Rushing about like a lunatic today, preparing for Santa’s arrival tonight, so not much time to write anything. However, let me direct you to a poem I published today on Trapped By Monsters. It should get you in a suitably festive mood.
If you’re a monster, that is.
Merry Christmas to all of you!
So yeah, the reason I’ve been a bit remiss in my blog posting duties over the past few days is that I’ve been focused on getting the official website for Invisible Fiends up and running.
Over at InvisibleFiends.com you can now read an exclusive extract from book one, watch the teaser trailer, find out more about the series, and customise your computer desktop with Mr Mumbles’ big ugly face.
Scoot on over to the site and check it out, then feel free to pop back here and leave a comment. I’d love to hear what you think of the new site – and I’d love even more to hear any suggestions you may have on how to improve it.
And yet again I forgot to write a blog post yesterday. I put it down to the time of year, really. What with all the school carol concerts, pressie buying, wrapping, Christmas card writing – not to mention all the actual work I’ve been doing – my sieve-like brain just can’t keep hold of everything. Poor thing.
Anyway, let’s not dwell too much on my inability to carry out simple tasks. In fact, let us never speak of it again.
Instead, I’d like to direct you to a favourite blog of mine. It’s The Young Scottish Book Trust Blog, but don’t let the name fool you – you don’t have to be young or Scottish to appreciate the content. The Scottish Book Trust does brilliant work promoting books and literacy up here in Scotland, and their whole site is well worth a look. For obvious reasons, though, the bit focusing on children’s books is my favourite part.
The blog doesn’t get updated all that frequently (a bit like this one, really) but when it does the quality of the posts make up for the lack of quantity (not much like this one at all). If you have any interest in children’s literature, then the blog is definitely worth adding to your favourites.
Come back tomorrow when I will definitely be making a post – and sharing some exciting news.
As you might have noticed, yesterday I didn’t make a blog post, and so I have failed in my attempt to make a post every day during the month of December.
There’s a good reason why I didn’t post anything. It’s a very good reason, actually.
You see, I did write a post, but there was this dog that ate it.
No? OK then, a big boy stole it and chucked it in a puddle?
Oh, all right, the truth is I forgot. I was so caught up working on something else (something which will be revealed on Wednesday) that I just forgot to make the post.
So, that’s it, then. The mission was a failure. Disappointed as I am, though, I’m going to keep going and try to post entries every day for the rest of the month.
Fingers crossed.
I had a seemingly endless number of technical problems while trying to get this thing shot and edited, and the finished video is nothing like I had intended. It was really just cobbled together from the few bits of footage on the video that hadn’t been corrupted by the faulty tape heads.
Anyway, this is my first attempt at a Mr Mumbles teaser trailer. I’d love to hear what you think – good or bad – so please do leave me a comment below.
I’m delighted to be able to reveal the front cover of the German edition of Invisible Fiends: Mr Mumbles. Published in February by Gulliver, an imprint of Beltz & Gelberg, the book is going to look like this…
Nice, eh? It takes its inspiration from the UK edition and gives it a twist. I think I still prefer the original cover, but that could be because I love the work of the artist, Jonny Duddle. This one ramps up the realism in the artwork, which may be because it’s being targeted at an older age group in Germany. Whichever you prefer, I’m sure you’ll agree that both covers look fab.
As a special treat for any German speakers reading the blog, if you scoot along to this page you can see the listing on the Beltz & Gelberg site. Scroll down to the bottom and you can click through to read an extract from the book – in German, of course.
For those of you who don’t speak German (me included), have no fear – an English extract will be coming along sooner than you think…
It’s December 16th, which means I’m over half way through my 31 day blogging challenge. So far it has been easy to get something up here every day, but the real difficulties are going to start cropping up towards the end of the month, since that’s where all the action is.
It’s hard to believe there are only 9 days left until Christmas. I’ve been working flat out on a website today (to be revealed next week, all being well) so haven’t had a chance to get a proper blog posting organised. Come back tomorrow, though, when I’ll be talking about some of the fantastic presents that Santa never quite got around to bringing me back when I was but a boy.
Rather than completely waste this blog post, though, I’ll use it to remind you that the Invisible Fiends Group on Facebook is always on the lookout for new members. If you haven’t joined, scoot on over now and sign up.
Go on, then. I’m waiting.
I’m all abuzz today, because I’ve come up with a new concept for a trilogy of books. They’re sci-fi horror, and I think the concept is – as we say in Scotland – a stoater. Obviously I’m not going to tell you what it is, but I’m currently working it up into a proper pitch to send to my editor at HarperCollins. Hopefully he’ll see the potential in it.
