My thanks to EILEEN ARMSTRONG and everyone else I met there for a fantastic evening at the North East Teenage Book Awards last Friday. My fellow prisoner Tommy Donbavand has written a fine account of the nicer parts of the night, so hit the link to take a look. But…

Sigh. If only the rest of the weekend had gone as smoothly. I have spent the last forty-eight hours strapped upside-down in a bucket of unspeakable monster fluids. That’s not something I do for fun, I hasten to add. No: this was a PUNISHMENT, administered to me by my captors, for the “crime” of recording and smuggling out the following frantic message:

I’m only writing this now because the monsters are insisting that I make a full and public apology. Well, you know what? I’M NOT GOING TO! You monsters are holding us here against our will! We’ve got every right to try to contact the outside world in any way we can, without fear of censorship, or repression, or, or – No! DON’T PUT ME BACK IN THE BUCKET! NOOOlplplplpchokehacksplutterbubblebubble ominous silence.

The good news, first. To my utter amazement and glee and delight The Black Tattoo has been shortlisted for another prize here in the UK, namely the North East Teenage Book Award. As you’ll see if you hit the link, the other titles in the running are:

BROKEN SOUP, by Jenny Valentine

ANGEL, by Cliff McNish

THE FALCONER’S KNOT, by Mary Hoffman

SLAM, by Nick Hornby

-and my personal favourite-

THE KNIFE THAT KILLED ME, by Anthony McGowan.

This award is such a big deal that the monsters have grudgingly granted both Tommy AND myself permission to leave the cave to attend Friday’s presentation ceremony. However, any faint hope that we might use this as an opportunity to escape was quickly crushed by our captors.

To stop us working out exactly where we’re being held, Tommy and I will be blindfolded before being stuffed into the spare tyre compartments of two separate unmarked vans and whisked to our destination, Newcastle.

Worse yet, today we were both injected with a slow-acting poison of the monsters’ own fiendish devising. We will receive the antidote only when we return to the secret pick-up point after the party, exactly as we’ve been instructed. If we do not, and the potion is allowed to run its course, sensitive parts of our anatomies (very sensitive parts, let’s just say) will begin to turn black, swell up painfully, then explode.

Finally, as if all of that wasn’t enough, the monsters have been making dire threats about what might happen to our loved ones at home should Tommy and I even try to ask anyone for help. For the last few days we’ve been forced to wear identical t-shirts with the following simple, chilling message:

‘Nice,’ I said weakly, when I first saw them. ‘Where did you get those?’

‘Here,’ grunted the nearest monster, before noisily blowing his nose on my last clean pair of boxer shorts.

It’s going to be a long couple of days.

Yes, me and seven other unlucky authors are still TRAPPED BY MONSTERS. But I’m doing my best to negotiate an early exit for us all, as you’ll see from the following post I just put up over there…

I love writing about monsters. It’s what I do. And I’m sorry, I can’t change that no matter how long you keep me here or what you do to me. But the intriguing-looking upcoming Wii game Deadly Creatures has got me thinking, and I believe I may just have an alternative suggestion for you.

Will you let us out of here if we promise only to write books about monsters who allow themselves to appear in nature documentaries? Work with me on this, I’ve got some examples…

The original ‘nature bites back’ classic JAWS, by Peter Benchley is still a cracking read. But for my money his BEAST is even better: the chapters told from the giant squid’s point of view are just AWESOME. James Herbert’s THE RATS books are also dead good, particularly the post-apocalyptic third in the series, DOMAIN. Sliding further along the scale from scary to silly, there’s SLUGS by Shaun Hutson. Even THE FUNGUS, by Harry Adam Knight is a great way to spend a rainy afternoon.

But I’m thinking that the ultimate, the ne-plus-ultra of ‘natural monster stories’ could well be something like THIS:

Now there’s a type of creature that’s yet to have justice done by it, I’d say. Yep: FROGS! As one of the other posters for this film said, ‘Today, the Pond. Tomorrow, the World!‘

Well, monsters? What do you think?

Hello?

Sigh. I’ll get back in my hole.

One last thing before I do. If anyone reading this is at school or you’re a school librarian, here’s something that may interest you: the fabulous Liz over at My Favourite Books is currently organising a Giant Children’s Book Giveaway! It’s sponsored by five major UK publishers, including mine: hit the link for all the details.

For further fine reading, as ever, check my LibraryThing profile. OK, now I’ll climb back into my hole. ;p

…TRAPPED BY MONSTERS!

