If you’re around Inverness on Friday 13th August and find yourself at a loose end, you might want to consider coming to see me at the Inverness Book Festival. I’ll be at the La Scala Cinema in Eden Court from 1pm to 2pm, talking about the Invisible Fiends series. There’ll be plenty of opportunity to ask questions, and I’ll be available to sign books afterwards.

For more information, check out the festival website.

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I’d never been to Orkney before, but all that changed last Sunday, when I hopped on a plane at Inverness and flew to Kirkwall, the largest town on the Orkney mainland, ready to begin my three day tour of Orkney’s North Isles. The plane I got on at Inverness was the smallest I had ever been on in my life. But it held onto that title for under 24 hours, because next morning I got on this…

The plane carried a total of eight passengers, plus the pilot. I was very excited when I got on board, but became slightly concerned when everyone else on board donned a pair of noise cancelling headphones prior to take-off. Sure enough, as the aircraft lifted off my eardrums almost imploded, and I was forced to spend the first 30 seconds of the flight with a finger jammed tightly in each ear.

After that, though, things quietened down a bit, and I was able to enjoy the stunning views from around 500 feet. I wasn’t able to relax fully on that first flight, though, as a terrible realisation struck me just after I took this photograph.

The realisation was this: If the pilot suffers a massive heart attack and dies, I’m the only one who can reach the controls. I would become auto-pilot my default, with the lives of everyone on board (aside from the pilot, who’d already be a gonner by that stage) in my hands.

Fortunately for all involved – especially him – the pilot didn’t drop dead, and the flight was over all too soon. Still, I was made to feel very welcome on Sanday, the first island I visited, and the event went really well, with the kids creating some really terrifying characters based on their deepest, darkest fears.

Next day, I headed to the airport, ready to zoom off to another island adventure. Unfortunately, fog had crept in, meaning the flight was delayed for almost an hour and a half. Luckily I made it to the next island – Westray – with a few minutes to spare, and the airport’s fireman/taxi driver whisked me off to another event at the school.

Before going to Westray, though, the plane touched down to drop off some passengers at a smaller island just beside it. This island is called Papa Westray, and the route between the two is officially the shortest plane journey in the world at just 1.7 miles. From the point the plane starts its engines in Papa Westray, to the point it switches them off in Westray, is almost exactly 2 minutes.

Here’s the view from my window as I was landing in Papa Westray (or Papay, as the locals call it).

And yes, the big shape up the top right of the picture is the propellor.

So, after flying to Papa Westray, then over to Westray, I did my event and hopped on a boat back to Papay again. I spent the afternoon running a workshop with four brilliantly creative pupils at the local primary school, then headed back to the airport, ready to fly back to Kirkwall.

Uh-oh.

The fog from the morning, it seemed, had returned. And it had brought its friends. Rather than just facing another delay, I was confronted by the worst case scenario. The plane was cancelled. And with no other boats due that day, I was stranded on the island without so much as my toothbrush, let alone a change of clothes. What’s worse, I didn’t have my laptop, and I’d finished the only book I’d brought with me while waiting for the flight that morning. I was also due to appear at another school on a different island in the morning, and I’d have to do it wearing the clothes I would have to sleep in.

With the only B&B on the island full, I was driven to the local hostel, where a shared room with a couple of other fellas awaited. Dinner, it seemed would be a packet of crisps from the shop. Still, it couldn’t be helped, and if I was going to be stranded anywhere, then at least it was somewhere with some spectacular scenery. And some puffins.

But then something spectacular happened. Louise – lovely, wonderful, spectacular Louise – from the Orkney Library Service, who had organised the tour, chartered a fast boat to come and collect me from the island! It arrived quickly and got me back to Kirkwall well before dark, and it was flippin’ exciting to boot.

Look, here’s me climbing aboard.

If I had one concern about the trip it’s that one of the blokes piloting the boat looked a bit too much like Richard Dreyfuss in the movie JAWS for my liking. They were both great guys, and it’s not really a criticism, but if you’re going to make a living ferrying people around in small boats, it’s probably not wise to bear a striking resemblance to a famous movie character whose small boat gets attacked by a massive killer shark. I’m just saying.

Next day I set off at stupid o’clock on a much bigger boat to do my final event for the kids at the primary school on Stronsay. In the time it took the boat to get there and back, and in the few hours I had to kill before the event and waiting for my delayed flight back to Inverness later that evening, I got 6,600 words of INVISIBLE FIENDS book 4 written. A result all round, I feel.

So that was that. My trip to Orkney. It was great fun, and I’d love to go back. Which is handy, as I’m going back to do some more events in September. Hooray!