Before I can get the pitch done, though, I’m going through a brainstorming process to help me generate some ideas for characters, scenes and plot points. The brainstorming process is great fun, as it lets your imagination be completely uninhibited, and you don’t have to worry about what’s good and what’s bad, what makes sense and what doesn’t. It’s all about vomiting ideas out of your head and down onto a piece of paper. Sorting through them and deciding what’s going in and what isn’t, that comes later on.
The working title at the moment is THE LAST DAYS, but that won’t be the title I settle on. I find it easier to come up with a title after the story is written, as you don’t truly know what it’s about until that final word is in place.
Anyway, that’s it for tonight. I’ve got a night class to go and teach.
…then what is the question?
Simple. The question is “On what date is the unabridged audio version of Invisible Fiends: Mr Mumbles available?”
Yes, as you can see over at the website of Oakhill Publishing, a hefty great 5 CD audio book set is on its way. Clocking in at 4 hours and 40 minutes, this great big beast of a set is certain to scare the pants off you, like a Burger King Whopper made of fear.
The set costs just over twenty-eight quid, but don’t worry if that price puts you off. All you need to do is click the link through to the Oakhill site, take a note of the details, then visit your local library and ask them to get a copy in. Then you can sit back and soak up the atmosphere as narrator David Thorpe reads the story to you in his entrancing tones, without you having to spend a single penny of your hard earned cash.
Of course, I’d be delighted if you decided to buy a copy for yourself and for everyone you know, but I’ll be just as happy if you borrow it for free from your library.
I think an abridged version may be available at some point, too, but don’t quote me on that yet. I’ll get back to you when I know more.
You may or may not have been aware, but the government announced plans this year to introduce a ‘vetting’ scheme, where all adults who had regular contact with children would have to undergo a criminal records check, to help ensure they weren’t a danger to the kids they were working with.
A lot of people were unhappy about this, with some children’s authors even announcing they would stop visiting schools all together, rather than go through the vetting process. Many of them acted as if the entire scheme had been set up solely to annoy authors, and it seemed they believed we should have some sort of immunity from being checked.
In the last few days, it has been announced that the scheme is to be watered down. Rather than applying to adults who potentially work with the same groups of children on a monthly basis, only those who work with the same group at least once a week need to be vetted.
This means that authors visiting schools do not need to be vetted, and this is being hailed as a ‘victory for common sense’ by some of those same authors who were protesting about the scheme.
But is it, though?
Like most people, I’m not a fan of needless bureaucracy, and I don’t relish the idea of forking out a fee so I can get a slip of paper telling me I’m not a danger to children. But I – along with many other authors I have spoken with on the subject – believed the vetting scheme was a good idea.
The big-name authors who were against the scheme argued that they have been visiting schools for years and have never been left alone with children in all that time. Well, I’ve been visiting schools for about six months and I have been left alone with children. Twice. I can’t believe for one second that I am the only author to have had this happen to them?
More importantly than that, though, when a school introduces someone to their pupils they are making the implication that the person they are introducing can be trusted. We warn our children not to talk to strangers, but once someone is in the classroom interacting with the children, they stop being a stranger.
Suddenly it becomes OK to talk to that person in the street. Suddenly there’s no danger in walking several hundred yards along a quiet street with that person after you bump into them in the library. Suddenly it’s fine to add that adult on Facebook or Bebo, to email them your home address so they can send you a signed copy of their latest book.
All those things above have happened to me. During one school visit I did, a six-year-old girl gave me detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to find her house, in the hope that I would go and talk to her four-year-old brother about Ben 10. Another author I know had a boy strike up a conversation with him in a public toilet, a few weeks after that author visited the boy’s school.
Kids are naturally trusting, and when a teacher introduces them to a new person they have no reason not to trust them. As a parent, I want to know that – where possible – any adult being introduced to my children as a ‘person of trust’ has undergone at least some basic background checks.
I laughed when I read a comment from one author that the vetting scheme should be abandoned because it couldn’t possibly catch out every dangerous person. Surely that’s like saying cars should be built without brakes because sometimes brakes don’t work? No scheme is foolproof, but one that works even 75% of the time is better than no scheme at all, surely?
If the original version of the Vetting and Barring scheme prevented even one child from being hurt or taken advantage of in some way, then in my mind it would have been worth it. Now, though, with this revised, watered down version, we’ll never get a chance to find out.
