Without further ado – Tin Star.

His story after the jump.

Joey Pilman was just a regular idiot working in a corner store in Castlefinn City. One day a guy burst in and held him up at gunpoint. All of a sudden a Castlefinn City sheriff burst in and started firing; the thief shot back and killed the sheriff, but died in the fight. Pilman spied a deputy badge on the floor and realized something – the deputies have the same power as the sheriffs and are subject to no laws. He grabbed the badge, hotwired a car and had the time of his life charging around the city.

The sheriffs found their dead buddy and started hunting down the missing deputy badge. When they found Pilman trying to “commandeer” a pair of shotguns they beat the shit out of him. The Maori (one of the sheriffs) held up the deputy badge in front of his face, told him he was nothing but a “Fucking Tin Star” and threw him off a bridge.

Pilman woke up in the hospital weeks later with no recollection of who he was or what was going on. A police officer was trying to talk to him about the incident, but all he could focus on was the officer’s badge. The only thing he could remember was a man holding a badge up to his face and calling him Tin Star. After knocking the officer out and stealing his uniform and badge he ran out and fled to England. Over the period of two years Tin Star became more delusional and paranoid. He convinced himself he was justice incarnate. He hunted down and killed cops that didn’t “deserve” their badges, didn’t deserve to wear the shield. He began collecting badges, he started pinning them to a trench coat and a waistcoat. Eventually he had enough badges to be almost completely armoured and nearly bullet proof.

However, in the back of his mind there was a badge, a Castlefinn City sheriff’s deputy badge. So he returned to his city with his badges and his coat and he went hunting.
The rest of the story is a tale for another time. Hope you enjoyed this first character bio, more are in the works right now.

So here it is, the first few paragraphs of my as yet untitled Dieselpunk Novel.

The oil and grease didn’t wash off anymore, his fingertips were permanently blackened. Within a year he’d have black palms and wrists. Another year and he’d have black forearms and feet. It’s impossible to stop the progression and after it makes your hair fall out, it turns the whites of your eyes black.
Most men don’t even bother washing once it reaches the armpits, because it’s pointless. You can’t go back under the dome with the rest of the static folk; City Lords, Bucky followers and the tower residents. Most of them have never even seen a lifelong engineer with thick black skin and terrifying eyes. They didn’t even want to know about you once you stopped looking like them.
He put a hydro-tobacco cigar between his wet black fingertips and walked away from the engine room to one of the skeleton cars to feel the dirty air on his face. He lit his cigar and looked across the dry, crinkled earth. Danny was an engineer now, and he would never be getting off this train.

Today I went into town to do something that I always look forward to. Every time it rolls around I’m more than happy to get it done, even if it’s difficult to pay for.

I’m talking of course, about an eye test. I love getting my eyes test, and sleep deprivation not withstanding, I had a blast. I know this all sounds really dorky, but I genuinely enjoy it. I didn’t go to my usual guy, which is kind of annoying because my usual guy has an unusually soothing voice, but I digress…

As is par for the course these days the hardest part was trying to get what I wanted for a price I could afford. With some finagling, a gentle nudge of a 25% discount [supposedly only for the over 60's], and a mid sized thwack from my medical card I was able to get a very nice pair of glasses, with decent lenses for 80 euros. Not bad at all.

They’ll be available for collection on the 18th of this month, so I’ll try and get a picture up around then.

Other than that I paid the rent and got a haircut. The before and after pictures for the haircut I will post somewhere in the next few days if I can manage it.

Tomorrow is the second day of my welding course, and the first day we actually start welding. I’ll try to remember to bring the camera.

I am working on getting character bios for some of the characters of the fictional Irish city: Castlefinn City.
The first [and hopefully more] of these will be posted soon along with an illustration of each character drawn by Frank.

Nonsense to waiting, and enough hanging about. Let’s blog this shit.

I got up at 10am. I wrote 3 scenes. I haven’t had a drink in days. And you know what: I’m more productive when I’m on a rough 9-5 schedule. So that’s that myth gone – you can’t escape the grind, no matter how weird your job.

Be kind rewind.

I’ve never seen the movie, but I like the phrase.

Spending the weekend at Mema’s house. Meatballs!

It’s called “Blood, Fire and Spades in Castlefinn City”. If anything comes of it I’ll definitely let youse all know.

Nikki, my industry mentor, suggested that I get Final Draft 7, the industry standard program for writing screenplays, plays and TV shows. It’s fantastic software, and anyone who wants to be a writer and has an extra 200-300 dollars lying about, get your hands on it.

Oh yeah, the picture.

So, on Monday my dad was working around the house of this woman, he’s in telecommunications contracting just so you know, and they got to chatting. She mentioned that she was a First Assistant Director on several popular TV shows in the UK. He then proceeded to talk her ear off for the next hour or so about me, and my media experience. She was very interested, she gave my pa her number to give to me [are you keeping up?] he texted it to me, I left a message on her voicemail, and then settled into bed, ready to try again on wednesday evening, today.

My phone rang, it was her, and we proceeded to talk for around 90 minutes about the industry, what I wanted to do, her work, my work….

She called me “Babe” and said that she could be the first entry in my “little black book”. It was exactly the sort of conversation I envisioned having with someone in the business we call show. A business with no equal apparently.

So I’ve been writing and reading my previous works, editing and refining and picking out my best work. It’s been a busy few days, but it could very easily be very, very worth it.