When I began writing 'Electricity' in 1999, one of the influencing factors was an article I'd read on scientists wanting to recreate the big bang in 'safe' conditions. Ideal fodder, I thought, for a sci-fi flavoured tale.

Perhaps surprisingly, I don't really read any science fiction. I find science quite exciting and inspiring though, in an ill-informed sort of way. Certainly a "big bang" machine is the sort of big idea that demands a story written.



This week, scientists are finally preparing to throw the switch. Will the reaction flare out of control and destroy the planet, if not the cosmos itself? It remains to be seen. The likely (and hopefully accurate) answer is no, of course not. Either way, we should find out this Wednesday, September 10 2008.

From a fictional point of view, I quite like the idea of a circular history. The Big Bang creates the universe. Man evolves and tries to work out why. Man recreates the conditions for the Big Bang to find out. The resulting Big Bang (re)creates the universe. Man evolves and tries to work out why. Man recreates... etc ad nauseum.

If all goes wrong, we can but hope that Aston and company will be there to do something about it. Failing that, apparently the often dangerously inept Torchwood apparently will be.

For the nightmare scenario, courtesy of the Daily Mail:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1052309/MICHAEL-HANLON-Are-going-die-Wednesday.html?printingPage=true (image taken from this article)

For a more scientific approach:
http://www.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUSL846768920080908

Well, it looks like I might be lying low for a little while. Possibly the next few months, while I bang together a completely rebuilt version of HtDC. It'll still essentially be the same book but (hopefully) much better. There may be reasons for this, but I'm keeping shtum. The important thing is I'm really excited about what the second draft will look like.

This does mean however, that further adventures of Salmon and Dusk are unlikely for a while. Time is, as I may have mentioned below, a little short in supply at the moment. Also, I'm determined to get the first book 'right' before moving on to the second novel proper.

Other podcast novels aren't an impossibility though. I love the format of podcasting and the relationship it allows me to develop with listeners/readers while the creative process is still underway.

I've really been wanting to attempt a follow-up to Electricity, mainly as I enjoyed recording it and feel it's my most successful use of the 'podcast novel' format. Something with a similar focus on music, told by a central character in a similar, stripped back voice. What was holding me back, of course, was an idea. Until yesterday, when I had one of those fantastic moments (sparked by a fusion of cold weather, exhaustion and pop music) that had me scribbling in my moleskine. At least one of the characters from Electricity would slot very well into that tale, so we'll see. I do like returning characters.

There's another idea that's been kicking around for years and that I finally had time to elaborate into a workable plot (during an incredibly boring conference I was recently sentenced to.) It's probably more of a screenplay idea, but I'm quite excited about that too.

Ideas aren't in short supply at the moment, which is reassuring. As much as I love them, I wouldn't want to be stuck with Salmon & Dusk forever. Of course, finding the time to do anything with these ideas remains an issue.

Hopefully there'll still be some interest left by the time they emerge...

Electricity, as part-memoir, bears the imprint of many experiences and influences, but there are two clear sparks that started that fire. One was a dream I had, just before I left Perth for London, about intelligent electricity; physical, tangible electricity being crafted for entertainment. The second was the film clip for Suede's single 'Electricity', which I first glimpsed after returning from a drunken night out. (Spending a few drunken hours watching weekend all-nighter music programme RAGE was de rigeur after a night on the town.)

When starting writing something, I like to have the "vibe" worked out - the aesthetic. Usually this amounts to a vague sense of visuals but also a quality of the world the characters will inhabit, be it joyful, murky, autumnal, rainy, clean, gritty, magical etc. For my Electricity, I wanted something hard-edged and ordinary, laced with bigger possibilities. This was crystalised in the film clip - a cool as fuck band shimmering in and out of existence in a rainy London alley, like manufactured ghosts.

It barely mattered that the song in question was more or less a retread of 'Trash' from Suede's previous album or that Anderson's lyrical lexicon was already caricaturing itself - the refrain 'bigger than the universe' worked as that mysterious trigger to start writing. Within months I'd written the opening chapter to Electricity, more or less as it stands. At the time, and for some time after, I thought it was the best thing I'd ever written. It was so good, in fact, that it took me five years to write the second chapter.

