FLOOF. Well, ‘ere I am back again in the Enthoven’s North London crash-pad, making myself at home and leaving nasty pink stains on ‘is sofa, HUR HUR HUR. But I have to tell you, my first visit to Liverpool was AWESOME.

First event of the day was a forty-five-minute session at Range High School, Formby.

This was absolutely terrific: the students were full of all sorts of excellent questions, and talking to them made me feel really excited and inspired. Then I was whisked away to the spectacular library of Merchant Taylors’ Boys’ School…

…for two quick (half-hour) sessions there, both of which were tremendous fun too. My grateful thanks to everyone I met today, for being so warm and welcoming. But I’d particularly like to thank samurai bookseller Tony, of Pritchards, for being — as well as an enthusiastic champion of young people’s literature — an absolute gent in looking after me; supplying stock; driving me about, and giving me some excellent book recommendations. Thank you, Tony!

So now the first official UK tour for TIM has come to an end. I can’t let the opportunity go past without mentioning the amazing LAURA H., who has been keeping me on the straight and narrow this week with no small measure of style and aplomb. That night in Newcastle I ‘ave to confess I may have given the game away a little: at dinner in the hotel restaurant, when our steaks arrived, I momentarily forgot myself. Dissolving from the Enthoven’s crude form into my natural blancmange-like state, I flowed forward over the plate and digested the rare meat (plus chips and salad) with my external juices, like normal, rather than bothering with that tiresome knife-and-fork business you humans seem so fond of. (Well, I was hungry!) Of course, as soon as my feeding frenzy abated I realised I’d made something of a ‘faux pas’, and as – with a dainty belch – I coalesced back into the Enthoven-shape, I noticed that our waiter was looking somewhat perturbed.

Laura, of course, didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, with calm authority: ‘he’s just an author.’

I’ve got plenty more events lined up – keep checking in here for details. And there have been some FANTASTIC questions coming in to the Black Tat and Tim Guestbooks over the last day or so: don’t fret folks, I plan to answer those early next week! But for now this is me signing off.

Stay slimy. Yr pal,

-JagmAHEM! I mean, /Sam/ 😉

Favourite human words of the day: GAZUMPING, UNDERVOLT

Currently reading: BROKEN SKY Act 1, THE TWILIGHT WAR, by Chris Wooding.

Newcastle is a friendly place. Everyone seems dead welcoming and easy-going – no matter how weird you are. 😉

Two more excellent events today, the first at Ashington High School…

…and the second at Cramlington High School…

…where, to my astonishment, they had created a poster almost as big as the Enthoven himself!

At both events I met and had fine chats with some splendid and fascinating human beings. I tell yer, I could get used to this!

Tonight I’m in Liverpool, fer the last day of the tour. Three sessions tomorrow, an’ this demon needs ‘is beauty sleep. Zzzzzzzzgurglegurglegurgle….

Yesterday I found myself in John Hampden Grammar School. And folks: either everybody there was very friendly, or I’m starting to get used to being suddenly confronted with, say, sixty-plus keen fresh-faced young humans expecting me to tell them what it’s like being an author. 😉

Actually I’m thinking it was BOTH. Two excellent sessions of about forty-five mins apiece passed without incident (or casualties!) And in each case I only had to get my new-grown human tongue around the Enthoven’s prose for just TWO readings from TIM, due to a constant flurry of pertinent and penetrating questions from the audience. There /was/, I admit, just one sticky moment, when a young gentleman in the front row of session 2 mentioned that he’d read something on the internet about the Enthoven having “a stalker.” I naturally told him I didn’t know what he was talking about – and I definitely didn’t threaten him with swift, moist, tentacular violence /at all/, no matter what anybody says. ;p

A MONSTROUS thank-you to Barbara; Mimi; ninja bookseller Becky (visible left, above) and, indeed, everyone else I met at JHGS, for a truly terrific visit.

To answer two follow-up questions from the Guestbook:

James: The straight answer is probably ‘no’. It’s one of the less pleasant facts about novel-writing that one can only really learn it by doing it – writing stories as best you can at the time, and if you fail, well, you hope next time you’re going to get better. Each one of the three books I wrote before Black Tat took up a minimum of a year of my life, and I put my heart into them. But I was learning my stuff (still am!), the books were ropey, and the agents and publishers I sent them to were right to reject them. Some of the concepts in the stories /might/ be worth taking on, I suppose – if only in the fond hope that one day I learn to be able to express them properly! But characters? Nah. Better to start from scratch.

Jack: I try to plan a story as much as I can before I start writing it. There are lots of reasons for this, not the least of which is the fact that if I know where the story’s ending is going to be, then I know it’s possible that I can finish it! That said, I find there’s always a point in the planning process at which one has to accept that certain answers are just not going to come, not until the writing’s underway and you’re in there working with what you’ve got. As with anything important, there’s always a time when you have to leap into the dark and hope for the best.

I seem to be typing this in a hotel in Newcastle. It’s great here. Hope I don’t have to eat anybody, but I’ll let you know. 😉

Wotcher, humans.

You know what? I’m starting to wonder whether eating the Enthoven on Friday was really such a good idea. Turns out my timing might have been better: today was the first day of a WEEK-LONG UK AUTHOR TOUR. If I hadn’t had the weekend to have a good nose ’round his files – on top of those months on the case since I first got to this planet of yours – I’m sure someone today would have rumbled me!

The first event of the day – a shortish session with thirty students at Ravenscroft School in Barnet – went like a charm. I’d got a couple of funny looks from Laura, the Random House Children’s Books publicist who was lookin’ after me, but that was normal fer the Enthoven anyway – he got funny looks even when he was alive! Certainly nobody else seemed to suspect the grisly truth. In fact, I was starting to feel pretty positive that I might get away with this…

But then in the afternoon came the second session of the day, speaking to around sixty students from Dame Alice Owen’s School, in Potters Bar. Folks, this was a close one. When one young gentleman in the audience stuck his hand up and asked what the Enthoven’s very first book was about – not his ‘orrible The Black Tattoo, mind, but the very first book he wrote, long before ‘e got published – for a moment things looked like they’d ‘ave to turn drastic. I didn’t /want/ to have to sprout tentacles and eat everybody in the room to make sure there were no witnesses. But I couldn’t let my plan turn blancmange-shaped on day one, neither. Lucky for me I’ve got a good memory, eh? And lucky for everyone else there, too, believe you me. ;p

I’ve been practisin’ his signature fer months, so that was a doddle (his handwriting looks like he’s used to holding a pen with tentacles not fingers, just like mine) And like the Ravenscroft School session in the morning, the Dame Alice Owen students were a pleasure to talk to. But, heh, here’s hoping they never find out ‘ow close they came to following the Enthoven to a SQUIDGEY DEMISE. 😉

My thanks to Lyn at Waterstone’s, The Spires, and to everyone else I met today: you gave me a lovely warm welcome and you’ve made this demon very happy.

Tentacles crossed I won’t ‘ave to eat anybody the rest of this week…;)

-Jagmat

Favourite word of the day: DISCOMBOBULATED. Currently reading: KAI-RO by Graham Marks