'If you got rid of every male creator who was a monster, we'd lose so many -'
Don't care. Do not. There isn't a single piece of music, cinema, TV or literature that I would trade for another person's safety, and that's what you are proposing.
Bartending at Longitude and a kid swaggers up with a very impressive ID that shows his age at being squarely 17.
I point it out and he says 'Fuck you're the first bartender I've met that can do maths.'
10 minutes later he walks by with a pint and gives me a thumbs up
I just got into an elevator with a tiny old British woman and when she saw that I was juggling a book, a large gin and a packet of crisps she just said 'the three food groups' and I think I just met the Queen.
Just met v nice woman on the Luas who told me she'd come to Dublin to adopt a cat. She hadn't told her husband (they have like 100 cats already) but she did have a box with her so she could stage a photoshoot and tell him she found it abandoned.
I was enchanted and scandalised
One of the highlights of my brief acting career was watching a spirited argument between an actor and director as to who was more important to THEATRE. The techie watched it quietly for a few moments, then turned off the lights and left. Nobody knew how to turn them back on.
Do you know who the real heroes are? Lovely but slightly dull blokes who take the time video themselves doing mundane DIY jobs and then upload it to YouTube so idiots like myself can fix things without setting off the apocalypse or something.
Gentlemen, I salute you.
@prinxeMu
I saw a shooting star at 6 but because I was a dinosaur kid I thought it was a meteorite so I just lay down on the ground for two hours waiting to die.
Does anyone else just have a wasteland of bios scattered around their computer, oscillating wildly between professionalism and cheekiness, and yet whenever you get asked for one, you always write it from scratch and save it, thinking I'll never write a bio again?
My heart.
Thank you
@AnPostvox
for getting this to me on such a succinct address. And James, if you end up seeing this, reach out, I'd love to send you a little thank you!
Posting this a day late because for some reason, it is currently quite difficult to reach my phone.
Welcome to the world, little Sam. It's got good bones, I swear.
Funny that the headline leaves out the whole 'showing up when suspended, shouting at the principal when they said discussion of the issue would happen at an appropriate time, ignoring not just the law but the decisions of staff, parents and student' but zeroes in on the pronouns
@neilhimself
@edgarwright
One of my favourite teaching moments is reading Coraline to a class of 8 year olds in Egypt and a kid saying very seriously #
'The Other Mother seems nice but I think she is bad.'
'Why do you think that?'
Kid looks at me like I'm an idiot.
'Because she has buttons for eyes.'
I am off to a hotel in rural Iceland tomorrow to teach an intensive week-long fantasy workshop and only today did I actually look up where we're staying and guys
A suited guy beside me at airport security just hissed 'you're moving too slow' at me so I am now purposefully and pettily moving with the glacial elegance of a calving glacier. Very tempted to change my flight so I can be in front of him in every queue for the rest of our lives.
Hey this blew up soundcloud etc also its my birthday this week so hey believe people who speak out about abuse and support marginalised creators byeeee
@baddestmamajama
@grrainne
@hazuhll
Yeah, as an Irish person, this isn't a greeeeeaaat sign for how respectful an adaptation of one of our most important figures would be. Our history isn't a buffet. You can't just take the bits you like and ignore the whole 'centuries of forced Anglicisation' thing.
I'm voting Yes because I trust women to make their own medical choices. Because Irish women shouldn't be forced out of the country to make those choice, or die because that choice is denied them.
#men4yes
I have been married to
@SarahDavisGoff
since the moment I met her, but this date one year ago was the day we threw a big party about it. I have been exactly as happy as you see me in this photo ever since.
Seeing Christmas arrival videos reminds of coming home from Egypt.
I hadn't seen my dad in nine months and when I walked in the door he was sitting at the head of the table in a full beekeeper's outfit.
He said 'Hello. I keep bees now.' and put his helmet on and went outside.
#TheEndlessKing
is out today! It's the culmination of everything I've been working towards since Nov 1st, 2012, when I wrote the first chapter about an anxious kid who had read too much about heroes to ever believe he could be one. I really, REALLY hope you like it.
#KOTBD
When Julie D'Aubigny's girlfriend was sent to a nunnery, she broke in, rescued her, stole the body of a dead nun from the mortuary, popped it in the gf's bed, and then burned down the nunnery to fake her death.
Whenever I try to get in shape the thing that always trips me up is the untrue-yet-scored-into-my-bones belief that if I do all the people who had bullied me about my weight as a kid were somehow right to have done it.
You don't teach kids through shame.
โIf making fun of fat people made them lose weight, thereโd be no fat kids in schools.โ โ
@JKCorden
responds to
@billmaher
's call for the return of fat shaming.
The little old lady I shared an elevator with who clocked my G & T, packet of crisps and copy of Normal People and said, in the poshest accent I've ever heard;
'Ah, the three food groups.'
I realise I'm biased but children's fiction is how you foster a lifelong love of reading and it gets a fraction of the coverage. Features like this are brilliant and shouldn't just be reserved for Christmas.
An extremely stressful day/week/month has been massively alleviated by finding out that my next novel will have
@artscouncil_ie
support. I really can't thank them enough, and I cannot wait to share SISTER WAKE with you all...
When I was a kid I used to fill up my entire family's cards in four different libraries. I cannot stress enough that a library LITERALLY GIVES YOU FREE BOOKS. They should be funded 1000% what they currently are.
I remember hearing Frankie Boyle of all people explain that 'stress' is often just an insidious rebrand of 'sad' because if you tell people your job is making you sad, they'll tell you to change things, but if you say it's making you stressed, they tell you to endure it.
As wuhoo lots of brill Irish literary festivals come a beckoning on the horizon
@ILFDublin
@Writingandideas
@dalkeybookfest
, a moment to reflect on this ๐๐- key part of every line up
Was feeling v helpless after the
#Belfast
verdict &
@camilleos
's incredible, devastating Rape of Lucrece show only underlined it more, so until Monday I'll match all donations up to 1000e to the
#RapeCrisisCentre
. Screenshot your proof below.
#IBelieveHer
This account is dangerously close to turning into a long list of cute things my son does
BUT
I just need you all to know that he very quickly says 'welb' at the end of each yawn.
That's it. That's the tweet.
I see this all the time.
'You should read more, kids!
No, not that.
No, not that.
No, not that.
No, not that.'
You can glue copies of Silas Marner to their hands all you like, but you foster a love of reading by letting them read what they love.
Flashback to the time Roddy Doyle was on the Late Late Show alongside someone of this mindset:
"Children aren't reading [canon authors] anymore. Why is that? Why aren't the little fish biting?"
"Because the little fish think that stuff is a pain in the hole."
Honoured and delighted to be the 2018 - 2019 Writer in Residence at
@MarinoInstitute
. More news to come, but if you're a teacher, follow for a weekly writing tip/resource you can use in your classes...
Thank you all so much for all the lovely msgs regarding lil Sam!
@SarahDavisGoff
& I really appreciate them, despite not being able to respond because
a) being so tired our faces have melted
b) there were a MILLION OF THEM <3
So in apology here is a pic of a grumpy bear cub
@authorontheedge
BOOK 1 - You build a house, you invite the reader in, they walk around and HOPEFULLY fall in love
BOOK 2 - You reveal, without breaking the original frame, that there are secret rooms they never knew existed
BOOK 3 - You burn the house down.
#UKMGchat
#DavesGuidetoTrilogies
129348 words later, a VERY rough draft of my first adult fantasy novel is complete! If you like mercenary saints, dismantling colonialism and handsome villains with weeds growing out of their eye sockets, watch this space...
TW - rape
Court decision or not, Paddy Jackson's messages show that he thought it was funny how he left a woman crying and bleeding. That in itself makes him dangerously unfit to be a role model for anybody. Also,
#Ibelieveher
Neglecting this skill is why people can say 'keep politics out of art' with a straight face. Every single word on a page is a choice and a message, whether you realise it or not. Hell, whether the writer realises it or not. Nothing is by accident.
Icelandic Taxi Driver: So here is the town where I grew up.
Me: It's lovely!
Icelandic Taxi Driver: And here's some lava flats.
Me: Cool!
Icelandic Taxi Driver: And that's where the ghost lives.
Me: Wh- what?
Icelandic Taxi Driver: Don't drive by here alone.
I have a big book announcement to make next week but before you get excited just be aware that somehow
@PuffinBooks
let me publish the lines;
'He made a sort of strangled 'auk' noise, like someone strangling an auk.'
so moderate your expectations.
Lawyers for Paddy Jackson, acquitted after the nine-week
#BelfastRapeTrial
, have issued notice of intention to sue
@AodhanORiordain
for "defamatory comments made by him in the immediate aftermath of the juryโs verdict".
@KRWLaw
When you hear a little girl growing up in the seventies in Ringsend in Dublin was told that liking Doctor Who was stupid and girls don't get to do science, obviously you make them a part of the Doctor Who universe. Like what else was I going to do?
Remember when voting today;
- It's an X not a tick
- No photos in the ballot box
- When the painting of Jesus in the primary school takes off its crown of thorns & throws it at you like a shuriken press A to dodge & plant a Yes sticker on his nose
#repealthe8th
#Together4Yes
Today I'm going make the bold self care decision of not engaging with the Cromwell defenders inexplicably on the TL today in this year of our Lord twenty twenty one and instead I'm going to use that energy to have a Magnum for breakfast
(this is from our legal ceremony, but you better believe I'mma annoy ye with pictures of me in three piece and Sarah in a literal crown when we get them)
'I wonder when the Council of the Rules of Men (not a real thing) got together and decided thatย openย meantย weakย and that bottling things up was better.'
