2024: Mirabilis! (If you don't count all the stuff that's fucking awful about the world, obviously)
2024 was quite a year for me.
January: Weird Horror published my story Hello. A nifty start to the year.
In March I turned fifty three. That's a bit of a non-age, isn't it? Neither one thing nor another. The outer edges of mid-tier middle age. A temporal non-event. Unless you're Mary Shelley, Babe Ruth or George Michael, because that was the age they died. I've outlived George Michael. Blimey.
I've a lot of time for George these days. And Mary, of course. Not Babe. Not so much. Sorry Babe. You'll only ever be a pig in the city to me.
In April my first book was published. Teeth: An Oral History - a memoir to my molars - was lionised by The Spectator, earning me the sobriquet "refreshingly unpretentious", for perhaps the first time. I did my first unboxing video, where I practically wept with joy on catching sight of the small but perfectly formed volumes within.
April: I travel to London to show my film Muirgen at Bafta. Genuinely one of the most demoralising evenings of my life and I dearly wish I'd stayed at home. A staggering waste of time.
May: I launched my book, Teeth, at the Black Box, and it was the opposite to the Bafta travesty. Utterly joyous. I was walking on air for days afterwards. Moonwalking on air. Nothing prepares you for joy. It's like pain - you have no clear memory of it. But I'd like to do it again - it's a dopamine bath bomb. Luckily, because this is the Mirabilis year, I DO get to do it again!
Props to Shauna, who did the Q&A. No one could have done a better job. She was masterful. Mistressful?
Er, no. Perhaps not.
May: Teeth is reviewed in The Spectator: "Higgins has a stand-up comedian's eye for banal details, musing on, among other things, the terrible music at the surgery (the radio is tuned to a station called Cool FM, which plays hits by Dido and Nickelback) and the stinginess of motion sensors in toilet cubicles..."
That's the pull-out quote. That's what they went with.
Still, you know, thanks.
May: Went to Graeme and Katya's wedding. It was excellent. They are the beautiful people.
June: Travelled to England for my brother's 50th birthday, and to see all of my family. We had a fine time. Saw a bit of Cambridge, my old stomping ground. Went punting on the Cam, piloted by Captain Henry Higgins, my nephew. He is a Titanic obsessive, so I was taking my life in my hands. Nearly came a cropper by the Mathematical Bridge, but we worked it out.
July: Labour wins Basingstoke for the first time in recorded history. Wote Street Willy is visibly engorged.
July: Alexa tries to get me to buy a book by Anton du Beke for 99p. I don't.
July: My friend Jess visits from America. She is unchanged. Still wonderful.
July: Man shoots at Trump's ear. It heals, miraculously.
August: Wrote a piece in The Thin Air about what I listen to in the gym. Because it's what the kids demanded. Turns out it's Purcell, mainly.
August: Went to Jersey on holiday. Bumped into an old mate, Chris, from Art College, drank Gavi di Gavi, saw flamingos, went to a Chateau. Splendid.
August: I paint the cover for Exacting Clam No. 14. It is a thinly veiled advert for my book, Fine. Don't tell anyone.
September: I sell my short story Bang Bang to Exacting Clam. It will be published 2025's Summer edition.
September: Fears: Tales of Psychological Horror comes out. Within its pages I rub shoulders with such luminaries as Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen Graham Jones and Margo Lanagan. It'll be another month before I receive my contributors copy, though. Bet Joyce got hers pretty sharpish.
September: Did a book reading at my friend Francess' party. People laughed in the right places and afterwards friends dutifully lined up and bought a copy of Fine, as though I were the price of entry. I had a great time. I wonder if any of them actually read it.
September: Did an interview with The Horror Writer's Association about the intersection of horror and humour. Or humor, as it was an American magazine. *Spoiler* I was generally in favour, or favor, of it.
