BarryHutchison

Normally I don’t work on Sundays.  It’s nothing religious or anything, I just promised myself ages back that I would try to take at least one day off a week, and Sunday seemed like the obvious one.

Today, though, I’m here working, trying to get a head start on the mountain of work that is looming over me like a dirty great looming thing.

You see very soon I will be starting work on two new books for Egmont.  As ever they’re top secret, and I can’t reveal anything about them at all.  I am already working on book three of INVISIBLE FIENDS, and once I get comments back from my editor, I’ll be getting on with draft three of book two.  This means I will potentially be working on four books at the same time.

This is one of those times when the men are separated from the boys.  No more Playstation 3.  No more lying in bed watching DVDs.  No more idly flicking through random pages of the internet for hours on end.  From here on in I’ll eat, sleep and breathe nothing but children’s books.

And oxygen, obviously.

So today I’m quickly reworking the synopsis of a second series I plan pitching to HarperCollins.  This one is aimed at older readers – the 12+ age group – and while it will still be horror, it’ll be very different to INVISIBLE FIENDS.

Once I’ve finished writing up the pitch I’ll try to forget about it until I’ve got at least two of the four books I’ll be working on finished.  I can then look at it again with fresh eyes and give it another rewrite if it’s needed (which it probably will be).

I’m also preparing for my first proper story-writing workshop events, which I’ll be holding at Inverlochy Primary school on the 23rd and 24th of March.  It should be a lot of fun, and hopefully it’ll take my mind off how INVISIBLE FIENDS is doing at the Bologna Book Fair, which also begins on the 23rd.

Speaking of INVISIBLE FIENDS, I’ll be reading an extract from book one – MR MUMBLES – to the older classes at Inverlochy Primary.  Because my own son is too young to be subjected to the book’s horrors, this will mean the Inverlochy pupils are the first children to hear any of the finished book EVER.  It’ll be interesting to get their feedback.

Right, enough of this.  Some of us have work to do, you know?