I’ve already spoken a few times about how I go about getting ideas, and about which comes first, the words or pictures. So I hope I’m not treading on old ground by sharing with you a recent short article I wrote for the lovely people at Red House, and their monthly magazine. It was linked [...]
Category > Writing Advice
Top Writing Tips
This week, I was going to write a post filled with writing tips, but then I found this video – which says just about everything I was planning to cover:
Reading Pictures
I posted an article a while back, about how I like to produce a short sequence of drawings on a single page as a warming up exercise before I get down to the really messy business of ‘creativity.’ Well, with this recent cold snap moving in I’ve been needing more warm-ups than usual and I [...]
Two Joe Mojo
A pair of links for you, to recent interviews with the authors of two of the finest books I’ve read this year, namely: Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie, and- Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft by Joe Hill. Both interviews are a blast to read, but there are some great writing tips in there [...]
The Sound of Muse-Sick
You know, in some ways being kidnapped by monsters and held prisoner in a cave for nearly a year isn’t quite as bad as it might be. For one thing (and maybe I’m reaching here, but…) thanks to the monsters’ internet connection, I haven’t been deprived of music. Not at all long ago, a music [...]
Conflict, Structure, Character, Setting – In That Order
I was at Epsom College today, allowed out of the cave for my final school event of 2009. While being dragged back to the cave by my ankles by the monster I know simply as ‘Miss Angelina’, I was mulling over the elements that distinguish children’s books from adult fiction. It’s something I spoke about in [...]
Research, Research
Two items of Q&A for you. The first is something I was asked this week via the MySpace page of Jagmat from The Black Tattoo. Huge respect and kudos – partly just for not letting the whole shapeshifting blancmange monster thing put him off! – to Mykell, from Maryland, USA, who wondered: What kind of [...]
A Thing About Writing That I Do
I gave a talk the other day called something like ‘Writing for Children: generating ideas and writing that children will actually be interested in.’ I can’t remember the exact title. It was a bit long and to be honest I have trouble remembering titles that are more than three words. Anyway, I thought I [...]
Illustrating ‘Jethro’s Ace of Hearts’
A few weeks ago, on hearing the news that Sam was planning to serialise a short story on this blog (31st October 2009), I decided to ask him if I could have a go at illustrating it. You see, being primarily the illustrator of picture books, I don’t usually get the chance to tackle something [...]
How I Got Published
You may have noticed that I’ve not been around for a while. You- You did notice, didn’t you? I mean, I’d hate to think I just vanished from the site and no-one would even realise it… Anyhoo – I’ve been suffering from SLIME FLU, which is the monsters’ version of swine flu. It’s pretty much [...]