I’m posting this from a dark, dank, evil-smelling cavern where myself and seven other authors are currently being held prisoner, kidnapped by the very monsters upon whom we all depend for our storytelling livelihoods. Brutally, our guards only allow us access to the internet for a few minutes at a time(!!!) so here – with a quick extra line or two at the end – is a transcript of what I just posted on the blog over there:

I’m not sure what scares me most right now: the monsters or, frankly, my fellow captive authors. The way certain of my colleagues here are already slipping into classic hostage behaviour is starting to worry me. Fraternizing with our jailers is one thing (”leg stroking” indeed!) but turning on each other? Mark, I’m astonished. [And given his knife-throwing prowess and Tae Kwon Do expertise, I’m, ahem, also somewhat alarmed.]

Well. We may be stuck here in a reeking cave full of ravening beasts who will rend us limb from limb soon as look at us (that’s the monsters I’m talking about there, not the authors). We may, even worse, be short of loo roll (AARGH!!) But I, for one, will…

To that end here are some more thrilling books from Jack’s Stack.

FOOL MOON and GRAVE PERIL, by Jim Butcher. These are the second and third books from Mr Butcher’s brilliant Dresden Files series, concerning hardbitten Chicago private eye wizard Harry Dresden. Yep, “private eye wizard”, that’s what I said: as well as crime, the police, the Mafia and the media, Harry Dresden’s mean streets also contain evil magicians, ghosts, demons, werewolves, vampires and all sorts of other supernatural goodies. If that combination sounds like your bag – and it’s certainly mine – then give STORM FRONT, the first of the series, a go. These books are so much fun that I’m having to ration them to myself so I don’t munch straight through ‘em all at once, Honey Monster style.

THE GRAVEYARD BOOK, by Neil Gaiman. I wanted not to like this book. I’m not proud of that. It’s just that Mr Gaiman is at the top of his game, his previous books are brilliant and sell by the shedload, and everyone loves him. Me, I’m standing at the foot of this ‘being a published author’ mountain, gulping a lot, and I need hope. I wanted signs that the dizzy heights aren’t impossible. I wanted flaws. I’m all the more ashamed, then, when I tell you that THE GRAVEYARD BOOK is, in fact, the finest book for young people that I read in the whole of last year (the nearest competitor was LITTLE BROTHER by Cory Doctorow fyi) and it will probably end up being one of my favourite books ever. THE GRAVEYARD BOOK is tender when it needs to be tender; it’s got monsters and darkness when there needs to be monsters and darkness (which is often, for me!) It’s fast, it’s smart, it’s touching, it’s beautifully written, it’s enormous fun and once you close the book it lingers in the mind, possibly forever. -Curses! ;p

To judge from what I’ve found on the cave shelves so far (misery memoirs, celeb biogs and – yuck – so many /pony books/!!) these monsters need all the pointers to fine reading they can get, so there’ll be more from Jack’s Stack shortly. For further suggestions in the mean time, check my LibraryThing profile.

Before I pass the mic, I just want to address Mark’s laughable accusation that I’m an imposter. If I understand this right, Mark would have you believe that what I said in my blog is true: that I’m not actually Sam Enthoven, but am in fact the ugnacious Jagmat Wrelkmink, Emperor of Hell. Unhappy with the way that I, sorry, “he” was portrayed in the Enthoven’s, sorry, “my” book The Black Tattoo, I came from Hell to London, killed the Enthoven, and then, being a shapeshifter, I assumed his, um, I mean, “my” identity. Ever since then, while posing as an author I’ve been secretly preying on, sorry, I mean “learning as much as possible about” the human race. Or so Mark says.

Preposterous.

I would like to make it clear to my fellow authors here in the cave (and anyone else reading this) that I am /absolutely not/ a repulsive, shapeshifting, blancmange-like demon who belches all the time. You are all PERFECTLY SAFE FROM ME, I assure you, and there is no chance whatsoever that at any moment you may find yourself reduced to your constituent proteins as I envelop and consume you in a seething tide of hot pink digestive juices. So I hope that’s that cleared up. URP. ‘Scuse me.

…Work on draft two of Phase Three continues apace, albeit by the sepulchral flicker of the disgusting earwax candles that are the only illumination our monstrous gaolers have permitted me. My eyes hurt all the time. And the smell! Strewth! Hope you’re having a better January than me.

As my mate Simon J. said once as he fell off his chair, Happy New YeAAARGH! 😀

First up, here’s a link to a page where you can download the current issue of Teen Librarian Monthly, which features an interview with yours truly. It’s a pdf, not a big file, it’s free, and it’s a fine magazine: my thanks to Masterless Samurai Librarian Matthew Imrie for kindly inviting me!

