Tomorrow (Sat 4th February) is National Libraries Day, a day when people up and down the country are being urged to get down to their local library and be reminded of just how flippin’ brilliant it is.

Because libraries are brilliant, and right now they really need your help, with countless branches being closed across the UK, and hundreds of library staff losing their jobs. National Libraries Day is a day when book lovers everywhere can stand up and show how much they value the services their local library – and libraries in general – provide.

But I’m not going to dwell too much on the politics of it all. Other people are much more qualified to do that than I am. (If you’re interested, though, it’s well worth checking out the blog of Alan Gibbons, a leading library campaigner and fab author to boot). What I’m going to talk about is what my first local library meant to me.

Caol Library was – and thankfully still is – a small but well-stocked building attached to Caol Primary School near Fort William, Scotland. Growing up I went to Caol School, and once a week we’d go to the library to choose a book. Even then, aged 5,  I considered books to be magical things. Walking into a library or bookshop always made my heart beat a little faster and my head race as I imagined the countless possibilities sitting spine-out on those shelves. The visit to Caol Library would always be the highlight of my school week.

I can still remember the smell of it – it was a comforting smell, a smell that said “here be fun and awe and terror and wonder. And some Mills & Boon, but ignore those”. From the moment you walked in the door it was a mild-mannered and oh-so-polite assault on your senses. The books, so many different colours, so many different sizes, so many different shapes. They were lined up neatly on shelves, spread out across tables, stacked on the desk patiently waiting to be checked back in.

And the silence! Oh, the glorious silence. I was never a fan of a noisy, rowdy classroom, and we were all under strict instructions to behave ourselves in the library. Amazingly, everyone did as they were told, and the thirty minutes we spent in near silence as we picked our books felt like a special time, when the world had been put on pause while I browsed through other worlds I might wish to visit.

Being a small library, there was only one member of staff. Mrs White was the librarian during my first few years at primary school, and then Mrs McAllister took over. Both of them were lovely. Both of them I still remember, long after I’ve forgotten half of the classmates I had at the time. Mrs McAllister let me stamp my own books and put the ticket into my little folder in her impeccably organised filing system. I was allowed to check out my own books! For a book-loving 9 year old, it was like being handed the key to the Universe.

There was also a monster in the store cupboard. I know this because both Mrs White and Mrs McAllister told us so. They would go into the store cupboard to fetch some books and scold the monster for misbehaving, or become locked in battle with it, their head popping around the door frame after a few seconds to assure us they’d soon have things under control.

It’s no longer my local library, but whenever I do go to Caol Library I know the monster is still in there, because the librarians – my librarians – made me believe all those years ago.

Shortly after my first visit with the school I became a regular visitor to the library outwith school hours. I’d spend whole days there sometimes browsing the shelves, reading, chatting to the librarian or just praying for a glimpse of the monster in the cupboard. Other days I’d go in, grab the first book I saw and take it home to devour it in an afternoon.

I estimate I was probably taking out aroud 100 books a year by the time I was 10, and reading dozens more in the library itself. My parents could not possibly have afforded to buy that many books, and so without the library my world would have been a lot smaller, a lot duller, and I doubt I’d be doing the job I do today.

A world without libraries – without luxurious silences, Mrs McAllisters and monsters in the store cupboards – would be a world with a little less magic floating around in it. I don’t know about you, but I think we need as much magic these days as we can get.

Nostalgia and magic aside, libraries are also a vital resource to so many communities, acting as everything from a social gathering place to an informal advice centre. I read a quote recently that said if you ask Google a question it will help you find a million answers. If you ask a librarian the same question, she (or he) will help you find one, but it’ll be the right one.

So whatever you’ve got planned tomorrow, make time to go visit your nearest library. If you’re not a member, sign up. If you are a member, bring a friend with you who isn’t. Browse the shelves. Chat to the librarians. Get to know the place, and in no time at all you’ll love it, and you’ll be doing your bit to help libraries stay open and stay around.

And when you’re there, if you happen to come across the store room and notice that the door is ever so slightly ajar, whatever you do don’t go inside…

For more information on National Libraries Day, check out the official website.