September: I sell my memoir, Spine, to Sagging Meniscus Press. It's a semi-sequel to Teeth, as they're both about my failing body. This one's about...well, it's about my back. Yes, you're ahead of me. It'll come out next June, my third book in slightly over 12 months. Or fifth, if you count the anthologies
Blimey. Pass the Savlon - I'm on fire.
October: The writer Aug Stone reads from Fine at the Brooklyn Book Festival. It's a rude bit, of course. Nevertheless, gets laughs from sophistimacated Brooklynites. It's not coarse, guys. It's earthy.
October: Lengthy photo shoot around town with Lovely Liz Lordan. Obviously, I vetoed the ones where I looked fat or panicked, which are my two looks in photos. She still managed to furnish me with many, many brilliant photos where I pass for a human being. Thank you, Liz. You're like Father Damian among the lepers. A miracle worker.
October: Receive my contributors copy of Fears: Tales of Psychological Horror, an anthology title where the editor keeps sending me emails saying "Great Review!" So far my story has not been mentioned in a single one of these reviews. It's not been slagged off, just ignored. Which is sort of worse.
October: Went to a writing class for the first time ever. The teacher was working from an anthology which contained one of my short stories. I kissed my own bicep. (In the toilets, later).
October: Joined Blue Sky because X is such a fucking toilet. I don't get on with Blue Sky either. It's boring as fuck.
November 4th: My first ever novel, Fine, is published. I do my second un-boxing video and, once again, my squeaky voiced excitement is palpable. It IS so cool though. November 5th: Donald Trump is elected President of the United States of America. These two events are in no way related.
November 9th: My 12th anniversary. I buy Susan some ear rings. She makes me a card about Children of the Stones. We are perfection.
November: Pimp Fine on BBC Radio. I bow out of a Belfast Film Festival Quiz Team because the venue isn't to my taste. This is why no one makes my films.
Well, it's one reason.
November: Fine gets its first press review and it's in The New York Times. They called it a "witty, tragi-comic debut". The New York fucking Times! The reviews peaked early.
I've had bugger all reviews since. The Ulster Tatler passed. Belfast Telegraph a no show. Irish Times, nada. I'll make do with The New York Times Book Review. You're fine, lads.
November: Did my first telly on the Robin Elliot Tonight Show and proved the gym was a waste of money. I catch a cold that will last till the end of the year.
November: It's the launch of Fine at The Harrison Hotel and Chambers of Distinction. And it's fucking snowing! I lost a surprising amount of trade to The Dreamboys at the Waterfront too. I thought Chris Packham, in town to talk about climate science, was going to be the big distraction, but no, the oiled up torsos of depilated morons doing back-flips is what the people wanted.
There was none of that at the Harrison. Well, if there was, I didn't do it. I'm pleased to say there was no room to back-flip. It was packed. I had a great time, I sold quite a few books, I met a lot of nice people, and I don't think I paid for a drink. That's a pretty good book launch.
Melanie, the owner, is a Goddess.
November : I got a Pushcart Prize nomination for Teeth. Which was nice.
December: I do a podcast for the ever chill Mallory Smart. She, wisely, keeps the cameras off.
December: Ebbing House, a remarkable pop band I sing for, released our first ever Christmas single, which, I think, was as much surprise to us as anyone else. The A-Side is a reinvention of our early song Eddie and the Boys, this time called Eddie and the Toys, about a rogue elf desperate to make those deliveries, whatever the cost. There is also a backdrop of The Stone Tape in there, as nothing could be more Christmassy. The B-Side is Silent Night, the popular carol, which I did as straight as my head-cold would allow. The former has been called "genuinely frightening", the latter "masterful". Both accurate.
December: I read a proof copy of an astonishing novel. I'm sworn to secrecy about it but it's truly remarkable. I'd be jealous if I wasn't so proud of the bugger.
December: Christmas Day! Still have that cold.
December: Boxing Day! Better Man, a Robbie Williams biopic, where the potteries pop star is depicted as a chimpanzee opens in cinemas. Are you not entertained? Are you not?
HAPPY NEW YEAR.
Oh God. Trump.
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