To St Bonaventure’s School in Newham today, to speak to around forty Year 8 students. This was an absolute monster of a session: due to some administrative miscommunication I’d found out – yesterday – that instead of (as I’d thought) being booked for two hour-long talks with different groups, in fact I was going to be speaking to the one group for TWO HOURS.

Yikes. Frankly I can’t sit still and listen to one person talk for much more than one hour, let alone two, so the idea of expecting an audience to do so made me pretty nervous, you can imagine. Some kind of “interactive task” was called for – a workshop, in other words – and, as it happens, that’s something I’ve never done before, either! But with a two-hour slot to fill and forty students looking at me expectantly, there was nothing else for it but to screw up my courage and go for it.

And you know what? IT WAS AWESOME.

As anyone who has read the note at the very end of Black Tat will know, the single best piece of writing advice I’ve come across so far is from an interview with brilliant thriller author Lee Child. His words have become something of a mantra for me over the years, and they go like this: “Write the exact book that you yourself would be thrilled to read.”

Keeping my own storytelling preferences under wraps to start with (so as not to prejudice their answers), I asked the young gentlemen of the group what I believe are a couple of the best questions a writer can ask themselves when they sit down to start a new project, namely: If you were to find a book in a bookshop or library that was the ultimate book — one that felt like it had everything you wanted in a story; one that was so exciting that once you started reading it you’d enjoy it so much you might forget to eat or sleep until you finished it — what would that book be like? What would the elements of it be?

And then (HEE HEE HEE!) I asked ’em to write some of it!

I gave them fifteen minutes – which seemed to me to be very stingy, but it had to be that way or I’d never have time to hear and respond to what each student had written. And the results, I have to tell you, were absolutely gobsmacking.

It wasn’t the technical standard of the students’ writing that impressed me most – though that, I have to say, was uniformly EXCELLENT. No: what struck me most powerfully was the variety of material they came up with. There were historical stories. There were political stories. There were murder mysteries, slice-of-life dramas, superheroes, sports stories, and more. And all of them were told with a combination of imaginative ambition yet grab-you-by-the-throat immediacy that I found HUGELY inspiring. In fact, after hearing what the students had produced, when the talk moved on to my own writing I felt like I had to work extra hard to give a good account of myself, in case I ended up being put in the shade – HEE HEE HEE!

If you’re reading this from St Bon’s, thank you. I got a massive kick out of listening to you, and I hope you got something out of listening to me.

Q&A time again. My thanks and best wishes today to Edward Z, who asks: Is any of the stuff about nanobots in Tim actually true, or are nanobots in general just a completely made up concept used only for literature and film purposes? I know there is nanotechnology, but actual nano robots?

Hey Edward! Sorry it’s taken me a few days to get back to you, I’m hard at work on the next book. Glad you liked the sound of that, by the way – I’m excited, too!

Nanobots are, at the moment, entirely fictional – or as far as we know (secret experiments notwithstanding!) at least! HOWEVER: the ideas that fed into (Tim’s nemesis-!) Professor Mallahide and his talents are most definitely based on real things, and the work of two men in particular.

One is K. Eric Drexler. The current state of play about the feasibility (or otherwise!) of nanobots is nicely summarized in a Wikipedia article about him, here.

Another is Hans Moravec. Mallahide’s ideas about the essential crumminess of the human body as a means of carrying us around in the world (ideas I happen to agree with) were definitely inspired by Moravec. Here’s a link to his page on Wikipedia. His interviews are always good fun, too, full of all sorts of mind-bending notions: here’s one that I dug up from Google just now.

I’m not a scientist. Far from it. I just want to write fun stories, so the big impetus with me is less to do with what human technology is currently or actually capable of, and more to do with the magical and inspiring question of ‘WHAT IF…?’ And of course, I’m not the only one. There’s already quite a solid tradition of nanobots in fiction: PREY, by Michael Crichton, is tremendous fun, and BLOOD MUSIC by Greg Bear is absolutely amazing.

Anyway, if you fancy some follow-up reading, the above should be enough to get you started. 🙂

My, my, what a lot of updates I seem to be posting lately! But I’ve got to tell you about these:

First up, here’s a wonderful review of Tim that was forwarded this morning from my UK publishers. YAY!

‘REX AND VIOLENCE:

Forget your Dark Materials, Eragons and Narnias. If ever a children’s book deserves to be given the big-screen treatment, this is it. Just imagine slipping into your cinema seat to watch a colossal dinosaur (the eponymous Tim – Tyrannosaur: Improved Model) ripping Big Ben from its foundations before lobbing it at its foe, a scientist whose use of nanotechnology has resulted in him becoming an Earth-destroying monster. Then picture said bad guy picking up the London Eye and slamming it over Tim’s scaly head. Michael Bay, are you reading this?

