Posted by Barry on Nov 18, 2008 in
Children's Books,
Comics 
I’ve started to get the coloured pages in for my comic, GANGRENE, and they’re looking fab. I won’t show them off yet - not until they’re all lettered up - but the eyes above form the last panel on page one.
Kudos to all the artists involved in the project - Neil Chenier (pencils), Travis Stephens (inks), and Fran Ros (colours). They’re all extremely talented people whose combined creative genius puts me to shame. All I do is do the words an’ that - they bring the whole thing to life.
On a different note, I signed my contract for my top-secret book deal today, and posted them back off. Now that’s done, I should soon be able to reveal the details of the deal.
Soon, but not quite yet …
Posted by Barry on Nov 17, 2008 in
Children's Books Today I finished up a short story for possible inclusion in an anthology, due to be published in 2010. Its called BOABY AND WINSTON AND ME, and is set in an unnamed town somewhere in the Scottish Central Belt.
For the very first time in my life, I have written something - albeit only 3,500 words - which is completely and wholly grounded in reality. There are no monsters, no aliens, and nary a thumb fairy in sight. None of the characters develop superpowers, meet Elvis, or turn into monkeys.
Nor are any of them crime-fighting lobsters, retired shape-shifters, or genetically engineered demon hunters. Each and every one of them is also completely visible to the human eye.
At no point in the story does anyone explode unexpectedly, face Her Majesty The Queen in hand to hand combat, or hide in a goblin’s cupboard. There is a gnome in the story, but it is made of concrete, and does not run a vast underground network of garden-based spies.
As you can probably tell from the above (every one of those scenarios are taken from something I’ve written) reality is not usually my cup of tea. Oh sure, I’ve dabbled in reality here and there before - usually just before a giant robot smashes the world to bits - but this is my first attempt at a completely straight story.
Did it work? I don’t really know. I found it harder to write than the other stuff, but that was probably because I was stepping outside my comfort zone and challenging myself a little, which is no bad thing.
We’ll see what happens when the publisher has had a chance to look at it. If they go for it, you can read it in print in 2010. If they don’t go for it, you can read it here on this very blog. Either way, you’ll get to read it, and you can make your own mind up then.
Even if I never write another story which is rooted so firmly in reality, I think I’ll take elements of what I learned and apply them to future books I write. For example, my next opus, KILLER MUTANT BUDGIES FROM MARS, will be reworked as KILLER MUTANT BUDGIES FROM A COUNCIL ESTATE IN DUNDEE. How can it possiby fail?
Keep it real, my friends.
Well, realish.
Posted by Barry on Nov 16, 2008 in
Children's Books,
Writing Samples Back in March this year, I posted the first two chapters of the “practice” book I wrote - Kentucky Fried Fairy. I remain convinced there’s a masterpiece hidden away in the manuscript somewhere, but I don’t have the time to dig it out.
Instead, I’ve decided to post the rest of the book, bit by bit, in PDF format. Part one went up in March, and part two is going up now. At this rate I’ll be finished posting it by the time I’m in my mid-40s.
Both files require Adobe Acrobat Reader to view, which you’ve probably already got. And … er … that’s it. Enjoy.
Kentucky Fried Fairy
Part one
Part two
Posted by Barry on Nov 14, 2008 in
Children's Books,
Personal After Kyle had finished school today, we took him round to visit the house of two of his school friends (who are brother and sister, hence them living in the same house). We’d planned spending an hour or two there , before heading back home.
Seven hours later, having discussed everything from organised religion (bad) to Chewbacca from Star Wars (good), we finally called it a night. It’s very rare I can spend that much time away from the computer without breaking into cold sweats about all the writing I should be doing, but tonight I didn’t give it a second thought. It was just a really nice evening of chat, apple crumble, and dancing dogs. Well, one dancing dog, anyway, but then one’s just enough.
In other news, I got my contract today for … well, I can’t tell you yet. Soon, though, very soon …
Still haven’t taken a photo of my charity shop book. Nor have I started to read it. Tomorrow, I promise.
Or Sunday. Tomorrow or Sunday.
Wednesday at the latest.
Posted by Barry on Nov 12, 2008 in
Children's Books,
Personal Sometimes this writing lark is easy. You can come up with an idea, or reach a certain point in a story, and the words just flow out onto the page. Kind of like Tippex, but with precisely the opposite effect.
That’s what happened with my new manuscript, which we’ll call NotLT for not-giving-the-whole-story-away-by-revealing-the-title reasons.
Essentially, I wrote the entire thing over the space of four evenings in a hotel in Dublin. During those 20-24 hours, I sat with my laptop, only stopping writing for the occasional toilet break and Pot Noodle. Not, I should stress, at the same time.
