Slate-gray skies, pounding drizzle - you'd be forgiven for thinking this was an image taken just outside the dark satanic mills of northern England.  But no, this is the sweaty south, blooming with Azaleas and Dogwoods; Augusta, one week before the Masters.

As every good Englishman abroad is duty bound to do, I feel I should complain about the weather: rain, punctuated only by great lumps of thunder and flashy lightning has been the mainstay for the last half-week or so.  Not that I'm adverse to rain, you understand; quite used to it in fact.  I've got a crew flying over here in two weeks for the wedding, so I'm praying that things improve - we're matching Birmingham today with a balmy 11°C (52°F), so they might not notice the difference.  Not that I'm adverse to the cold, you understand; quite used to it in fact.

Come on Augusta - Wikipedia describes you as having 'a humid subtropical climate'.  What is this, the monsoon season?

Okay, so I'm going to try this. 

I've been considering writing a short piece of fiction for a while, but can never really commit to it - it just seems like it would take forever: drawing up well-rounded characters, creating an intriguing plot, pondering over every line of dialogue - yawn.  I could go to a writers' workshop and spend months receiving positive feedback about every little cack-handed metaphor I thought was poignant at 3am, but I've done that before and it takes aaaages to get anything done.  So screw that - I'm going to cheat. 

The idea is simple:  I'm going to spend two days next week planning the plot, drawing characters etc.  I will use a formula borrowed partly from the Michael Moorcock article and partly from the excellent Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler.  In theory, I should be able to plan the whole thing pretty well in the two day slot and be able to spend the following three typing away furiously to meet my self imposed deadline of Friday 1st April (no fools gag here - probably).

I've been inspired by the publication of the excellent Rotten Apple by scriptwriter Simon Dunn, who recently launched his short pulp novel via Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing feature.  Testing this out with ICE Magazine, I found that it's a remarkably quick and easy way to make things available online.  If all goes well, my book should be up for sale as a digital download within a week from now (give or take a few scrabbling hours frantically typing the last bits and editing for kindle format).

Ah, the things you do on a porch in Georgia with too much time on your hands.

Right - better get thinking.  Anyone got any plot ideas?

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