Hello Listeners
I'm just back from a weekend in sunny England visiting family. We got back ridiculously late last night and had to claw our way back across Dublin using buses and taxis because the Patton Flyer, for which we had return tickets, wouldn't take us - it was full up (the Patton Flyer is a tiny bus that goes once an hour from Dublin airport, so if you miss it, you're done for)(they should get bigger buses). Anyway, blah-blah-blah, we got home eventually. Then today it was back to work, which was weird because most of the students were new and didn't know me... oh, and I'd forgotten how to teach... which was weirder. Anyway, after a while the students and I were all good chums and I'd remembered how to use a board marker, so we were laughing - or at least I was; everyone else was confused.

And so, the Sometimes 7 story poll. A number of suggestions came in and I've put the finalists in the poll below. Some I had to decline - JGower wanted Esme by Saki, which I will do later, but not just yet (though I have provided JG with a link to Librivox's version and you can find that in the forum: 'Story Requests?'). Irish Mike wanted Le Fanu, but the stories are too big for Sometimes. Also too big were Iago's requested, 'The Island of Dr Moreau' and 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow'. Treed wanted Robert E. Howard, but I need a specific story - I'd be there all day combing through the sword and sorcery trying to find a creepy short. If you can nominate a specific title, Treed, we can put it in for Sometimes 8 or 9.

Which means I've decided to make the finalists... (drum roll) .... 'The Monkey's Paw' by W.W. Jacobs, which is long, but I can handle it. Maglor's nominated, 'The Music of Eric Zahn' by H.P. Lovecraft, and 'The Upper Berth' by F. Marion Crawford, as nominated by Reaper (which is also long, but I can manage it if take time out to drink a vat of Red Bull half-way through).

We'll let the poll run for about a week and then see what you, the listeners, decide will be the story for Sometimes 7.

Hall of Mirrors 17: Give Me a Hundred is now live. This is the first short story I ever wrote. I've re-edited it a bit for podcast but it's almost exactly the same as it was when I first penned it ten years ago. I hope you enjoy it.

Click on play to listen

Player h17

Features Full Version of, In the Hands version of Chopin's Nocturne in F Minor Opp. 55.1

Hello there
I've been away from the computer all week whilst showing my cousin from New Zealand around Dublin and Wexford. Typically enough it rained almost constantly so we spent much of the tour inside pubs... which was nice.

Anyway, back to the mission(s) in hand. Today I resume work on my novel, record one of my old stories for the Hall of Mirrors (thanks to the kindly approval of you good MBP.com users) and, following a perusal of the Sometimes Story Forum suggestions, suggest to you that we have a new story poll for Sometimes 7.

My immediate suggestion is The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs, some other podcasters have already done it, but so what - I haven't :-)
Also, Turtlesong I'm sure would like some Ambrose Beirce, Maglon wants Lovecraft, J Gower wants Esme by Saki, Iago wants Welles, Saibancho wants The Upper Berth by F. Marion Crawford. What do you want?

Criteria is: Horror or creepy or humourous / not too long / available in the public domain.

When we have a fair selection we'll make up a poll and see which story wins the listener vote.

Hello listeners,
Sometimes 6 is now live and features the story 'Tobermory' by Saki. Music comes from the Charlatans. I have a cousin arriving tomorrow from NZ so I can't see me getting much writing done for a few days. I guess I'll have to just drink beer and have a laugh instead ;-)

Do you like the picture? I took it today of a cat who hangs around our building getting fed by everyone but me because he makes me sneeze. I managed to get this pic in between sneezes.

Listen to Sometimes 6

Player s6

The Charlatans
"You Cross My Path" (mp3)
from "You Cross My Path"
(Cooking Vinyl)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Not that it really matters much to anyone other than myself, but today I finished the first draft (rough as the corns on grandma's feet) of novel *2. I was very happy with the way things turned out. Slightly different than what I expected, but perhaps all the more satisfying for it. It's always a thrill when characters start walking around and behaving in ways you didn't plan for. It's like they already exist and you've just found them rather than invented them; reporting their movements to the world, surprised and sometimes slightly appalled by their behaviour - but nevertheless reporting it faithfully. After all, that's my job, isn't it?

Something I didn't mention when I outlined all these plans of mine, i.e. The Gassing Room, Novel #2, continuing with Sometimes etc, is the fact that I had rather a lot riding on an application I made to the Irish Arts Council for funding. A chap can only live reasonably on no income for any period of time before the fridge, which as you know has a tendency to be a bit on the empty side, starts to look seriously famished.

The bad news is, the results are in. I got the results of my funding application yesterday: I got nothing. Consequently I have to put on my shirt and tie and return to the world of gainful employment. Consequently, I need to re-think how I use my time and energies. In writing three projects (Sometimes is written, of course) and podcasting two, I spread myself pretty thinly, making limited progress in all. To use the time remaining (I can afford to take another month off) wisely, I need to put aside two of these projects and focus on one exclusively, and I think you'll agree that that project has to be the novel.

This means that Sometimes will become less frequent and The Gassing Room will have to stall at part one for the time being.

This is a setback to, but not a complete de-railing of the Mike Bennett Podcast train. There is a plan B, but if recent experience has taught me anything, it's don't share your plans until you have a suitably well-stocked fridge to take you through the production of them all. Needless to say, if I can get The gassing Room done soon, great, but realistically, don't expect anything in the in-box for a couple of months. It's all hands to the Novel #2 pumps. It's the only one that I stand any reasonable chance of selling in the long term, and therefore the only one that'll put carrots and bread in the fridge. And you know how important that is to a growing lad.

M

Sometimes 5: The Penance is now live at Podshow - (doh!) I mean Mevio.
The story comes from Saki (The Penance) and music from 'A Band Called Quinn' ("And Ever Again").
Click on play to listen:

Player s5p

I talk about artwork for 'The Gassing Room' and Hall of Mirrors' print release. For those of you who are interested in perhaps producing some artwork for either or both of these projects, please send them in here or drop me an email. As I say on the podcast, there are no guarantees that submissions will be used, but all will be gratefully received and displayed in a 'listener's art gallery' here at MBP.Com.

A link to the 'Troll' image, the picture I use as 'brand' with Hall of Mirrors, is here: http://tinyurl.com/49dhg9 but don't feel constrained by that, use piers, mirrors, whatever stirs your imagination. Many thanks.
Mike

Yawn. 01.28 a.m here and I've been working on Sometimes 5 for about 8 hours now and I'm going mental listening to the sound of my toilet. I have to go to bed. I'll do some more editing tomorrow and hopefully it'll be on-line tomorrow night or Monday. Goodnight.

"How high's the water, Moma?" Or rather, "How many words have you done on Novel #2, Slacker?"

34,653 words and rising. A novel consists of 50,000 words and over. I'm halfway through chapter 11 the story has barely begun. This is going to a big book, listeners. At this rate the podcast will run for... I don't know... ages. I'm considering breaking it up into three parts. Not three books, just three parts of the same book. That way we can all take a few weeks off every three months or so. It's like waiting for a bus. You don't get a bus / novel for two years, and then when one does arrive it has two more trailing after it.

I've also done the first draft of the first episode of The Gassing Room. It needs re-writing, but it's looking like it's going to turn out to be a three to four part podcast... which is nice.

The reason I'm telling you this is just in case you think I'm sitting around, staring into space and eating carrots or whatever. Oh no, I'm slaving here. I'm also spending a little time here and there staring into space and eating carrots, but then I'm only human.