Another day, another new website to tell you all about. Pestilence – one of the Horseman of the Apocalype and a major player in my upcoming novel THE 13TH HORSEMAN – has started keeping a diary, which I’m publishing online without his knowledge or consent. I’ll continue to publish his diary entries right up until the book’s publication on March 1st, and maybe even beyond.

If you want to find out what Famine has eaten in the past 24 hours, uncover new and exciting rashes, or just get the lowdown on what it’s like to be one of the Four Horsemen, then check out the Diary of the Apocalypse at The13thHorseman.com.

As any writer who does events in schools will tell you, one of the most common questions we get asked is “Where do your ideas come from?”. There are as many answers to that question as there are writers in the world, but I thought I’d share the story of where my most recent idea came from. I can’t tell you the idea itself yet, because I plan writing this one some day. What I can tell you is that just the very thought of it made me laugh out loud, which is a good sign, I reckon.

Anyway, how it came about…

I was walking the dog. What, didn’t I mention? We have a dog now. Long story. I was walking her along a woodland path in the middle of nowhere. In terms of finding ideas, this is always a good place to start. Sitting at a desk forcing ideas to come can be a difficult, fruitless exercise, so if you’re looking for inspiration I suggest you get outside, or visit somewhere you don’t normally go. Museums and art galleries can be great places to find ideas. Often they’re hiding behind the exhibits, or camouflaged against the paintings, but they’re there if you look hard enough.

But back to my idea. There I was, strolling along the path, the dog running on ahead somewhere. I wasn’t actively looking for an idea. I wasn’t really do anything except walking. But then I saw it – a large shape swooping above me. I ducked instinctively. I made a noise a bit like “Woooawargh!” which I’m grateful no-one else was around to hear. I looked up and realised that what had startled me was just a canopy of leaves moving in the breeze.

I was still ducked down low when I felt the idea creep in. It came slowly at first, as if tentatively feeling its way into my head. If you’ve read any of my INVISIBLE FIENDS books you might remember the tingling Kyle feels at the base of his skull and across his scalp when he uses his abilities. I based that feeling on how I feel when a new idea comes to me. It’s a physical feeling, an electric buzzing through my brain that I couldn’t ignore even if I wanted to.

That’s what happened yesterday. Once the tingling started it quickly grew, bringing the idea in with it. “Wow!” I thought. “Wouldn’t it be amazing if that had been a <TOP SECRET WORD>?” I thought. And it would have been amazin. Although I’d probably now be dead.

I kept walking, and with every step the idea got bigger. What if this happened? What if that happened? Before I knew it I had the general concept worked out, but I didn’t have any idea of a story because I didn’t yet have any characters, and characters are what make stories happen.

A few hundred yards later, I came across this:

Dare you enter the Forest of Implausible Fractions?

I have absolutely no idea what the numbers on that tree represent. I don’t really care. That was enough to steer me in the direction of the next part of my idea. My characters would be school kids. More than that, they would be school kids who really weren’t very good at fractions. I mean, who ever heard of thirteen quarters?

I kept walking and this new idea jumbled around with the original one. My brain felt like it was vibrating now. I had a spring in my step and butterflies were throwing a party in my stomach. I can’t speak for other writers, but when a new idea grabs me I get a real adrenaline rush – one I can only liken to those first few moments on a rollercoaster, as the cars clank up and up and up towards the top of the first hill.

My characters developer further. They weren’t just poor at fractions, they were failing at all their school work. They became a group of badly behaved teens who were about to be expelled from their inner city school. A setting like the one I was in would be completely alien to them, and I could already hear them complaining and arguing as they trudged through the darkening woods. The characters we coming alive in my head, although I didn’t even know their names.

An hour later I got home from the walk. It took another hour to scribble down all the different parts of my story idea, and as I wrote down what I’d come up with new ideas started to force their way in, too. I now have several pages of notes which include a rough plot outline, five character biographies, some ideas for specific scenes and even some lines of dialogue.

Had I sat at home that morning and told myself to come up with an idea then those notebook pages would likely still be empty. That’s because it’s easier to find ideas than to create them from thin air. I found my latest idea lurking in the woods. Where will you find yours?

A big thanks to the fantastic Lari Don who inspired this post by talking about where her own ideas come from. You can read Lari’s post here, and if you haven’t checked out her books yet I highly recommend that you get your finger out.

I’ve been clearing out an old external hard drive tonight as I attempt to get myself organised for the new year ahead. While doing so I came across this rough cover design for the first Invisible Fiends book, Mr Mumbles. The art, as ever, is by the brilliant Jonny Duddle.

Which cover do you think is best – this one, or the one that actually appeared on the final book?

Concept cover for Mr Mumbles

As if that’s not scary enough, I also came across a photograph I took at the house we lived in until very recently. It was an old farm house and prone to the odd spider infestation. I saw this ‘un clinging to a net curtain one day and had to take a photograph. Shortly afterwards I killed it by luring it outside then hitting it with the car. Make sure you click the image to see it in its full hairy-kneed horror…

Run! Run for your very lives!

Frickin’ horrible, isn’t it? No wonder we left.

And that’s it for today. No blog tomorrow, but be back here on Monday when I’ll be posting some new advice for writers. Assuming the spiders don’t get me.

Tomorrow (5th of January) is the official publication day for the penultimate Invisible Fiends book The Beast. I’ve decided against doing blog tours of any of that stuff for this book and will instead be posting a lot of content here on the blog that you’ll hopefully find interesting.

I’m going to start by talking about the evolution of the character of the Beast, and in doing so talk about the evolution of the Invisible Fiends series as a whole. My hope is it will not only reveal a bit about this book, but about my writing process in general.

Still, before we get to that, let’s take a look at the official blurb for the book:

Kyle is having trouble with the neighbours. They’ve turned into black-eyed, flesh-eating zombies. Now would be a good time to leave town but out there, on the snow covered streets, something far worse is lurking.

There is a beast in the shadows and the only way for Kyle to fight it is to use his powers. But every time Kyle uses them, he weakens the barrier between this world, and the terrifying, world of the Darkest Corners. If the barrier breaks there will be more killers on the streets.

And here’s the front cover to give you an idea of what the Beast itself looks like:

Quite the charmer, eh? This is the Beast’s first appearance in the Invisible Fiends series, but that wasn’t always going to be the case. In the first draft of Mr Mumbles (then called “Imaginary Friends Reunited”, or “Project IFR” to long time blog readers) there was a character with the same name who looked just as monstrous as the creature above.

That Beast arrived somewhere near the end of the book. Below you’ll find an extract taken from that first draft which shows the Beast’s first appearance. Before you read that, though, I should set the scene…

The first draft of the book that would eventually become Mr Mumbles was written over a period of about a year. I was working full time and juggling a young family (not literally, that would be dangerous and probably illegal) and dreaming that one day I might be able to call myself a writer.

I didn’t know it at the time, but the book was short. Way too short for the age group, in fact, as just under 20,000 words. The finished final draft would be 44,000 words long, but that wouldn’t happen until about a year down the line, and the full details of that process will be a story for another day.

Not only was it short, it was a bit naff in places, too. Don’t get me wrong, it had plenty of strong points, but there were a fair few clunkers of ideas in there, too. The biggest of all the duffers was the ideas that the imaginary friends could be hurt by “factual” things. Because they were imaginary – or fictional – anything containing factual information was like Kryptonite to them. At one point in the story Kyle fashioned himself a shield using pages from a dictionary, while swiping at Mr Mumbles with a rolled up world map. As you’ll see in the extract below, he also used his birth certificate to somewhat devastating effect.

And I think the point I’m trying to make – if there is one – is that it’s OK to write some naff bits in your book. As I always say, a first draft doesn’t have to be right, it has to be written. I’ve spoken about that in a bit more detail in this post (warning: contains sandwiches). The first draft of Mr Mumbles was far from perfect. It took another year to get it as close to perfect as I was able to get it, and then the time came for me to leave it alone and move on to book 2.

With unlimited time I would almost certainly have edited and tinkered forever more, but I had to leave it be and let it stand on its own two feet and do you know what? I’m damn proud of it. I’m proud of the nightmares it has given people. I’m proud of the emails I’ve received from parents and teachers telling me ol’ Mumbles turned a previously reluctant reader on to the joy of books. I’m also proud I gave one kid a raging phobia of hats and, presumably, people who wear them.

The final draft of Mr Mumbles was many times stronger than the draft the extract comes from. I like to think that’s because I improved as a writer while working on it, and I hope I’ve continued to improve since then. As I say in my workshops, writing is exactly like anything else in this world – the more you do it, the better you get. If you’ve pitched a book recently and had a rejection, don’t be disheartened. Understand that it means you’re one step closer to being published. The next book you write will be better. The one after that, better still. If you truly want it, you won’t give up – you’ll never give up – and all the practice will pay off in the end.

Anyway, The Beast, then. Um… it’s a big monster thing and it sort of always ways, so I don’t suppose it has really evolved at all. Apologies for the vastly misleading blog title. It was in the first draft, I took it out, but realised it would lend itself to a story much later in the series. So that’s what I did. Did I mention it’s out tomorrow?

Here’s that extract I promised. Enjoy.

Extract from Invisible Fiends: Mr Mumbles – draft 1

It’s a real quickie this one, but I wanted to let you all know that I’ve written a review of the Marvel Ultimate Graphic Novel Collection over on my other website, The Phantom Zone. The review is of the first book to be released in the series, The Amazing Spider-Man: Coming Home, and you can read it by clicking that link right there up above.

That’s it for now. Back tomorrow to talk about The Beast, which is officially published on Thursday.

Darren over at the fantastic BookZone4Boys has written the first review of the lastest INVISIBLE FIENDS book, THE BEAST. Darren has been a huge supporter of the series since it started, and this review is no exception.

“This is definitely one of my favourite series of books for the 9+ age group of the past few years, if not of all time.”

Check out the full review right here.

In a recent survey on Twitter a lot of my followers said they’d like me to post more writing advice here on the blog. The following blog post, then, is aimed primarily at those readers who are interested in becoming authors themselves, but a lot of it can be applied to anyone so don’t go clicking away just because you don’t feel there’s a blockbuster inside you waiting to burst out.

In case you missed the news, we’ve just started a brand new year. The whole world has now made the jump over to 2012, the year in which the Mayan people hinted that the very world itself would come to some sort of spectacular end. What better time, then, to set yourself some writing goals? It’s New Year, a fresh start and a time for making resolutions. Also, if the Apocalypse really is imminent, if you don’t get that book written now then you never will.

I’ve made lots of New Year’s Resolutions in my time, and I don’t recall sticking to a single one. What I have stuck to, though, is the goals I’ve set myself. You may not think so, but there’s a big difference between the two. A resolution is a vague promise to yourself: “I’ll get fitter this year” or “I’ll learn a new language” or “I’ll write a great novel”. Resolutions are abstract things that float like butterflies, always just a little out of reach.

Goals, on the other hand, are solid. Goals don’t mess about. Goals are specific, quantifiable things. “I will train to run a 10k race in March” – that’s a goal. “I’ll write a first draft of a novel by 1st of June” – that’s a goal, too. Where a resolution is open to interpretation, a goal isn’t. It’s precise and detailed, and it has a deadline. This helps focus your mind, and a focused mind is much more likely to see a task through to completion.

Goals can sometimes seem overwhelming, though. Writing a first draft of a novel within a few months is a scary thought for many people, which is where Micro Goals come in. Look at your larger goal and break it down. Let’s say you’re setting yourself six months to get your book written, and let’s say you expect the book to come in at around 60,000 words. That’s an easy calculation – 60,000 over 6 months is 10,000 words a month.

That might sound a lot, but it really isn’t. It’s around 2,500 words a week – a little over 350 words a day. I bet everyone can find the time to write 350 words a day. If you can’t squeeze in 350 words a day then maybe now isn’t the right time for you to consider writing a novel. Or maybe you just need to juggle your priorities a bit. I’ve spoken to people who tell me they would love to write a book but don’t have the time. They watch Eastenders, though. They post lots of stuff on Facebook, too. If they cut back on those could they write 350 words in a day? I’m almost positive. Six months later, they’d have written a book.