It’s nose to the grindstone time here as I bust on with the second draft of PHASE THREE. Current publication date for the next part of my sinister masterplan is Spring 2010, but that’s only going to happen if I do some hard pedalling over the next couple of months. Rather than have this blog go completely dead in that time (or, worse, fill with variations on ‘I sat here making things up and occasionally tearing the last of my hair out’ ;p) here’s something I thought I’d share with you instead…

My brother Jack and I have a tradition: whenever it’s Christmas or his birthday I put together and give him what we call a BkSTACK(tm). As the name implies, it’s basically a big pile of the finest and most thrilling books I’ve read lately – or at least the ones I reckon he’ll enjoy. If you like Black Tat and Tim then you might like these, too. Take a look! 😉

FLOOD, by STEPHEN BAXTER. A rare treat, this – a proper global DISASTER story! And the author sets a cracking pace. Within the first hundred pages London then New York fall prey to spectacularly rising tides, and the rest of humanity is left fighting for the last of the Earth’s higher ground before much longer. Surprisingly, considering it’s where stories like this can fall down (especially Hollywood ones ;p) the characters give an affecting human perspective on the catastrophe without, ahem, annoying the hell out of the reader. Also, as you might expect if you know Mr Baxter’s books, it’s packed with awesome ideas and unforgettable moments. Brilliant.

NOTHING TO LOSE, by LEE CHILD. The previous two books in the Reacher series (THE HARD WAY and BAD LUCK AND TROUBLE) weren’t /quite/ as much fun as the others, imho. I’m therefore all the more delighted to tell you that NOTHING TO LOSE is /terrific/ – right up there with my personal favourites, PERSUADER, ECHO BURNING and ONE SHOT. The way Reacher mows into town like a man-sized Godzilla is, as always, intensely satisfying. But seeing, in this one, some nutcase End Times fans meet an early personal apocalypse just gave me a special warm glow. You don’t need to read the series in order, so if you haven’t met Jack Reacher or Lee Child before, here is a grand place to start. If you like fast, thrilling storytelling you’ll be glad you did.

More from Jack’s Stack to follow over coming weeks. For further fine reading check my LibraryThing profile.

My brain has conked out for the holidays. I’ll be back in Jan, I swear, even if I have to feed electrodes up my nose and JOLT the porridge-like grey matter into life to do it (again ;p) Mean time, here are some FESTIVE MONSTERS.

First up, by way of the ever-brilliant Boing Boing, check out this Siphonophore. It’s “an eerily fantastic creature that appears to be a single, large organism, but which is actually a colony of numerous individual jellyfish-like animals that behave and function together as a single entity.”

Isn’t that amazing?? I do my best to make up decent monsters, but… wow! Put this/these dude/dudes in a book, someone, please!

Next, in case you haven’t seen it already, here’s some recently released footage of an extremely rare elbowed Magnapinna squid who recently paid a visit to a deep sea drilling site….

As Ryan North of Dinsoaur Comics says in his inimitable style, “So octopods are terrifying and we all know that but […] oh hey, looks like they’ve DEVELOPED ELBOWS AND INSANELY LONG ARMS AND LOVE TO STARE UNBLINKING AT THE CAMERA. holy crap you guys.” Quite.

Third, here’s something that I’m secretly a bit pleased with. In one of my other lives I get to play with some truly excellent musicians in a band called Sour Mash Daddy And His Sixty Wives: I don’t normally mention our activities here, partly because we appear in public about as often as… well… the elbowed Magnapinna squid! But on Dec 6th we did play a gig, and some film footage of this rare occurrence has survived (thanks, Laura). I should explain that singing duties are normally taken care of by members of the band who actually, like, know how to sing. But…

Heh (blushes) Hope you get a kick out of it! ;p

My thanks, and a HUGELY HAPPY FESTIVE WOSSNAME, to everyone who happens to be reading this. Here’s to 2009, and whatever new adventures we have in it!

This is what the first lines of a film deal look like:

Yep: I’ve been waiting to tell you about this for quite a long time(!) but now the deal is signed: Tim, Defender of the Earth has been optioned by Universal. As of November 20th 2008, producer Chris Meledandri and his team have begun developing Tim into a live action feature film.

