BarryHutchison.com

Like most authors, I find March to be a very busy month – the first couple of weeks especially.

Last week I visited three primary schools around Aberdeen – Glashieburn Primary, Forehill Primary and Hatton Primary – to help them celebrate World Book Day. It was great to meet all the kids, and to see how enthusiastic so many of them were about writing stories. A hefty great whack of them also bought copies of Mr Mumbles for me to sign, which was nice.

This week I have more events – one at a Chatterbooks group in Strathblane, outside Glasgow, and I’ll also be appearing on Thursday at the Aye Write! book festival in Glasgow. After that, on Monday of next week, I zoom off for another event right at the very North of Scotland in Thurso, before coming home to prepare for some more appearances all over the country throughout April, May and June.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. Running events and workshops are quickly becoming one of my favourite bits about this job, but it’s proving more difficult than I thought to squeeze writing time in, too. Good job I got off to such a good head-start with the Invisible Fiends series, or I’d be well behind schedule by now.

Anyway, none of this is any excuse for not updating the blog ages ago. A thousand apologies, and you have my word it won’t happen again.

Very often.

Meanwhile, in other news, over at Tall Tales and Short Stories, Tracy has been giving Mr Mumbles a fantastic write-up. Click here and see it for yourself.

As promised, here are some more snaps from my Invisible Fiends launch event at the Scottish Book Trust in Edinburgh. A big thanks to Chris Newton at SBT for sending me the photos.

I realised this morning that BarryHutchison.com was born exactly two years yesterday. On 15th February 2008 I was on a train, heading to Glasgow, where I was due to meet up with Kathryn Ross, who I hoped would become my agent.

We spoke about the work I had been doing for Egmont, about some ideas I had, and about a little manuscript I was working on featuring a boy whose childhood imaginary friend returned seeking revenge. At the time, that manuscript went by the working title Imaginary Friends Reunited. You, of course, know it better as Invisible Fiends.

It’s an old cliché, but it does seem like only yesterday I met Kathryn. Prior to that I had tried submitting a couple of manuscripts for both adult’s and children’s novels to various publishers, with zero success. So it’s a testament to the abilities of Fraser Ross Associates that now, exactly two years later, the manuscript we discussed at that first meeting has been published by one of the world’s largest and most respected publishing houses.

Did I think when I started this blog that two years later the first book in my six-book horror series would be on the shelves? No. I hoped so, of course, but things move slowly in the publishing industry (unless Michael Jackson dies, then they’re all like ferrets up a drainpipe) so even with the best will in the world I thought we might have secured a deal by now, with publication still a long way off.

I’ve already mentioned how I owe pretty much the whole thing to Kathryn and Lindsey at Fraser Ross Associates, but my editor, Nick, at HarperCollins had a big part to play, too. There was someone else involved in the book being taken on, though. Someone I don’t give credit to often enough.

Me! I’ve always had doubts about my abilities as a writer. Now that I’ve seen my first book on the shelves, and read the positively glowing reviews it has been receiving, I’m prepared to admit that, yes, I’m actually pretty good at this whole writing lark.

Note the phrase “pretty good”.

I’m not very good. I’m nowhere near great. But I hope to be one day. I feel that every book I write is a little better than the last one. Every time I finish a story, I grow as a writer. It’s cliché time again, but practice really does make perfect. I’m working on the fourth Invisible Fiends book now, and it’s showing all the signs of being the best one in the series so far.

So yeah, I’m pretty good. One day – many years from now – I may well be great.

Hey, a guy’s got to dream, right?

To celebrate BarryHutchison.com’s second birthday, here’s a picture of me with an odd facial expression. It was taken at the launch event held at Scottish Book Trust HQ in Edinburgh recently. Thanks to Chris Newton for the photo. More to follow in a day or so.

Me and Mr Mumbles. I'm on the left.

