on with. Like having a hair cut.

PS. the post office in the picture has nothing to do with my local post office.

Printing my baby

I don't have any metaphor for this. If you have followed my blog you know that I compare writing a novel to having a baby, but I can't think of any comparison to "printing out the manuscript". Most agents want to see the first three chapters, so I have "only" printed about 50 pages. (Double-spaced).

I'm almost there. My synopsis is ready. My CV is ready. The first three chapters are ready. The only thing I've got left is the most important thing - the cover letter. Someone asked why I've spent two weeks on writing a letter ... But then I spent two years being pregnant with Replacing Angel (here we go again - bring on the baby metaphors!) and I think the baby deserves to be presented in the best possible way. Yes, maybe I found a metaphor after all. Writing a cover letter is like when you dress the baby up to meet the relatives for the first time ...

Painting My Book Baby's Toenails

So, I've finally given birth to my book baby and it's a girl!
But I'm keeping her safe at home, am not ready to let the world see her yet.
I feel bad for wanting to beautify her, painting her toenails.

The 5th and final draft of Replacing Angel is finished.
But it's hard to leave her alone.
I wake up in the middle of the night
and think of sentences I want to polish.
I keep adding coats of nail varnish to her toenails.
Sometimes using aceton to remove things I don't like.

I guess you're never really finished.
You just have to set a date when you decide that you are not going to make any more changes and be happy with your creation, happy enough to let it engage with the world, i.e. send it out to agents.

I have drafted a cover letter, synopsis and some kind of CV and sent it to a very kind writing collegaue for feedback.

At the moment I'm doing some detective work, trying to find out who the best nanny for my baby is. (I'm going to approach the agents of some of my favourite authors to start with, and I also have a couple of recomendations that I want to investigate.)

Hopefully I'll send my baby off before my birthday on the 26th of Feb. I can't wait to have an evening off. Even if I'm out and about doing other stuff she's constantly on my mind ...

The Head is Out

In this room I started to give birth to Replacing Angel.
It is almost out. You can see the head and the torso,
and even what sex it is. But the legs and feet are not out yet.

(I re-wrote every single scene where the Man appears and it felt like I really got to know him. Thanks everybody who left comments and discussed the matter with me before I left, it helped a lot. I also cut a bit of the beginning to increase the action.)

My retreat at Claridge House in Lingfield was the best thing I've treated myself to for a long time. I reclaimed the feeling of peace I felt when I used to stay with my grandma in the countryside in the Sweden. Since she passed away two years ago I've been at loss, looking for a place where I can go and just be and write and go for walks in nature and have all my meals cooked for me. And I think I've found that place. Instead of spending the money on a return flight to Sweden I can spend the money on going to Claridge house when I really need to.

This is what made it such a peaceful and productive stay:

*I had my mobile turned off the whole time and for a day after I got back. (I often keep it turned off or on silent anyway and find it helps my thoughts flow more freely when I'm not interrupted my little bleeps.)
*I didn't use Internet during my stay or on the day I got back. (I realised that I spend a lot of time thinking about things I've read on Facebook and am constantly going through emails in my head that I need to write etc. Internet is a bit like alcohol. You need to learn when too much is too much. From now on I'll try to only go on Internet once a day and for a limited time.)
*The house is run by Quakers - who worship through sitting in silence and I took part in some of the silent times during the day and found it refreshing. The walks around Dormansland Village also helped.

I know I expected that I would give birth to the whole novel when I was away. But there's no point it rushing it. I'm hoping to see the legs and the feet at the end of this month ... Then I'll start working on a synopsis and cover letter that I can send out to agents.

So if I appear to be absent or don't return texts or emails you'll know why ...

On The Road with Nick Cave

Photo: Barnaby Marriott
Tonight I went to see the film The Road at the Duke of York's cinema in Brighton. The film is based on the novel by Cormac Mccarthy and is directed by John Hillcoat. It was the first time I went to the cinema this year and the main reason was that Nick Cave and Warren Ellis from the Bad Seeds wrote the soundtrack. After the film John Hillcoat and Nick Cave did a Q&A session. I didn't ask any questions, but Barney convinced me to have my photo taken with Mr Cave ...

It's supernatural seeing someone who you admire. Even if Nick Cave is a human being and seems like a really nice person who doesn't let fame get to his head I can't help feeling paralyzed in his presence ... There are so many things I'd like to say. Like how his album No more shall we part helped me through one of the loneliest times in my life. And also what a big inspiration his lyrics are for my current novel, Replacing Angel. All year I've had Nick Cave songs on repeat while writing and when I see the man behind the music it's almost as if him and the music are two separate things. As if I've built up my own personal relationship with the lyrics and don't give a damn about what they meant to Nick Cave when he wrote them. And I think that's the purpose of all art: the art itself should be so good that you don't need a famous person or a pretty face to promote it.

(However I did speak to Nick Cave about two months ago and asked if I had his permission to use him as a character in my novel ... Click here to read more!)

So what did I think of the film? A father and son are trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world, walking by foot across America, hoping that everything will be better once they reach the coast. And that's where it all ends. Or starts anew if you so wish ... Tears were threatening to run down my cheeks a few times, because of the tight relationship between father and son. I liked the bleak atmosphere and the sparse piano music. However the theme of cannibalism will probably haunt my dreams tonight ... That's why I prefer reading so I can create my own images, which won't be as bad as seeing something happening in front of your eyes ... I'm glad there's not a film based on Nick Cave's Murder Ballads!