Neil Gaiman, an author with a lot of experience of film deals, said on his blog once that: ‘My attitude on all Hollywood things is not to expect any of them to happen until I’m sitting at the premiere eating my popcorn. Worrying about the ups and downs of getting a film made could drive anyone to drink.’ A lot of stuff has to happen for Tim to get made into a movie. Besides, I write books. I aim to write a whole shelf of them and make each one as good as I possibly can , so that’s what I’ve got to be getting on with.

But, yes. Some cackling, some leaping, some waving about of arms and some grinning of huge, cheesy grins are all most definitely in order. 😀

Here are a couple of pics from this week’s events, which were my last for a while. This (below) is from Wood Green School, in Witney, Oxfordshire, which I visited on Tuesday. I gave talks to two excellent groups of students there, who asked all sorts of great questions.

…And this (below) is from this morning’s talk and signing with a terrific group from Alexandra Primary School, surrounded as we were by the full festive finery of The Big Green Bookshop!

All three talks seemed to go pretty well. This was much to my relief, you can imagine, as right now I’ve got an ‘orrible COLD – coughing, sneezing, nose dripping like a tap, the works (ew). An unholy mixture of medicines and good old-fashioned caffeine abuse got me through all right, but I think I was probably even more manic than usual! 😉

That’s it, now, for events from me for the rest of this year – until April ’09, in fact. My awesome agents Penny and Gina (Hello, Penny and Gina!) made me promise not to take on any more bookings before then, because I need to focus on PHASE THREE of my SINISTER MASTERPLAN TO CONQUER THE UNIVERSE [MOOHOOHAHA!! um, ‘scuse me ;)] For the same reason, it’s possible that this blog may become somewhat sporadic again for a while. So now seems like a good minute to express my enormous gratitude to everyone I met and spoke to at all my events this year:

THANK YOU! 😀

I enjoyed every single gig. And I’m already looking forward to the ones to come. Hee hee hee!

I’m waving my arms about and grinning – yes, even more than usual – because last Friday I was presented with THIS:

Yep, it’s an award! For one of my books! As voted for by young readers from Wigan! HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE! 😀

Ahem. ‘Scuse me, I’m rather excited. 😉

This is Wigan’s Explore Book Award. It’s a brand new award – in fact this is the very first year it has been given! And Black Tat won the Teen category. It’s an enormous honour to have my name on the prize in its inaugural year, one I’ll do my best to live up to for the rest of my writing life.

The awards ceremony was held at St Edmund Arrowsmith High School: I’d spoken to some students from there when I visited Wigan back in April. On that same visit I happened to mention a certain anecdote from when I was writing Black Tat: for the five years it took I was pretty short of cash, living basically off instant noodles and whatever past-its-best veg produce was being sold off knock-down cheap at the supermarket. One night (I was writing the Akachash at the time!) I opened the fridge door and realized I had nothing left to eat except PARNSIPS. This story must have made an impression, because once I’d received the above award (and said a few words of thanks) I was then suddenly presented with a second, namely… THIS:

Yep: it’s a GOLDEN PARSNIP!

A GARGANTUAN THANK YOU to the readers of Wigan who voted for Black Tat, and to the whole team at the Wigan School Libraries Service for organising what I’m certain will become one of the UK’s most prestigious awards for young people’s literature (that’s, erm, the Explore Book Award, not the Parsnip – but I guess you never know! ;p) I’d especially like to thank KATHY WILLIAMS and ROB SANDERSON for their kindness, hospitality and all-round awesomeness. I’ll treasure BOTH these awards, always. 🙂

Hi. Just a brief post with a few quick pics from this…!

Yep: for two days in a row this week I’ve been touring around schools as part of the Swindon Youth Festival of Literature. And IT WAS BRILLIANT!

The above pic was taken at the end of the second of two excellent sessions at Churchfields School. My thanks to everyone I met there, but especially to Samurai Librarian Graham Small for his hospitality (and excellent jokes! ;p) The third of Thursday’s events was a gleeful return visit to Swindon Academy, where (as long-term followers of this blog might remember) I first came and did my stuff as part of my Wiltshire Whirlwind Tour back in March. Huzzah! 🙂

On Friday morning I gave two talks in the main hall (above) at Dorcan Technology College. A big thank you to Fiona Harcastle for lunch, and for keeping my caffeine levels topped up! 😉 Then in the afternoon it was off to spectacular Nova Hreod for a fine final session in their LRC (below).

This was a fantastic festival. The organisers had obviously worked incredibly hard, and it was particularly heartening to see that effort supported by Swindon’s community radio and local press. I was thrilled and honoured to be involved. YAY! 🙂