Well, despite the mild panic demonstrated in my last video blog, I’m happy to report that the launch events for Mr Mumbles went brilliantly. There were four events – two around the Glasgow area, and another two in and around Edinburgh.

On Tuesday I visited St Bernard’s Primary in Glasgow, where I spoke to the Primary 6 & 7 classes. Because it was my first event I was a bit nervous, but I hope I managed to cover it up by rambling on about squirrels for a bit, then talking about the world’s largest poo.

After St Bernard’s it was over to St Michael’s in Moodiesburn, North Lanarkshire. This was a big event, with just under 200 pupils from two schools piling into the hall to listen to me. I was feeling a bit more relaxed about it by this point, having survived the first event. The kids were asking such great questions I really didn’t want the event to end, but end it did – after half an hour or more of book signing!

Once I’d finished at St Bernard’s I was whisked off to Edinburgh, where I checked in to the amazing Tigerlily hotel. That night I met my editor, Nick, for the first time, which was great. We discovered a shared appreciation for He-Man, and I found out that Nick used to read a website I created back in 2000/2001. Small world, and all that.

The next day was just as jam-packed, kicking off with a 3 school event at the Scottish Book Trust. The audience were really charged up and into the event, and as a result it was probably the most successful event of the lot. You can see some photos from the event if you click here.

Finally, after a quick lunch (well, a chocolate brownie and a cuppa in the Scottish Storytelling Centre), I rushed over to Whitburn Academy, the first secondary school I’ve ever visited. Although I had been told, I hadn’t properly realised that I was going to be talking to older kids, so I had to hurriedly adapt my ‘talk’ so it better suited the age group. It seemed to work well, as the pupils seemed to really enjoy the event, and you literally would not have been able to hear a pin drop in the audience when I was reading an extract of the book to them.

On Monday night I was dreading doing the events. By Wednesday afternoon I was wishing I could do more. It’s a fantastic buzz getting out there and talking to potential readers, and I’m not sure whether they or I will have enjoyed it more. Roll on the UK-wide tour (more details to be revealed soon!)

To finish this post, here’s a review I was sent by journalist Jayne Howarth. It appeared in this week’s Birmingham Post, and Jayne was good enough to scan it and email it over. Cheers, Jayne!

Click the image to make it bigger. Otherwise it might be tricky to read…

First up, two outstanding reviews of Mr Mumbles have appeared online. You can view them here and here. I haven’t stopped smiling since I read them.

This coming week is going to be a biggie. Tomorrow I hop on a train to Glasgow, ready for two events I’m running in schools on Tuesday. Once those are done, I zip over to Edinburgh, meet up with my editor from HarperCollins – who I haven’t met in person yet – then head to the hotel so I can prepare for another two events on Wednesday.

These will be the first ‘official’ events for Invisible Fiends, so I’ll be talking about how the series came about, reading an extract, and maybe even dropping some hints about what the future has in store for the characters in the story. I’ll also be talking about how I became a writer, and my favourite subject of all – fear!

It should be fun, and I’ll do my best to update the blog and my Bebo page with photos and videos from the events.

Just got back from Kilchuimen Primary School in the Highlands, where I spent the day running story-writing workshops and helping them generate ideas for a short story anthology the whole school is putting together. It was a great day, with lots of fantastic ideas whizzing around, and I can’t wait to read the finished stories.

The school visit today is just one of a whole heap of events I have coming up over the next few weeks. I’m visiting two more schools this week, then a library next week, then another school the week after. Then I’m doing four different events over two days in Glasgow and Edinburgh, before shooting waaaay up to Thurso in the north of Scotland for another school event.

Then, in March, I have another library visit followed by two events at the Aye Write festival in Glasgow. Then it’s a nervous breakdown, before I get stuck into more events in April and a tour in May.

It’s all very exciting, but possibly the most exciting thing is that I’m at Aye Write on the same day as this cuddly comedy legend.

Four words: I. Am. Not. Worthy.

In other news, there are just 14 days until the German edition of Invisible Fiends: Mr Mumbles is published. Huzzah!

