Now blogging on MySpace!
After weeks of tinkering about with the Wordpress/MySpace settings, I think I’ve now finally managed to convince one to talk to the other. As of now, every post I make on BarryHutchison.com should be replicated on www.myspace.com/barryhutchisonauthor
I’ve had to cancel the other account I set up, because there was an underscore in the web address (it was /barry_hutchison) and that seems to be what was causing the problems.
So, if you added me as a friend under the previous profile, I’ll have vanished from your friends list. Do feel free to add me again, wontcha?
Baz
Transient states of excitement
I’m back from Dublin now. It was a long, devastatingly dull week, but I managed to get the first draft of my new 7-9 year old manuscript completed.
Once again, the title gives the whole game away, so I can’t reveal it yet. Let’s just say it’s a comedy horror, it has Elvis in it (well, sort of), and is likely to put children off a certain type of toy for life …
Now, onto other news. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I would potentially have some exciting news to share soon. That’s no longer the case. I definitely have some exciting news to share.
But I can’t share it at the moment. Once the contracts are signed and the official announcement has been made, I’ll be able to reveal more, but now I can only confirm that a major international publisher has made an offer for a six book series of mine. It’s all very exciting. I only found out late on Friday afternoon, so it’s still sinking in a bit. By tomorrow it’ll really hit me, and I’ll spend the morning running up and down my street naked, and whooping like Tom Cruise on Oprah.
Current projects update
So, I’m still waiting to hear the final decision on one of my manuscripts from a top international publisher. They seem very interested, but I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much. Hopefully I’ll be hearing something this coming week, at which point I should be able to reveal a little more. Until then, my lips are sealed.
I’ve now finished the rewrite of the first of the two books I did recently for Egmont. Did I say that already? I just had a real sense of Deja Vu typing that sentence.
On the comics front, things are cruising along with GANGRENE. I have a load more artwork to show off, but it’ll have to wait until I have a bit more time to resize it all for the web. It’ll be worth the wait, though.
I’ve also become involved in a web comic project with four other writers. We’re all running our own comic on the site, and will be posting a new page on a different day each week. So I might be putting my pages up every Monday, for example, with the other guys filling out the rest of the week with their new pages. It should be fun, if a bit hectic!
Anyway, that’s about it for now. I’m off to Dublin tomorrow until Friday, so I don’t expect to be posting any updates between now and then. Never know, though.
For God’s sake, be my friend!
I’ve just started up a MySpace profile for all my writing an’ that. At the moment I have no friends. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch.
If you’re reading this and you have a MySpace account, and you’d like to make me blissfully happy, go to my profile and be my friend!
Please.
Don’t make me beg.
Potentially exciting news …
As you can probably guess from the subject line, yesterday I received some potentially very exciting news regarding one of my manuscripts. I can’t say any more at the moment, but hopefully will be able to reveal all in a couple of weeks.
In other news, today I get my feedback of the last-but-one book I wrote for Egmont. Hopefully there won’t be too much work needed in the rewrite.
Got to run - currently working on a new novel for 7-9 year olds, and want to get a chapter done before lunchtime.
Cry Fowl!
Today I caught up with Artemis Fowl author, Eoin Colfer. Literally caught up. I had to chase him down two alleyways, before finally rugby tackling him outside the Carphone Warehouse.
One way or another, though, I was going to congratulate him on being picked to write the next installment in Douglas Adams’ Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. He’s a lovely man, and we had a lovely chat for a bit, before I left him in peace.
I’m not sure how I feel about a new HGTTG book. I think Eoin will make a great job of it, and that his style will be very suited to doing it, but I’m just not convinced it needs to be done. We’ll see how it shapes up when it is released in 2009.
Five things I have recently realised
1. I make faces which correspond with what I’m writing. For example, if I write about someone scowling, I scowl. If someone smiles in a story I’m working on, I smile as I type the phrase “she smiled”. I only caught myself doing it the other day, but have since realised that I do it all the time.
2. It’s possible to write two novels in three weeks. I know because I today finished the second - a full 30 or so hours ahead of deadline.
3. That weird spot thing on my chin is a wart. Ew.
4. Since adopting Google Chrome as my browser of choice, I’ve used it once and once only. I’ll stick to Firefox.
5. Anthony Daniels (C3P0 in Star Wars) looks a bit like Eoin Colfer (best-selling author of the Artemis Fowl series). Just a bit, though.
Comic buying capers
Today i picked up a Marvel/DC crossover comic from a second hand bookshop here in Wexford. It features Superman and Spider-man teaming up to take on Dr Doom and The Parasite. There’s also a smattering of the Incredible Hulk thrown in for good measure.
Anyway, as with most Marvel and DC comics of this era (1970s - 1980s) it’s painfully overwritten to the point of being almost impossible to read. The characters explain what they’re doing in painfully intricate detail in a “look, I - the Amazing Spider-Man - am about to punch you hard in the face with my fist” stylee.
Also in keeping with other comics of the period, the writers (Jim Shooter and Marv Wolfman) are quite happy to pluck new powers out of thin air for the characters, if it provides a neat way to get them out of a tricky situation.
I give you exhbit A:
I mean really - Super-Ventriloquism?! Did Earth’s yellow sun really interact with Clark’s Kryptonian DNA in a way which made him able to convincingly throw his voice? What’s next? Super-Jazz Hands? Super-Knitting?
It’s stuff like this that gives comics a bad name …
Wasting time
As a writer, you have some days where everything just flows. You fingers glide across the keyboard, clicking and clacking as they perform some elaborate dance which inevitably results in several thousand words of sheer, quivering brilliance.
Other days, things aren’t so simple. On these days you fingers don’t dance, so much as hover just above the keys, tentatively prodding the occasional button as if it may explode at any minute. On these days you drink more tea than usual. The news websites are more interesting. You have to organise your email inbox and create mail folders for everyone you’ve ever met, just in case any of your long lost school friends should drop you a line out of the blue.
For me, today is the latter. I have been awake for six hours, and have yet to write anything I’m supposed to be writing. That’s not to say I haven’t been constructive, though. I’ve finally managed to track down a shop which stocks Irn Bru (soft drink of the gods) AND I’ve played Windows Solitaire for a bit. That’s a full day’s hard graft in anyone’s book, surely?
Yesterday was better. Yesterday I finished one of the two books I have to do for Egmont, writing the entire final third in the space of just a few hours. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I’m suffering from burn-out. Perhaps a nice cup of tea would help. And a read of the papers. And after that, maybe just a few hands of Solitaire. That should help recharge the batteries.
ALIENS! ALIENS!!
Surely?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7506355.stm