Anyway, I made a couple of very small tweaks to the story when I got back, and sent the manuscript off to my agent, Kathryn Ross. Today, she got back to me with some very positive feedback, and a couple of minor criticisms which required the ending to be rejigged a bit.
The changes took me all of an hour, meaning at most the entire manuscript has taken less than 25 hours to go from concept to a draft which is ready to be submitted. I’m quite proud of that.
Of course, that’s not to say it’s any good. Only time will tell on that one.
On another note, I picked up a book from the charity shop today. Haven’t had a chance to take a photo of it for here yet, though, so I’ll exhibit it tomorrow instead. It is not the type of book I ever expected to buy, and I really can’t see myself enjoying it, but I’m going to try to approach it with an open mind.
And open eyes. That’s important, too.
Posted by Barry on Nov 7, 2008 in
Children's Books,
Personal I popped into my local bookshop today and took the photo below. Everyone present looked at me like I was a maniac. You’d think they’d never seen an unshaven man take a photograph of a child’s book before.
Posted by Barry on Nov 6, 2008 in
Children's Books Unfortunately I still can’t reveal any of the details of the book deal I landed recently, so this post is probably going to be a little vague in places.
What I can say, though, is that I’m currently in the process of writing book two in the series. This is the first time I’ve ever tried writing a direct sequel (or next installment, in this case) to anything I’ve written, and it’s proving more difficult than I thought.
You’d think the hard work would already be done. Most of the characters have been developed. The situation is in place. It should really just be a case of sticking in the new stuff, giving it all a bit of a shake, and waiting for the completed novel to emerge, right?
Sadly not. Yes, I probably could do something along the lines of the above, but would I be doing the book and the series justice? No.
Because characters change and grow. My protagonist is not the same character at the end of book one as he is at the start of it. None of the characters are, so I need to readjust my thinking on them all. Essentially I need to relearn everything there is to know about them.
Book two also can’t just be more of the same as book one. So I have to take the premise of the series which was established in book one, and continue it in such a way that it doesn’t just feel like more of the same.
But ignoring all the technical aspects of plotting and writing for a moment, there’s something much more basic making it difficult to progress with book two: Confidence.
Book one - if I say so myself - is a good book. It’s gripping, fast-paced, and probably my proudest writing achievement so far. Because of this, I’m nervous about book two. Will it be as good? Ideally it’ll be better, as the initial set-up of the series concept will be done, and it can hit the ground running.
Honestly, though? I don’t know. Even though I think the story of this book is potentially much, much better than that of book one, I’m scared I won’t do as good a job of it.
Yes, it’s probably stupid. Yes, it’s just fear talking, but there it is.
Still, that said, after walking back from dropping my son at school today I had a fantastic idea that’ll really help energise the whole plot. I’m off to get stuck into it now. I’m making the protagonist of the series face up to his deepest, darkest fears in this book. It’s only fair that I do the same.
Posted by Barry on Nov 2, 2008 in
Children's Books Right, it’s time for the big reveal. The book is for sale on Amazon now - and selling well, by the looks of things - so I think it’s probably safe enough to let the cat out of the bag.
One of my big secret projects for Egmont recently was the novelisation of massively successful Cartoon Network show, Ben 10. If you haven’t heard of the series, then presumably you A) don’t know any children, and/or B) live on Mars. It’s flippin’ huge, and deservedly so. My six-year-old son absolutely loves it, so writing this book scored me record numbers of hero points.
You can see book one here. There’s a second book in the series - written by the fab Glenn Dakin (who also wrote for the Beastly! series). Both books can be picked up from Amazon and in all good bookshops now.
Will there be more in the series? My lips are sealed. In the meantime, grab a copy of these two for the Ben 10 fan in your life - and let’s face it, who isn’t a Ben 10 fan?
Posted by Barry on Nov 1, 2008 in
Children's Books,
Personal I’ve been zooming back and forth between Ireland and the UK over the last couple of weeks, which is my excuse for not posting owt. The travelling was terrible - every possible mode of transport that could be delayed was delayed. One trip took somewhere around 22 hours to complete, and included the ferry journey from Hell. One day I’ll feel strong enough to talk about it, but not yet. Just … not yet.
Anyway, aside from all that nonsense, there’s not a lot else to report. Waiting on a contract to arrive, and for one of my recent Egmont projects to be published. It hits bookshops on Monday, so I can reveal some more about it at last …
But I’m not going to do that yet either. I’ll update the site later tonight and reveal all. In the meantime, I’m off to play crazy golf. It’s the sport of kings, you know?
Posted by Barry on Oct 12, 2008 in
Children's Books,
Personal 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.