From the archives:

I have rediscovered the joy of Suede, having recently picked up a copy of their biog, Love and Poison via ebay.

Some years ago I tortured many a hairdresser insisting they bend my unbendable hair into the Anderson fringe, used to take in the NME to some poor Italian in the local mall. It was all black hair and skinniness then, sweltering in the Perth summer beneath black shirts and hairspray. They weren’t a band for an outdoor city, for the determinedly masculine and casually dressed. They were style and pallour, urban despair and decay.

There was little decay in Perth, which was probably why I was so keen to leave it. Songs like ‘The Asphalt World’ seemed ill at home among the open green and blue of the quiet town of Cottesloe. But these were songs that felt like home anyway. There were three Suede fans in Perth and I was dating one of them - I think the glamorous decay of their music glamourised the decay of that relationship far longer than could be healthy - so it was a small but determined clique. It was music determined to be unpopular, music for the misfits and outsiders. (Actually, I’ve been asked to point out that there were probably more than three Suede fans in Perth, which is very true. We were just too busy being glamorously miserable in our bedrooms to ever congregate anywhere.)

Of course, in London they were topping charts and covering papers but that was, quite literally, a world away. In Perth we were ‘alone, but not lonely’, skinny and gloriously miserable.

By the turn on the century I had become embarrassed, as one always becomes embarrassed of an ideology left behind. The band had stagnated and caricatured themselves. From ‘Coming Up’ on, each album seemed to in some way imitate the last, albeit less successfully. ‘Trash’ became ‘Electricity’ which became ‘Positivity’ in a sliding scale of quality. ‘Head Music’ seemed promising at the time but, once that time had passed, it was empty with filler. 2002’s ‘A New Morning’ was unexcusably dire, with lyrics that once verged on urban poetry suffering from a vastly reduced and self-conscious lexicon. The less said about the two singles fronting 2003’s retrospective the better, which was just as well as there were too few people still listening to say much.

So Suede and I parted ways, shortly before they parted ways with each other. In 1996 I would have been appalled, 7 years later I was almost relieved. I still thought about them, still cared in the distant fashion reserved for ex-lovers. I picked up the biog dead cheap on ebay gripped by a fleeting nostalgia, with some vague thoughts of research for a music piece I was thinking of writing. It’s a good story - theirs, not mine - and has returned me (older and wiser) to the flock. Given the tempest of addictions, illnesses and tantrums that surrounded the band, it’s remarkable they ever released a record. It’s an incredibly readable nightmare romp which I devoured within a week’s worth of train journeys.

Shock! as first guitarist (Bernard Butler for the uninitiated) begins leaving shortly after the release of their first single. Marvel! as he rarely speaks to his bandmates throughout the recording of their masterpiece, ‘Dog Man Star’. Be Amazed! as his replacement, 17 year old wunderkind Richard Oakes perfectly replaces him before descending into alcoholism. Despair! as Brett Anderson swaps addictions between smack and crack and seems to rarely leave his flat. Despair again! as keyboardist Codling develops ME and has to regularly crawl offstage to collapse in a dark corner. Detest! Blur frontman Damon Albarn as he steals Brett’s girlfriend and generally acts like a wanker.

So. Suede. Love and Poison. Makes old obsessions new again. Although it really is only their first two records that still stand up timelessly and astonishingly… And some b-sides. And ‘Beautiful Ones’. And I have a soft spot for ‘Lost in TV’… And ‘Everything Will Flow’…

It’s strange really. I was feeling utterly miserable going home from work on Tuesday. Graffitied train through North Melbourne urban wasteland, grey clouds. And the Suede comp in my Discman (ipod? pah!) fitted perfectly. Yesterday I went home feeling enthused and optimistic. Blue skies, clean train, open spaces. Ducks on the river. And the Suede comp in my Discman (if I could listen to my old 12"s walking around town I would)* fitted perfectly. Suede. Dead but eternal.

* I think my anti-iPod stance lasted another three months. What was I thinking?

The links below will allow you to subscribe to the both podcasted novels: