Tommy in grave peril (geddit?!)
Happy New Year! Hope your celebrations went as planned; we had a quiet evening in, with both kids allowed to stay up until midnight, but neither making it past 10pm! 2008 is going to be a big year for me, with the publication of my new series, Scream Street in October. Halloween still seems a […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Settle down class… Today’s topic is fan fiction – the stories written by fans of a particular book, film or TV series that features their favourite characters. Innocent enough, you might think – or is it? Put simply, writers spend years developing their settings and characters. The books or scripts they write are their lives; […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
All work and no play makes Tommy a dull boy at the moment – still it, will be worth it. I’m just coming to the end of book four in the Scream Street series, having managed to fit in the third draft of book one and a swift polish of book three along the way. […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Time to plug a pal – and it’s none other than NYC rock star for kids, Uncle Rock! Uncle Rock is the ultimate performer for the child in all of us, with incredible songs such as Like A Pirate, Disco Nap and, my personal favourite, Sugar talkin’, Uncle Rock’s CDs are packed with great tunes […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
One of the questions I’m asked most often (aside from ‘what are you doing in my garden?’) is how I got my books published. What’s more interesting than the question itself, however, if the belief and/or hope that there is some sort of magic formula or shortcut that I have found and can give the […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
It’s tough but, at some point, you’re going to get stuck. Happened to me yesterday… I was working my way through the second draft of the third book in the Scream Street series, and made quite a few changes to several of the chapters. All was going well until I realised that the original ending […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Keen-eyed visitors will notice that I’ve updated the look of my site again – the second time in the past three months. This is because the previous design, which I liked, was taking far too long to load in certain web browsers – so, back to the drawing board it was. I think the new […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Another of the questions I’m asked by new writers is, ‘Do I need an agent?’, closely followed by ‘How do I get one?’ My answer is always the same. No, you don’t need an agent to sell your writing; I sold my first four books direct to the publisher. However, if you want your work […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
It occurred to me after reading back over the previous post about finding a literary agent that I neglected to include one vital piece of advice: finish the book first! It may sound glaringly obvious, but I’ve known so many writers who have an idea for a book and start to pitch it before they’re […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
I ran a fun creative writing workshop with year six from St. Michael’s school in Jarrow yesterday. The event took place at Seven Stories, the centre for children’s books in Newcastle, where I am the current writer-in-residence. As part of the workshop, I was demonstrating how to brainstorm new stories and stumbled across an idea […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
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