Sharing this for the day that's in it.
#InternationalMensDay
Had to cancel some gigs today for health reasons and trying to offset the guilt by telling myself if I didn't I'd be letting more people down because looking after yourself is actually necessary and strategic and not selfish and bad.
#ThursdayThoughts
Doing another match donation thingy on this, up to 500e, post your proof below and I'll name the person giving the biggest single donation in my next novel.
#RepealThe8th
#Together4Yes
It is my birthday and I am spending it choosing wedding foodz - this feels like a lot of milestones all at once but I'm enjoying it.
(ALSO LOOK AT MY VERY ADULT JUMPER)
Just watched the
#JokerMovie
trailer and I cannot explain how little I care about another film about how a white man turns to violence because 'something something lone wolf something something undefined mental illness,' while pretending radicalisation isn't terrifyingly common.
@naoisefalafel
An old housemate of mine was a food thief. Once when out in a bar, he got in a fight with some strangers. When we asked him what had happened, he said he he had no idea.
He'd walked into their birthday party and started eating the strawberries off their friend's birthday cake.
It is always incredibly cute when the four year old being minded at the back of your 8 - 12s writing workshop suddenly reveals they've been listening the whole time and jumps up to explain their own carefully-crafted character arc and villains...
Can you really say you've started a new novel until you've;
- made it its very own playlist
- bookmarked 50 articles about medieval werewolves you're never going to read
- googled its title
- hated the person who got there first
- practised your Hugo speech
Today in 'Parenting Moments I Didn't Realise Are Of Course A Thing' - I got to explain to my nearly two-year old what a birthday is.
He just looked at me for a really long time and then said 'wow' in the tiniest of voices.
All my the long years of therapy and rebuilding confidence have led to this - the day where I unashamedly wear a bobble hat all the way through a creative writing workshop for second year boys.
New York is an amazing town and I am sorry to leave but I am not sorry about getting back to a proper tea situation: the server just gave me a cup of hot water with milk in it and a tea bag beside it and I had to whisper four verses of Amhran na Bhfiann before it would darken.
One year down!
(well technically a year and a day, but yesterday we were too busy rolling around in wrapping paper)
Happy birthday, you glorious tyrant.
I have a lot of favourite interactions with fans, but the winner has to be the kid today who put up her hand and asked why my main character was a boy, and not a girl.
Was in a boys' school today where a 13 year old asked me 'Do you think Rey is a Mary Sue?'
And that led to a long chat about gendered terms and Luke's achievements and Rey's background and I hope I gave him something to think about, which is kind of all you can do, right?
I just got offered 50e to do a panel at a festival that's charging between 50e and 179e for a ticket, and it's a genuine struggle to defy my innate 'no worries if not' nature and let them know that's not great.
Five years ago today I graduated the UCD Creative Writing Masters with tangly hair and a 1st draft of a novel. The novel has gotten better. I am not sure about the hair.
Guys your kind wishes and lovely words and accurate acknowledgement that I am an incredibly lucky person all mean a LOT.
I keep saying 'I am betrothed' to myself and giggling like an idiot. It's great.
Just before we went live in my first first TV interview;
Presenter: Really lovely to have you here Dave.
Me: Oh thanks so much!
Presenter: No I mean it, most people I interview think they deserve to be here, but you seem genuinely delighted to be out of the house.
1st time in NY I had a mild panic attack outside Grand Central b/c you could fit every train station in Ireland into it & an extremely business woman saw me standing outside like a concussed puppy and offered to WALK ME TO MY EXACT TRAIN I will never forget you queen of business
Getting helicoptered to Tory Island today to tell stories. My two favourite bits of the safety briefing were -
'If you're going down, the pilot will say something like 'brace or... oh shit...'
'let's just say that if you walk into the tail rotor you'll only do it once.'
T-Minus 3 days until the wedding and I'm personally v excited about the 'if anyone objects' part because we've done the legal bit already and its officially too late...
Just did 90% of my Christmas shopping in
@gutterbookshop
and it was the most stress-free experience ever. (also I signed some copies of
#TwelveAngelsWeeping
with a ridiculous doodle of my ridiculous face, if you've got a
#DoctorWho
fan you need to buy for...)
THE WINTERTIME PARADOX - a new collection of
#DoctorWho
stories written by, well, me. (Never going to get used to saying that)
Out this October 15th in a beautiful hardback once again illustrated wonderfully by Alexis Snell.
As for what's inside...