Sam Enthoven’s action-packed book tells the story of Tim and the two children who get caught up in his unintentional carnage (the big lug is a sweetie at heart, y’see.) Enthoven writes with charm and humour, while Tim is as loveable as any London-smashing behemoth can be. It’s a stupendous – and thoroughly British – read, but would look even better on screen. Anyone fancy whipping up a screenplay? Go on. It’d kick Transformers’ ass…

Four and a half stars out of five, from JAYNE NELSON at SFX Magazine.‘

You know what? As it happens, I do have a piece of not-entirely-un-film-related news bulging up my sleeve here. My lips must remain sealed for the time being, but watch this space. HEE HEE HEE HEE!

Meanwhile, take a look at the bottom of this blog post (oh: erm, for anyone reading this from Amazon, you’ll either have to check the Tim site or take my word for it…!)

Yep: as of today, and thanks to the unspeakable genius of The WebSphinx, there’s now a ‘signature’ at the end of each post, with quick links that will take you to one or other of my websites’ Guestbooks. We reckon this is a better system than the traditional ‘comments’, because it’s safely anonymous and the entries won’t be tied to specific posts. I love getting messages, so drop me a line! 🙂

This afternoon it was my great privilege to go do my stuff at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson school for girls. It’s actually the third time I’ve been invited there; it was a pleasure as always…

…and, also as always at my events, I waved my arms about like a big, black-clad, blond baboon. 😉

Let’s start with a wide shot of me reading from Black Tat – and looking pretty composed and dignified, right?

Maybe so. But the old habits soon set in, and before long…

Then…

And even…

The above, unless I’m very much mistaken, is me acting out the scene from Tim in which the Big Ben Tower is snapped off and tossed like a caber.

Well, I like to put a lot of enthusiasm into my talks! 😉

My thanks to the students I spoke to – your questions were excellent! – and to Ms Cheetham for having me back for what was yet another terrific visit.

Hey there!

Just surfacing briefly from deep-drilling work on PHASE THREE to tell you about the excellent weekend I just had. Spent a lot of it on TRAINS, but it was definitely worth it!

On Saturday I got up at stupid o’clock to catch my first train of the weekend, going from London’s King’s Cross to LINCOLN where they were having a literary festival – AND I WAS ON THE BILL!

See? Halfway down? That’s my name! On the bill! At a literary festival!

Ahem. ‘Scuse me. 😉

Being a public (as opposed to a school-) event my talk was kind of low-key. [No Rowling-style queues round the block – YET!] But the group of people I spoke to were GREAT — full of questions, opinions, suggestions, and, sometimes (thanks, AIMEE!!) what felt like all three at same time!

From Lincoln I hopped another train back to London before heading out again on yet a /third/, this time to BRISTOL for the INTERNATIONAL COMICS EXPO.

This (above) is from Sunday. The gentleman standing beside me in this pic is BARNABY RICHARDS, who, as well as being a splendid fellow and an old friend of mine, is an absolutely wonderful artist. He’s just recently started a webcomic called RADBOD, and it’s shaping up very, very nicely: do click on the link to check it out, and don’t forget to subscribe to the mailing list.

The Expo was, unsurprisingly, quite a restrained affair compared to the recent New York shenanigans. But it was great fun. The awesome ROGER LANGRIDGE was there, who is always a pleasure to speak to (though possibly not for him – he looked a bit knackered!) And a particular highlight for me was meeting one half of the creative partnership that is Ian Edginton and D’Israeli, who are responsible for some of the finest comics I’ve read over the last six months (SCARLET TRACES, LEVIATHAN and KINGDOM OF THE WICKED, to name a few). Typically, I chose the moment to make a complete fool of myself: recognizing him from a photo in one of his books (or so I thought) I marched straight up to Mr Edginton at the Dark Horse stall and congratulated him profusely on his thrilling writing. Of course it wasn’t him, it was D’Israeli, the artist. -AARRGH!

Here, by way of an apology to him, is a link to D’Israeli’s blog. And do check out the titles above, they’re all absolutely phenomenal! 😉

I’m here, I’m alive but I’m incredibly dopey, and I’m horribly SHORT OF KIP.

It’s my own fault, of course. I sat up late into last night reading, utterly gripped, first by George Pelecanos‘ majestic mystery novel HELL TO PAY. And then, once that reached its wonderful conclusion, like the story-addicted fool that I am I decided I’d take a ‘quick peek’ at the opening pages of LITTLE BROTHER by Cory Doctorow…

Now, in case you haven’t heard of it yet, LITTLE BROTHER is probably the ‘buzziest’ YA novel of the summer, with praise on its back cover from a whole slew of my favourite writers including Neil Gaiman, Scott Westerfeld and Brian K Vaughan. I’ve been a fan of Boing Boing, a website to which Mr Doctorow is one of the major contributors, for a long time now – but ever since since hearing him and (the also awesome) China Mieville discuss political writing in books for young people at Eastercon some weeks back, I’ve been positively RAVENING to get my hands on this book. I was hoping to pick it up while I was in New York, but the launch date wasn’t until a week after I left – and the British edition doesn’t come out for another SIX MONTHS! But I did get one shipped over ‘specially, soon as possible, and it got here just yesterday.

