different names for the same thing

I´d like to tell you properly about the lakeside jungle lodge on stilts, its banana-leaf-thatched buildings linked by narrow wooden walkways like a level of Myst. The jubilation of bursting out into sunshine from the Lima perma-fog, and flying over the Andes and then down over endless forest patched with cloud shadows and threaded with twisty red-brown rivers like question marks. Hummingbirds and butterflies and sliced papaya and talking parrots and hurtling round Pucallpa on rattly, noisy little mototaxis, and this dusty little internet cubby full of rough wooden sculptures of animals and staticky pop radio (everyone round here seems to listen to a station called, I think, ´Romantica´, where every song sounds like it´s from the slushy lovesong pirate radio of my childhood). There´s mad explody mythological art to tell about (I heart Pablo Amaringo) and lucky meetings and exciting stuff afoot. And this feeling of `yes, I´ve arrived, this is it´ which requires a big digression about rainforests and my childhood imaginary world. But I can´t capture anything properly right now because it is TOO HOT TO LIVE (Lima was chilly and somehow damp and arid at the same time; getting off the plane at tiny Pucallpa airport, it was as if the sun was punching me in the bare shoulders).

Also I itch like holy hell after being devoured by mosquitoes last night. It´s murder on my concentration. The `Off!´ bug spray I bought to replace my proper Jungle Formula stuff, gone with my bag, is some sort of cruel joke. It burned when I put it on, but the evil little beggars just sniggered at it and went on biting merrily. Perhaps it is actually human repellent.

Graah. I go find anaesthetic cream. Perhaps I come back later.

I was up marking coursework till nearly 3am last night and now my head is full of wool and my neck feels simultaneously stiff and too wobbly. Today was running up and down stairs chasing more coursework, sending the students out to buy plastic folders and find me the hole punch because surely you're not submitting THAT? It's all in but one now, finally, and for the rest of the evening I am off duty. I am eating bucket pasta and thinking about watching 24 Hour Party People, which always inspires me because it's about a shambolic disorganised mess of a person who through sheer enthusiasm manages to make great stuff happen, almost by accident.

But even despite my adrenalin-filled get-things-done state, I still found myself perched on the edge of the bed half-dressed for half an hour this morning, breathlessly devouring the end of Geoff Ryman's Air. Oh my. I'd only picked it up while packing my bag to see how far I was from the end. I went out to catch the bus still staggered by the brilliance.

More people ought to know about Geoff Ryman. Okay, lots of people seem to have read 253, his book of thumbnail portraits of people on a tube train, but who knows about The Child Garden, the love story of a girl and a polar bear opera-singer in a near-future sub-tropical London? It's full of amazing language and big ideas and is one of the best books I've ever read. Was, his remix of The Wizard of Oz, is also great and very, very dark. Lust is an awkward one, about a scientist who develops the power to manifest anyone he fancies, alive, dead or fictional, but it's still got more crunchy concepts and moments of insight and beauty than any three more processed and pasteurised books you care to mention, and towards the end goes careering off into a gorgeous crazed mystic tangent about what really happens when you die. He writes about time and memories and the random connections between people, the texture of cities and making art and throwing impromptu street parties in the face of death. With balloons.

Excuse my fangirling. I just think he's criminally ignored, though he did win a bunch of awards for Air, which is set in the last village in the world to get online. When I was in Trinity Netsoc we invited him over to give a talk about 253 and online fiction (yes, it was the late nineties, how can you tell?) and a bunch of us committee people got outrageously drunk with him in his B&B while he told the guy who was Secretary to stop wasting his life and go have babies. It sounded as if he felt he'd failed at his life. I think he ought to have people peeling grapes for him, if there was any justice.

Off to the Bristol Comic Expo tomorrow with a bundle of Wasted Epiphanies to thrust upon people. With polar bears in it, yes. I rip off Mr Ryman all the time without meaning to.

Many coolnesses! The first one, as seen on Neil Gaiman's journal, is hiddenpassageway.com. If I had one it would have to lead to a Madwoman's Chamber, like the one in the Wizards, Warriors and You books. Though some of you might think that in a house with me living in it this would not be difficult.

Yesterday I got an unexpected parcel from addedentry and j4. Surprise parcels are the best. It had two books on writing for children, including one by Joan Aiken! And a card with the cover of one of the Malory Towers books! You guys rock.

(The Joan Aiken book had a list inside the front cover of books she's written, some for children and some for adults. The adult books all have dull, wet names like "The Young Lady from Paris" and "The Smile of the Stranger". The children's books have thrilling titles like "The Stolen Lake" and "Midnight is a Place". Wonder what that tells us about her? Or maybe about me?)

I really appreciate all the comments on the cover I put up. And I have found a printer in the UK thanks to spurious_fellow's introduction skills. This is great news, meaning no stupid international shipping charges for me or anyone else who wants to buy the book over here, but none for people in America either because they have a branch there too!

Is it wrong of me to think that "Antony Rowe" will look way better than "Lulu" on the back of a book? It sounds so much more... publishery. I hope this is not just because of some unconscious prejudice on my part because Lulu is a girl's name. Albeit a particularly fluffy, silly-sounding name.

Doing it in the UK means I have to do various bureaucratic bits myself, though. I have to get a company in Oxford to make me a barcode. On a little piece of plastic, apparently. And it looks like I might have to buy ten ISBNs. You can't get them singly. I have a few other hare-brained book schemes in the back of my head, but not a whole ten of them. Is anyone else out there considering self-publishing something? If so, you can buy an ISBN from me for £9.40 and then I will officially be your publisher! This amuses me greatly.

Exclamation marks! They are the new understatement!

Or there should be. I want to buy a piece of land, somewhere in England or Ireland, and declare it a Chinese park. Or just rent a house with a garden and declare it to be a Chinese park for a single night. Chinese parks are the new best thing ever.

Picture this: It’s just after dark. You’re walking along a winding, shadowy, leafy path with funny metal sculptures like huge bubbles of mercury sitting on the grass on either side. Off in one direction, someone’s voice is rising and falling in operatic scales. From another, faintly, comes the sound of someone else’s flute practice. A barefoot woman is doing t’ai chi in a clearing. Further on, an elderly man in pyjamas is standing absolutely motionless, staring at a tree. Young couples kiss on benches, old couples walk their tiny dogs. Kids play badminton in the path...

( night kites and other fun stuff )

Say I did have a nice big garden to do it in. Would you come to a Chinese park evening? And what would you do? ('Stroll' is a perfectly acceptable answer, of course, and so is 'absolutely nothing').