Many, many, many thanks to Louise Graham at Orkney Library for all her hard work getting me to and from events (including picking me up one morning at 6:30 a.m.) and to everyone else on Orkney and at Scottish Book Trust, who made the visit possible.

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The event - Horrors and Nightmares with Barry Hutchison – will be taking place at the RBS Corner Theatre at 3pm on Sunday 15th of August. I’ll be talking about Mr Mumbles and the new instalment in the Invisible Fiends series, Raggy Maggie, which will be published by then. Expect some laughs, some scares, lots of audience participation, and perhaps even a guest appearance by a certain stitch-lipped psychopath…

Tickets are £4 each, and are available from the Edinburgh Book Festival website. Hopefully I’ll see some of you there.

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This guest posting malarkey has made me think it might be quite nice to guest post on some other blogs. So, if you run a blog and fancy me stoping by and talking nonsense for a bit, just let me know via the contact page.

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The tour itself was fantastic fun. Along with Sorrel Anderson (author of The Clumsies) and Kate Maryon (author of Shine), I visited 8 cities in 5 days, travelling hundreds of miles and speaking to just as many kids. It was tiring, but the number of nice people I met made up for it. As did the fancy hotels and the free food and drink.

Signing books in Liverpool. Ran out of stock!

The events themselves were very varied, covering well off and less well off areas, big groups and small. The more I did, the more I found myself enjoying them, and I was really just hitting my stride when the tour came to an end in Scotland. Still, it was very nice to get home to the family, although I’m already getting ready for my next mini-tour – in Orkney, this time – later in June.

One of the nicest surprises of the tour was when Tom Roberts – someone I got to know via Twitter – turned up at the Birmingham event. It was great to finally be able to meet him in person, and I was dead chuffed when he presented me with this…

Raggy Maggie's VERY cross...

It’s my very first piece of fan art, depicting Caddie and Raggy Maggie, the terrifying terrible twosome who plague Kyle in the second Invisible Fiends book. I absolutely love it, and will be framing it and putting it up on the wall.

Must go catch up with work now, but will be back later with more tour-related tales.

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See? Told you.

As well as the lovely posters, the good people at HarperCollins Children’s Books have set up a blog, where everyone on the tour – and I mean everyone – will be posting updates, letting the world know how it’s all going. You can follow the action at SpilltheInkBooks.com, as well as here on BarryHutchison.com and on my Twitter feed.

Hoping to put up a new video blog tonight, but it’s taking forever to upload to YouTube and it has failed the last three times. If it doesn’t go this time I’m calling it a night before I smash something valuable with something very heavy.

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It’s always nice to meet people who are as passionate about children’s books as I am, and Marion and the other organisers of the festival were definitely that. All involved genuinely care about getting kids reading, and long may they continue to receive the funding to do what they do.

While at the festival, I met Alexander Gordon Smith, author of – among other things – the Furnace series. We didn’t get much time to chat, but from the few minutes we had to chat it was clear we have a lot in common, including our love of writing, our fondness of skipping off work to play the PlayStation, and our tendency to carry large, stuffed animals with us at all times…

Back row (L to R) Barry, Gordon. Front row (L to R) A giraffe and a horse

Before I left, we managed to get a photo taken to mark the historic meeting.

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Now…

Two days ago – Sunday 2nd May – was the 8th birthday of my son, Kyle. Like me, Kyle’s a bit of a video games fan, and he decided he wanted a birthday cake in the shape of Sackboy, the main character in the PS3 game, Little Big Planet.

Unfortunately, you can’t just pop out and buy a cake shaped like Sackboy, largely because pretty much nobody has the first clue who or what Sackboy is – or, at least, nobody apart from the people who own Little Big Planet. As a result, Sackboy cakes do not exist.

Now, being naturally lazy, I’d have just gone to Tesco and had a picture of Sackboy printed on icing and slapped on a Madeira cake. Bosh, job done.

But Kyle’s mum, Fiona, had other ideas. Somehow, in between looking after Kyle (then 7 years old), Mia (8 months) and me (32), she found time to whip up this…

The world bit at the bottom was a bit of an afterthought, but doesn’t the cake look fantastic? What’s more, he looks fantastic despite the fact I accidentally took a big chunk out of his arm, and Fiona had to patch him up with a dusting of cocoa powder. Whoops!

I almost felt bad sliding the sharp, steel blade of the knife into the poor little blighter’s smiling, unsuspecting face, but man, it was worth it. That was one tasty face.

In other news, I made a return visit to Banavie Primary School today to speak to the kids and sign a lot of books. One girl there had read Mr Mumbles several times, and tells me it’s her favourite book in the world.

Eat that every other author ever!

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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.

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