BTN the glossy magazine placed a review of Tourniquet in their August issue. Read the review
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Blood everywhere and not a bit worth saving! That’s the motto of today. Photoshop is all well and dandy, but up until five minutes ago it has refused to let me make a neat little splattering of blood on my print artwork, no matter how many times I try it. Snowflakes, yes. Abstract leaves, yes. Marble angles, yes. Blood? No, no, no…but I have finally beaten Adobe’s fine multimedia application into submission, oh yes

Just as well really as the artwork is currently being sucked up by the Magic Printing Fairies, ready to be regurgitated in a week or so’s time as our merchandise stand for the Swadlincote Ghost Festival. I can’t wait! I think it’s going to be a ball, plus the wonderful goddess Zoe is on stall duty too, offering Indian head massages and reflexology in her guise as HunkyDory Holistics

Other news…I have just completed a music review for rock three piece, Uniting the Elements. Check it out under Music Reviews. I am also delighted to be on chapter 8 of Rob MacKellar’s debut novel, the Black Flame (www.robmackellar.com), a must-read for all fans of high fantasy. Rob is a clean, concise writer with a delicious ability to spill fresh blood with each turn of the page…and so back to blood.
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One of those weird, crazy days today that starts off surreal and continues in the same vein. Woke up to find a giant crow flapping round the bathroom, having somehow made its way down the chimney and proceeded to throw itself against the window for many hours and left a beautiful mess to deal with in the process. Then I managed to spill dog mixer all over the kitchen floor. The highlight of this screwy day had to be a photo shoot with the local newspaper, with me as the most awkward model in history. To top things off, the mini me decided to take two hours to go to sleep. Ah, kids. Couldn’t eat a whole one.

The one bonus of this imposed sabbatical from the laptop had to be the hundred or so pages of Gregory Maguire’s magickal/political pastiche of witchery in Oz, ‘Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West’. Having made the ill-informed decision that this would be appropriate reading matter for said mini me while going to sleep (ha!), I was more than taken back by the dry, often harsh, boudoir humour of the book – but like a heart in a tin man, it’s grown on me. The green-skinned Elphaba is a joy of a character, all done-wrong-by, wrongfully green, and plumped full of subterranean knowledge like a bad apple. Gorgeously dark, mind-engaging stuff.

On the writing front, I’m currently working on a short story for an anthology of women writers. I’m eking it out, but the going is slow because there seem to be a million and one tasks to complete and, somewhat disappointingly, I haven’t sprouted octopussy arms. So I thought I would add to the chaos by having a reading and signing session on the 1st August!

Good job I’ve discovered a new favourite tipple. Hendricks…gin. Well, old habits die hard.

Love and dark light.

Kim Lakin-Smith x
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A little under a week and Tourniquet will be released to the big bad, mad world. It’s the weirdest feeling. It feels like centuries ago and yet, at the same time, only yesterday that the dark lord and I were enjoying a gin and tonic and JD and coke in Nottingham’s rock bar, the Tap and Tumbler, and musing about a gothic wonderland where we would truly feel at home. Fast forward a few years and Renegade City, albeit in the guise of my novel, Tourniquet, has finally been fleshed out, edited, proof read and given its release date.

So 21st of May it is. Recent weeks have been one long hard slog of web sites updates, marketing research and incidental odds and ends of writing, with the odd convention thankfully sprinkled in-between.

Derby Alt Fiction was a blast. A great excuse to catch up with old friends, go to the odd panel and drink copious amounts of the hard stuff. Graham Joyce’s workshop on dialogue was one of the highlights, although I’m not sure I hold seventies British TV show, The Liver Birds, in such holy reverence as the great man himself.

But to get back to the topic that is forever on my mind, I am delighted that Tourniquet will feature some incredible cover art from Lucas Swann, keyboardist with Uninvited Guest and alt. DJ, and cover model, lead singer Dean Hathway. Thanks to Lucas, Roses has been brought back from the dead in his full dark, messianic glory. Now all that’s left to do is spread the word…

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Ah, no electricity, no Internet, which gives me a damn good excuse to start up my blog again. Very long time, no talk. This lull has, for the most part, been due to my getting a contract with Storm Constantine's Immanion Press.

In 2007, Immanion will be publishing Tourniquet, the first novel in my Tales from Renegade City series.
It has been a very exciting year! I met Storm at Derby Alt Fiction in April and we hit it off. Strom very kindly said she'd take a look at Tourniquet. A few days later, I got the call that I had been dreaming about for the greater part of my life. Storm liked the book! A few weeks later, I signed the contract, and have been working steadily on the edits with my gorgeous and surprisingly kind editor, Donna, ever since.

So how have I found the publication process so far? Well, it's a weird thing, full of delirium, ecstatic highs and emotional lows (all self-induced when the inevitable demon of Self Doubt has reared its ugly head). I've been overwhelmed by the gentle process by which Donna has enabled me to put across exactly what I was trying to say without rewriting any part of the novel for me. I've also learnt I'm an absolute dunce when it comes to grammar, but no news there.
Aside from editing Tourniquet, I've also embarked on the delightful circuit of literary conventions. Del and I have made some amazing friends; artists, writers, thespians, editors, and many more from across the artistic spectrum. We've also been drunk at stupid o'clock in the morning more often than I would dare to hazard a guess at!

Consequently, if I could give one concrete piece of advice to any aspiring writer then, it would be to get yourself out there. Conventions are wonderfully weird events, blending every hue of geek, greb, fan, academic, arsehole and pisshead in a great psychotropic melting pot. A truly trippy experience!

So, as 2006 draws to a close, I find myself musing on a revelation of a year, one in which dreams have started to solidify into a hell of a scary, out there reality, and in which I've finally realised that the power to make them come true is down to a good slurp of Dutch courage, bloody-minded tenacity, and an ability to talk shit into the small hours.

Have a good one!
xxx

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