Was it worth the wait and the fuss? Well, let’s just say it looks VERY promising so far. In fact, the story took off at such a good clip that my ‘sneak peak’ turned into a further two-hour binge that – if a certain person in the room with me hadn’t woken up and told me in very strong terms to stop – would probably have continued right through until morning! As it was I only put my head down for about three hours before it was time to get up and work, and folks, I’m an eight-hour type of demon. I’ve had a brain like a wind-sock (like, even more than usual) ever since.

Man, I love discovering fine new books to read. HEE HEE HEE! 🙂

For more recommendations, check out my list of Five Hundred Fine Books on my LibraryThing profile.

I’ve just come back from my second official visit to Hornsey Library, in Crouch End, North London – lair of supreme ninja librarian Sean Edwards and his excellent Chatterbooks Reading Group!

I’ve spoken to this reading group before, back in October 06, and while (most of!) the faces have changed, the feeling has not: their tastes are highly sophisticated – terrifyingly so, to me, I don’t mind admitting – and they’re not afraid to voice their opinions. But once (thanks, Thomas!) I’d established that I don’t work for MI6 (or do I?? ;p) the group’s members were very welcoming and were scrupulously polite listeners. If anyone who was there is reading this, thank you!

I particularly enjoyed getting the chance to mention one of my obsessions, namely creatures that inhabit the deep sea. Now: as you may have gathered(!) I love monsters – I love hearing about them, reading about them, and thinking about them for stories. But I tell you, the wildest and weirdest imaginings of my or anyone else’s mind are nothing, nothing – I’m delighted to say – compared to the kinds of real creatures that human science is only now beginning to discover in the deep darkness of the Earth’s oceans. My current favourite book on the subject (it’s on my LibraryThing Five Hundred Fine Books List) is a beautiful tome called THE DEEP: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss, by Claire Nouvian. It’s absolutely breathtaking, and I heartily recommend you check it out: click on the link above to go to a special website dedicated to the book.

Meanwhile thanks again, Sean, for having me along! 🙂

Two small green photos from The Big Green Bookshop…!

…the FABULOUS new independent bookstore that opened in London’s Wood Green (a short hop from where I live!) just a couple of months ago. To my great glee and delight, samurai booksellers Simon and Tim invited me there to come and speak this morning to a fantastic group of young people from nearby Noel Park Primary School.

Questions flowed fast from the outset (just how I like it! thank you!) So much so, in fact, that despite the session lasting more than an hour there was only time for one reading: to make it count, I went for one of the flying kung fu scenes from The Black Tattoo (from the chapter called Skills). If anyone who was there is reading this, I hope you enjoyed listening to me – I certainly enjoyed talking to you! 🙂

In other news, here’s a video about modular robots, courtesy of my absolute favourite magazine right now (and constant source of story inspiration) New Scientist.

OK, I appreciate you’ve maybe got to look at this with the eye of faith! But it seems to me that human technology is already making a reality of the opening ‘self assembling’ scene of Ted Hughes’ The Iron Man [that’s The Iron Giant, if you’re tuning in from the US.] How much longer, then, before modularity, distributed processing and nanotech combine to form something like what Tim‘s PROFESSOR MALLAHIDE can do?? The book’s written to be fun, but suddenly it doesn’t seem all that unfeasible. HEE HEE HEE!

Blimey. What with the rest of the New York trip and one thing and another, this last week has been a bit manic. But I’m here, I’ve survived [vodka pizza is DELICIOUS, btw! ;)] and all is good.

I’ve got some more events and appearances lined up over the next few months – watch this space! But I’ll let you know now, my intention is essentially to spend the UK’s summer (or, heh, whatever summer we get!) with my nose pressed firmly to the grindstone.

Yes folks, it’s time to put the serious hours in on PHASE THREE of my sinister masterplan to conquer the universe, by which of course I mean my NEXT BOOK! I’m very excited, and I hope when the time comes that you will be too. I may even drop some hints about it in forthcoming posts. But since it’s currently TOP SECRET, and this blog, er, still needs writing(!) here are a couple of other bits and pieces to keep you ticking over instead… ;p

First up, here are a couple of pics I’ve been meaning to post for a while. The plan is for them to end up on the Tim site’s Unlucky London Landmarks page, where I’ve already got some other photos I’ve taken of the real places mentioned in the course of the book. The proviso with this location, however, is that it’s one of the few that doesn’t get DESTROYED! I’m talking, of course, about the British Museum.

