Saturday, went to the Corner Store for the second launch party do thing for Rob Shearman’s Love Songs For The Shy And Cynical, a collection of short stories what he did the writing of. Haven’t read any of them so far, but no need, because Rob himself read a couple of stories aloud at the event. One about a pig in the Garden of Eden composing love songs for Eve; another about a kid who composes a love song in a world where all that matters is the ranking of the top thousand love songs.
In the second story, I detected a little hint of that bitterness that all writers share; that success, when it comes, is a fluke; that the more effort and emotion you put in, the more elusive success becomes; that things that are derivative tend to do well; and how irritating it is when someone younger and more talented comes along and does so much better than you. All about recapturing past glories.
Which reminds me of a thing. A friend passed on some kind comments to me about my Doctor Who books. Which was absolutely lovely and appreciated... except I did write them over five years ago, in many ways they were written by a different me, and it would be nice if someone had a good word to say about something I’ve done since.
How ungrateful, eh?
Still, on the other hand, Rob did admit the vast and significant influence I have had on his work. I haven’t any influence at all but it was nice for him to pretend.
Anyway, it was a lovely afternoon, and I now have a copy of the book, which I shall read and review, his previous one was excellent so this one should be even better,
