Coming to New York!

As time marches on I'm trying to tick off some of those things on my "to do before I die" list. Today, in a fit of madness, I booked myself a trip to New York. This is something I've wanted to do since I was a kid and I finally found an excuse to squander this amount of money.

And what was the excuse, you ask? Was it that New York is the literary capital of the world? Is it for the art and museums? The parks? The bustle of Manhattan? The Statue of Liberty? No, it was none of those. It was...

The Mighty VAN HALEN!!!

Ahem.

So, David Lee Roth has rejoined the Van Halen brothers for an American tour. I had always thought I would make the trip over to Noo Yoik if that happened, but this isn't a complete reunion. Eddie Van Halen's son, Wolfgang, is playing bass instead of original member Michael Anthony. That was enough to put me off. Until, that is, some rehearsal footage of the band made it onto YouTube. So today tickets went on sale for the Madison Square Garden show. Unfortunately, I wasn't quick enough, and they sold out while I was dithering about hotels and whether or not I could afford or justify spending this much money. The New Jersey show still had decent seats left, however, and I duly purchased one. Several hours of searching turned up a decent looking hotel in Queens and really cheap flights (£350!). Manhattan hotels are either too expensive or dumps, so Queens it is.

I can justify the expense of paying so much money just to see a concert by pointing out this is a once in a lifetime trip, and like writing a novel, something I've wanted to do as long as I can remember. I haven't had a proper get-away-from-it-all holiday for a few years now. It'll be a chance to recharge myself.

Which brings me to my last point - I'm taking a hiatus from writing and blogging for a while. I've just begun the query process for the last novel, and that will continue, but I need to take a step back into the real world for at least two or three weeks. I spent a large part of last weekend spending quality time with my friends, getting out and about and doing stuff with them. Real world stuff. That's the sacrifice you make when dedicating all your spare time to writing. You sentence yourself to months of solitary confinement. Your life becomes your keyboard and your monitor and your imagination. The blogosphere feeds into that, giving you social interaction by proxy, as a kind of friendship patch you can stick on your shoulder while you stare at your screen and tap your keys. I need a break from that, just for a while.

A large part of the reason is the new Work In Progress. It's only a couple of chapters at present, but it's the strongest premise I've ever had, and possibly ever will have. It needs to be written. But, as I look at it from the shallow end of the process, I find myself wondering if I can face that mountain again. I've proven I can do it twice over, so that isn't the question. The question is if I have the will and the belief to do it again. Without a break the answer is an almost certain 'No'. With a couple of weeks away from the keyboard, and plenty of thought applied to the plot, I think I can come back and start the climb.

In the meantime, here's some Van Halen. I know how much you folks love 'em. First is a compilation clip of them in rehearsal. DLR was described as looking like a gay matador, which I can't argue too hard with, but I only wish I was in as good a shape as these guys are, and the original members have all got twenty years on me...



And here's the Mighty Van Halen in the full flush of youth in 1981...



I just hope to Christ they can make it to November without imploding again...