I’ve been trying to get through more of the backlog of messages from readers lately. Some people have been waiting for a reply from me for a really long time – sorry! I’ll get there in the end. Just thought I’d share a couple of fun ones with you. First of all, I’m a big [...]
Archive > April 2010
Reading-fest 2 – Hunger
The first book in this series, Gone, by Michael Grant was my favourite book of last year. This second episode was nearly as good as the first. It didn’t have the same ‘Wow’ factor as the first, as all of the main ideas had been pretty well established in the first book, but once again [...]
A Group hug for Mostly Books!
My two little tinkers Monika and Luka helped me out during a recent Hugless Douglas event at the wonderful Mostly Books in Abingdon. The idea, after reading the picture book, was to make a 2D / 3D version of the character using whatever came to hand. Great fun! Thank you to Mark and Nikki Thornton for [...]
Ronald Searle
Found myself passing Little Russell Street in London the other day (2 minutes from The British Museum), and popped in to see this wonderful exhibition by surely the king of the satirical pen Ronald Searle. He has just had his 90th birthday. It is a little sad that, apart a small handful of articles and [...]
Vampireology Competition
We’ve got another great competition for you lucky, lucky people. This time you can win this hefty tome… Like the other Ology books, Vampireology is a hardback book with fold-outs and things to do on virtually every page. It’s an incredibly rich and detailed “true” account of vampires, covering everything from their history, to how [...]
My New Favourite T-Shirt
We don’t often get parcels here in the caves. As soon as this one landed in my pit I tore it open with gusto. What did it contain? Food? Loo roll? Some kind of message of comfort from the outside world? …No. But this is a good t-shirt, I’ve got to admit. Fancy one yourself? [...]
Trees in the breeze
There’s a row of trees outside my studio that look like this. Except, with all those knobbly barks the faces seem to change every time I go past. Either that or they swap places when I’m not looking. My guess is they’re getting a bit fidgety, won’t be long before the leaves cover their more [...]
Mokee Joe Needs YOU! Yes, you!
Even trapped down here, in the dark recesses of the caves, we get to hear about good causes back in civilisation. Today I discovered the monsters passing a crumpled letter between their miserable paws, claws and suckers – and to my shock, saw that it was for a good cause! Amazingly, it was having an [...]
Diagram of Working Methods
We all know writers have strange working habits. So it pleases me to see some of them represented in the form of a diagram: This is taken from: http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/visual/charts-graphs/working-methods.php and they appear to have forgotten about one of the most common places where a writer works: a cave. That is common, right? I mean, other writers [...]
