Bloggage and an interview

After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, The New Goodbye finally gets its own little bit of the web dedicated to it. The first proper post is an interview with its illustrator, Johanna Basford.

The New Goodbye app features some video, including this interview with Johanna.

I was playing around with the test version of the app yesterday. Needless to say, I'm absolutely delighted with it. I reckon anyone who does fork out the £1.99 for it will feel they've got a rather spiffy deal.

Meanwhile, on the rabbit front, I think Aliya is just a bit paranoid.

Oh, and Aliya and I and Mr Aliya met up for 'cake' last week (they had some over-priced chicken salad affairs). There were not pictures from that encounter, but as not everyone on here pops over to the MNW blog regularly, here's not-the-most glamorous pic of the two of us from back in February, when I almost ended up paying twenty quid for just three mushrooms.

To see some other writers looking similarly delightful, head this way.

You saw it here first, folks

Here are some screenshots of the app-in-progress, including a shot of the cover. Nice, int they?

351 changes, and I'm done

The New Goodbye fast approaches a 'public-ready' state. (There are 351 minor changes to implement, and it's job done.)

It's a weird feeling, being on the verge of what is essentially self-publishing. It's not something I thought I'd ever be comfortable with, but, having read through the entire manuscript now, in an almost final state, I have to confess I've never been so confident in or so proud of a piece of writing, and I seriously think there's an audience for it.

It feels like it fulfills everything I want to achieve with my writing. Can an author really ask for more?

Added to this is the fact that it's going to be part of a very special art project, and I couldn't be happier with it. Johanna has completed work on her illustrated version of The Dialogue Of The Dogs and although it took her closer to seven days rather than seven years to complete, it is no less amazing for it: a two metre-long wordless narrative full of tiny detail. I'm not really one for superlatives, but it really is a wonderful achievement.

Red Diesel

Further to my brief blogpost about looking for women (ahem), yes, it’s true. I’m teaming up with app developer Russell Quinn and the rather fabulous illustrator Johanna Basford to produce a kind of digital über-book. This will contain a rather beautiful version of my literary novel Red Diesel (each chapter takes as its title some form of romantic gesture, from flowers and chocolate right the way up through to diamonds and Johanna is creating frontispieces for each chapter tied to each of the themes), and Russell did the recent McSweeney’s app, so the design should be similarly lovely.

For reasons that will be apparent to readers of the novel, Red Diesel will be packaged with Miguel Cervantes’ novelette The Dialogue of the Dogs as its companion piece. And this is where Johanna’s beautiful craftsmanship will really come into play. But you’ll just have to wait to see that.

In the hope of maintaining the possibility of having a publisher buy the book to release in the traditional manner, this is going to be exclusively for the iPhone. (Frances, an app is like a cross between a small programme and a website that you can install on your mobile – To get a clearer idea of how they work, check out Canongate’s demo of The Death of Bunny Munro app, which is about the best book app I’ve seen to date (that’s ‘cause our one’s not out yet of course).

A good deal of the content will be available as a free sampler on the app store, with the main app selling for around a fiver. The Red Diesel app is due for release sometime in the spring. (Aliya is polishing off the copy edits for me at the moment, and I’m trying to sort out the details of the video content too.)

In the meantime, as I mentioned in my previous post, I urge you to urge others to enter the competition we’re running for a cover model for the app. To enter just join the Flickr group I Am Mila and upload a photo to it.

Here’s the blurb for the book:

Red Diesel

Alex Mooney hasn’t seen his friend Mila since she disappeared twelve years ago. Now she’s turned up on his doorstep looking for a place to stay. Both of them know Alex’s wife and brother-in-law won’t be as happy as he is to see her.

A quiet and introverted man, Alex’s life is world away from Balkan gun-running and Mexican drug dealers, but these appear to be the reasons for Mila’s return.

Red Diesel is a novel about memory, love and the implications of the choices we make, or it’s about guns, sex and death, depending on your point of view.