Yesterday saw me begin the first in a long series of upcoming events as I begin promoting INVISIBLE FIENDS around the country.

Easing me in gently was a meeting with members of the Cowie Library Chatterbooks group, near Stirling. The group were brilliantly enthusiastic, asking lots of questions, and coming up with some great ideas for characters of their own. After the event they got me to sign some of the Ben 10 books they had brought with them, and then I set off on the 3 hour drive back home.

As I left, though, I heard one boy announce that he was away home to start writing stories, which is just the greatest thing to hear after a workshop or event. There’s nothing I’d love more than for one of the kids who comes to my events to go on and become one of the next generation of authors. Who knows, maybe it’ll be one of the kids from Cowie Library?

Taking a bit of a break over the weekend before I start more events next week. Spending three days in schools next week, and I’m really looking forward to all three of them. One of them will be my second visit to the same school, so it’ll be great to catch up with them and see how their writing has come on following my last visit there.

As mentioned in yesterday’s blog, I’ve been down in Newcastle attending the Reading Partners Roadshow. It was an epic journey to get there and back, but the event itself was great fun, and I got to talk endlessly about Invisible Fiends to lots of lovely librarians.

What was most exciting for me was just being there in a room filled with so many people who were so excited about children’s literature. There were other authors and publishers there, but it was the librarians themselves who seemed to be the most passionate of all. The things they are doing to encourage children to read are brilliantly inventive, and it was a real pleasure to meet and listen to all of them. Even better, lots of potential opportunities came up for me to work with all of them in the future, and I can’t wait to get started.

The venue itself – Newcastle City Library – was stunning, although it isn’t the easiest place in the world to navigate. While searching for the room the event was being held in, I accidentally stumbled into not one, but two Victim Support Group meetings. I’m not sure what they were victims of, but they were victims of something, and I’m sure I didn’t help matters any by barging into their meetings without any word of warning. Still, we all had a laugh about it in the end. When the screaming had stopped.

I didn’t get a chance to get many photos of the trip, but I think I managed to grab a few on my phone. I’ll check through tonight and post what I have tomorrow. For now, though, I’m off to get some work done.

Last year I set myself the challenge of posting a new blog entry every day through November – a challenge I’m pleased to say I managed to meet, if only barely in some cases.

Anyway, this year I’m going one better, and setting myself the goal of posting a new blog entry every day throughout December. That’s 31 days instead of 30. That’s why I said it was ‘one better’. See? Tch, keep up, people.

As this is the first day of December, this is the first post in the 31 day challenge. At this very moment I’m actually wandering around Newcastle somewhere, getting ready to do my first proper HarperCollins event to promote INVISIBLE FIENDS, but more on that tomorrow when I get back.

Thanks to the wonders of technology, though, this entry should auto-post itself without me having to do anything. Hopefully. If not the whole exercise is snookered before it has even begun.

Anyway, off to chat to some librarians. Come back tomorrow for a full report.

Last Friday I paid a visit to Lochyside RC Primary near Fort William, and was met with some of the most enthusiastic kids I’ve ever encountered during my school visits.  It was great to hear that so many of them were keen readers.  Even better, many of them told me that they like to write their own stories outside of school, which is always brilliant for an author to hear.

We kicked off the morning with the two younger classes, and spent a very noisy hour playing story-creating games and creating our own story on the board.  It was a fantastic tale of a female superhero, a villain made of pots and pans,  a giant flying octopus, and a fart loud enough to blow up the world!

With the older classes I ran my workshop session, explaining some fun ways to create characters, setting and a plot for a story the kids could go on to write.  The photo below shows some of the children holding up sketches of their characters, which ranged from a largely inanimate stick to Adolf Hitler’s Dog.

So, a big thanks to the pupils and staff at Lochyside for making me feel so welcome. On Monday I visited another local school and tomorrow I’m getting set to do it all over again.  Man I love this job!