When you’ve come up with your personal goals, write them down and look at them often. Keep reminding yourself of what you’re going to do and when you’re going to do it. Record your progress towards the goal, too. The closer you get towards your goal the more encouraged you’ll feel by your own progress. The more encouraged you are, the easier progress becomes. It’s a win-win.

So, to recap:

1. Set yourself a precise goal with a realistic deadline and write it down.
2. If necessary, break the goal down into smaller “Micro Goals” – a daily/weekly word count is a good start.
3. Look at your written goal regularly so it stays fresh in your mind.
4. Record your progress towards you goal. You could also consider rewarding yourself for reaching certain milestones – whatever it takes to keep you motivated and working towards your overall goal.

I’ve set some goals for myself this year. I’ve got seven in total, but some of them are top secret. I’ll share one with you, though. It’s the first one on my list.

I will write a first draft of “Recomposed” by 13th February.

“Recomposed”, in case you’re wondering, is a completely new idea I’ve had which no-one is paying me to write. It’s the first thing I’ll have written since Mr Mumbles that wasn’t contracted to a publisher in advance, and I’ll talk some more about it in future blog posts.

So that’s one of mine. How about you? What are some of your writing goals for 2012?

Oh, I almost forgot. HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of you, and lang may yer lum reek.

Now obviously you know I’ve got a blog, or how else would you be reading this? But did you know you can also find me on Facebook? Oh aye, I’m dead up to date with technology an’ that.

If you enjoy my books then hurry up and become an official fan over on the Facebook page. The link below will take you to the page, then all you have to do is click “Like”. Simple as that. I’m going to be running some exclusive Facebook competitions in January so now’s the perfect time to declare your undying love and devotion.

YES! I Wish to Declare Myself an Official Fan of Barry Hutchison. Because He’s Ace.

This will probably be my last post before the New Year, but one of my (many) resolutions is to do more with the blog, so expect a flurry of activity in early January gradually fading to nothing by early February, followed by ten months of stutteringly irregular updates whenever I can be arsed find time in my busy schedule.

All the best for the bells, then, and I’ll meet you back here in 2012, muchachos.

One of my New Year’s Resolutions for 2012 is to learn to be more assertive when it comes to promoting my books. I’ve always been wary of coming over as pushy, but what the Hell, I don’t write the things so no-one can read them.

I’m not even going to wait for New Year to put the resolution into practice either. I’m starting right now. Here then are 7 Reasons to Read Invisible Fiends.

1. The first book in the series, Mr Mumbles, won the Royal Mail Award for Children’s Books, which was voted on by thousands of children across the country. It was also nominated for some other awards, too, but didn’t win. Which, quite frankly, was a bloody outrage.

2. Caddie, the evil antagonist of book 2, Raggy Maggie, was described in one review as “one of the greatest ever creations in children’s horror literature”. You can read that full review here.

3. This man owns copies:

Plonker: Nicholas Lyndhurst

4. The series is available across a number of formats. You can find it in paperback, audiobook, ebook and in large print and braille. If you pay me enough money I will also come round your house and read it aloud to you in my lovely Scottish accent. If you own an Amazon Kindle you can currently buy Mr Mumbles for just 99p.

5. Horror legend Darren Shan described the series as “deliciously nightmarish”. Coming from a mind as twisted as his, that’s really saying something.

6. The fourth book in the series, Doc Mortis, was too scary to be published in Germany. Which is also really saying something when you think about it.

7. The books are funny, too! They have been described as “the funniest horror stories you’ll ever read” and reviewers have pointed out that “you won’t know whether to laugh or scream”. Ideally you’ll do both. At the same time. And so hard that a little bit of wee comes out.

So there you have it. Hopefully you’re now brainwashed convinced to invest in one or more of the books in the series. If so, pop out and visit your local bookshop or go place your order at LoveReading4Kids.

Next on my self-promo assault: Five Prestigious Awards I Didn’t Win but Very Clearly Should Have