Here’s a shot of the front entrance, looking impressive as ever…

And here (below) – albeit rendered into patented ‘WonkyVision(tm)’ by a certain ham-fisted author-photographer! – is the museum’s Great Court.

The relevant passage of the book occurs on page 11, and goes like this:

‘On a summer’s day it would have looked spectacular, with streaming shafts of sunshine making the marble floor gleam and the whole room seem to dance with light. But this was not a summer’s day. The gloom from the leaden London sky above made the Great Court feel a bit like an oversized fish tank – and one that hadn’t been cleaned properly at that.’

Well, the sun was shining so I didn’t time this quite right for you I guess. But the eerie Matrix-style green cast this pic seems to have developed might help give you some idea of the scene, at least! ;p

In other news, ANOTHER edition of TIM has just been launched! It’s the US unabridged audio version, read by Bryan Kennedy, and it’s available to download, right now, via Audible. If you go to this page, you should be able to listen to a sample.

I haven’t had a chance to check this version out properly for myself yet, but it does nicely illustrate one of the lovely things about audiobooks (and, indeed, books generally!) which is that every reader’s interpretation is different. When you’ve checked out the US version, click here (and scroll down to the bottom) to hear the difference. Mr Kennedy, unlike Nigel Greaves, has chosen not to give Dr McKinsey a Scots accent, for a start! He’s gone instead for something much flatter and rather sinister. The interpretations are different, but they’re both very cool. I’m a lucky guy and no mistake. 🙂

Finally, I’ve got to apologize for something. Due to a technical glitch, for most of this last month new posts to the Tim and Black Tat Guestbooks were not appearing as quickly as they should – GAH! This was especially annoying – for me and the WebSphinx as well as presumably for the people who posted, btw – because the posts themselves have been particularly fabulous lately: do click on the links to check ’em out. Meanwhile, if you’re reading this Cris from Anaheim, Phoebe from St Mary’s, Taryn from New Jersey, Libby from Dublin, Andrew from Missouri, Victoria from TO, Mexchina from Boston, Sophie from Leigh, Sienna from Toronto, Twinkleberry from Bristol and Hannah from Stratford… then humble apologies from me and the WebSphinx, and a MASSIVE thank you for sharing your awesomeness with us. Having people write in to the sites is one of the very best things about this website caper, and you have put some delightedly huge and cheesy grins on my face. Hee hee hee!

The New York Comic Con was amazing! But I’m putting this post together in great haste, fully expecting my internet connection to conk out on me again at any second (RRR!) so I’d better tell this one in pictures. 😉

I’d been to conventions in the UK, but nothing prepared me for this. I hear the comics Con in San Diego is even bigger, but this one seemed pretty floomin’ large to me…

Still, enough members of the supernatural community were present…

for a demon like me (see THE ENTHOVEN IS DEAD) to feel right at home. 🙂

One of the Con’s particular highlights, for me, was getting the chance to meet at last with artist Dan Dos Santos, creator of this awesome painting that’s included as a a gatefold in the US hardcover of Tim. Here’s one pic of him demonstrating his incredible skills…

…and here (below) is another. Almost unbelievably, between my taking these two photos only ONE HOUR had elapsed. Watching the painting appear was something like magic. Brilliant!

My reading, yesterday, was a blast. I’d thought I was going to be doing my stuff in a room somewhere at the back of the Con, but due to some organisational shenanigans – and much to my own amazement – I found myself on the MAIN STAGE!

What with the size of the space I got a little flustered and lost my place at the start (AGH!) But I soon found my feet, getting a nice round of applause at the end (and if you’re reading this, a particularly big thank you to the lady in the front row who yelled ‘YOU ARE AWESOME!’ Hee hee hee!)

A blur of signing followed, first at the booth of excellent NYC comics shop Midtown Comics…

…and then the Penguin booth…

Then my ‘official duties’ were over, and I could get back to buying more cool books (Yeesh, I hope I can fit ’em in my suitcase!)

What a great convention. I was very happy with how it all went, and I hope the team at Razorbill (my US publishers) were too. Here’s a pic of us together.

You see the lady on my immediate left? That’s the legendary Sarah Beth Durst, creator of the hugely cool books INTO THE WILD and (soon!) OUT OF THE WILD – and as well as being a fabulously talented writer she’s also an absolute sweetheart! We’re meeting up again tonight at the fabled “New York YA Authors’ Drinks Night”, a monthly bash that is fast developing something of a reputation: the traditional snack of choice, I’m led to believe, is ‘vodka pizza’. The mind boggles. If I survive, I’ll catch you later! 😉