www.crispinbest.com

thank you to people who linked/twittered/facebooked/etc. my 'choose your own adventure' game (see previous post). i feel like i should have spent more time on it now, made it a lot longer and more detailed and things. i don't know. i might still do this at some point.

Socrates told me about this other similar and better and more funny game.

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turns out you can now see the new cover of The Bird Room (B-Format paperback, Jan 2010, £7.99) on the Canongate site. it looks very different to the trade paperback one. i imagine the 'marketing brief' was something like 'young and fresh and sexy and not just about a man looking at the internet and wanking'.

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i am looking forward to SHOPLIFTING FROM AMERICAN APPAREL. i keep thinking about it.

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i am writing a new long thing. so far it has someone playing World of Warcraft in it.

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i feel like there was some other reason why i started writing this post, that there was something else i was going to link to.

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oh, that's right, it's more self-promotion:

there is now a page for the Harper Perrenial US 2010 edition of The Bird Room, too. not sure if there will be a new cover design. at the moment it is just a picture of the UK trade one. they have used the advert Crispin Best made in the 'videos' section. the listed print run makes me feel simultaneously excited and terrified.

choose your own adventure game

i have made a choose your own adventure game using blogger.

it is called I AM HAVING A NICE TIME

it probably takes about five minutes to play.

does anyone still read this?

big congratulations to Shane Jones about his recently announced deal with Penguin + Light Boxes movie rights thing.

i blurbed Light Boxes at the start of last year.

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i read this thing too by Sam Pink, yesterday. really liked it. Sam Pink makes me think of Nietzsche's maxims a bit, kind of. but a lot more fun to read.

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Brandon Scottt Gorrell wrote 'small reflections' about lots of internet people, including me.

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Crispin Best's blog is always really good. i haven't clicked on it, but i'm sure there is something good there. [i just clicked on it. it's good, as always.]

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i am unemployed. i finished as Writing Fellow at the end of last month. i am just hanging around and typing things like 'job in manchester' into google and doing the quick crossword now. i feel scared about money. not sure where money is going to come from.

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does anyone still read this? i think it has 'died'. i feel like i'm typing to myself right now, or to a 'pretend audience' or something. i feel like i am making a pretend radio show with my friend Mark. i feel scared to look at statcounter. i just looked at statcounter. okay, a few people still look at my blog (or accidentally click on it or follow a link and then immediately click away). i am averaging maybe 40 hits per day.

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i don't know what happened. do i sound like a whiny little bitch if i say 'having a novel published was not fun'? (yes i do. i would think 'fuck you' if i read that two years ago while working at Waterstone's.) i guess i just mean: i have been freaking out for the last six months -- pretty much exactly since the publication date -- and have lost all confidence in my writing. i just about feel better, now that i've sort of 'disappeared' from the internet for a bit. it feels good that when i type 'the bird room+chris killen+review' into google, nothing new appears. i think if i write something again and it gets published, i won't read reviews.

i should clarify: the 'publication process' was really good: i liked talking to an editor and looking at the proofs and making changes and emailing about the cover and things. i have 'fond memories' of that period. i felt 'indestructible' or something.

i guess what i mean is 'writing a novel and then getting bad reviews was not fun'.

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[update: i feel like a whining idiot.]