Maybe, one day, I’ll be the kind of author who takes it all in their stride — and who /doesn’t/ get absurdly, cacklingly, arm-wagglingly, doing-a-weird-little-dance-in-the-carpark excited whenever they see things like this:

…Nah. 😀

My thanks to Justin and Yen for inviting me and looking after me so well, and to everyone I met and spoke to over the course of the afternoon. I’d ESPECIALLY like to thank Oliver and Alan, two thoroughly inspiring and spectacularly imaginative young blokes with whom I spent a very happy hour or so kicking awesome story ideas around. Volcanoes! Aliens! Dinosaurs! Acid blood! Exploding satellites! Portals to other dimensions!

Heh. I love this job. 😉

PS: Note that Tim is sharing the window with the brilliant Scream Street: Fang of the Vampire by fellow monster kidnappee Tommy Donbavand.

Briefly, here are some more pics just in of the wonderful Tim and Black Tat art that students at Amersham School created for my visit there the other day. Their stunning work has gone up in a special display at the local branch of UK chain bookstore Waterstone’s!

You see it there? Just to the right of the main entrance, in full view of EVERYBODY??

Another HUGE thank you to Amersham’s Year 8 students for their hospitality, and to Ms Shapland for sending me these pics. They have put an enormous cheesy grin on my face. Hee hee hee! 😀

Meanwhile, for more monster art of a medievally menacing kind, check Trapped By Monsters, here.

Here’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you about for a while, something a bit special I reckon. It’s a link to a site where you can download a transcript of a discussion between three storytellers at the top of their game as they’re putting together the ideas that will become one of my favourite stories ever: the storytellers are Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan, and they’re kicking ideas around for Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The link will take you to a blog called Mystery Man on Film. Whoever the mystery man is, he’s done a terrific job of extracting ten major takeaway points from what’s a pretty long (125 pages) transcript. If you don’t have time to read the whole thing, just those ten points are a masterclass in fast, thrilling storytelling.

But for you, reading this now, I’m going to boil it down to one.

Books and stories are not written by wizards or aliens or geniuses: they’re written by people who sit in rooms and make stuff up – it’s as simple, and as difficult, as that. “Where do you get your ideas from?” is a question that writers are asked all the time, and the answer is you work for them. Look at this transcript. The ideas don’t arrive in a flash of inspiration. They’re not trumpeted in by choirs of angels, or beamed down from space. Spielberg, Lucas and Kasdan put in the hours – in this case, nine hours a day for five days straight – and they hammered the story out. And the ideas didn’t magically come out right first time, either – if they had (for example) the central character’s name would be Indiana Smith. ;p

A big part of the reason why I visit as many schools as I can is that I remember authors visiting my school – and the effect that seeing that they were just PEOPLE had on me. Suddenly everything seemed possible. And it’s true: if you want it enough, and you’re prepared to put in the work and do what it takes to make it happen, IT IS.

Best of luck to you.

Here’s a pic of me doing my stuff during yesterday’s brilliant visit to Amersham School, in Buckinghamshire:

See that display in the background? Take a closer look…!

Aren’t these spectacular?? This fantastic display of Tim and Black Tat art was created especially for my visit by students in Amersham’s Year 8. Their work is going up for the world to wonder at in the window of the Amersham branch of Waterstone’s.

This was my first school visit for a while, and it was a CORKER. My gleeful thanks and best wishes to Ms Shapland for inviting me, but also to all of Amersham’s Year 8, who were a terrific audience: I hope you got something out of listening to me(!) because after talking to you I returned to the cave refreshed, reinvigorated, reinspired, and (best of all) reminded of what this writing-for-young-people caper’s really all about.

Thank you! 😀

Look at this!

It’s the brand spanking new UK mass market edition of TIM, published this week!

As well as being a fair few quid cheaper than the first edition – a giant monster bargain, guv’nor! – on the back it’s also got some of the cracking comments and quotes that the book got when it first came out. My absolute favourite is the one by Finn, a young gentleman who kindly wrote a shelf recommendation about TIM for my brilliant local independent booksellers The Big Green Bookshop. In case you can’t see it above, it says:

“If you don’t like books with big scary monsters wrecking national monuments and giant cockroaches killing people, you will not like this book. I loved it.’ Finn, 12

-Thank you, Finn. 😀

To celebrate, the monsters are allowing me out of the cave to visit a school tomorrow. Yes! Out of the cave! To interact with people who aren’t imaginary! -Ahem, I’m rather excited. Unless, of course, the visit turns out to be just some cruel April Fool prank of theirs, in which case I may have to batter out my poor remaining porridge brains against one of these handy stalagmites they have here. I’ll let you know one way or the other. Well, if it’s “the other” I guess I /won’t/ let you know, but you know what I mean. ;p

Like some toad-like creature emerging after an extended period of hibernation in the permafrost, I am creaking, stretching, blinking and coming back to life. I’m also gradually starting to catch up with stuff I’ve neglected while on nose-to-the-grindstone time with Phase Three…!

First up, here’s an interview with me by Chris Skoyles of The LINC Online, who asked me all sorts of excellent questions.

Speaking of questions, another came in just the other day (via my Facebook page) from Daniel M of Bay House School, who asks:

do u think u could tell me more about this nano-technology stuff, u sed about it at Bay House I don’t really get it =)

Daniel, I’m delighted to answer you in the form of THIS (below), which I spotted recently on BoingBoing: yes, it’s a wonderful SONG about nanotech [which plays a huge part in Tim] complete with puppets and monsters. Got to love the internet, eh? ;p

After five months bashing my head against it, the new draft of my current book is DONE. And I am happy with it.

If the monsters will let me, for the next few days I intend to look something like this:

The caption is The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. It’s by Francisco Goya.

I’m writing these words from the bottom of a very deep hole, where I’m currently languishing until I finish the second draft of my new book…

Yes, it’s crunch time, folks, and anything could happen: I’m not kidding, last time I got to this point with a book I freaked out and cut all my hair off [Don’t believe me? Hit the link and scroll down for proof! (;p)]. One thing’s for certain though: I probably won’t be able to post to this blog much over the next two or three weeks. My apologies for that. On the plus side, however, I do have a competition that you maybe might be interested in entering…!

On the special website for my book The Black Tattoo I’ve been running a No Monsters Were Harmed In The Making Of This Website Competition, or NMWHIT MOTWC for short. It gives me great glee and delight to announce that we now have another winner, namely Monique Van Dongen, of Utrecht, The Netherlands, and her awesome image THE NEW EMPEROR! YAY!

Click here for full details of the competition, how to enter, and what you might win. The next round finishes at the end of this month. If you fancy your chances, the WebSphinx and I would love to hear from you.

Right: ‘Nose to the grindstone time,’ as my mum used to say. VREEEEEEEEEEEEE-!