Events 'n' Things

Ooooh, I haven’t blogged in AGES….!

So, what’s been happening in my crazy, crazy life? Well, on the writer side of things, I’ve been doing a few events, including being a guest at the Prize day for Ardgillan College- a school pretty close to where I live- and Drogheda Grammar School- the school I went to.

Ardgillan was fun, with everyone ready to laugh at the nonsense spewing out of my mouth when I got up to make my speech. Which was nice of them.

Going back to the DGS, the school I’d attended from age 12 to 18, was a blast. Most of my teachers are still there, which is endlessly amusing. They pretty much look the same as they did 18 years ago. Wow. 18 years. That’s a VERY long time. I feel so, so old…

But I had a laugh, which is the main thing, and being invited back to make the speech at Prize Day was lovely. For years after school I always felt like a failure, because I was working on the family farm, writing in my spare time, but having nothing to show for it. Most of my classmates had gone on to college or apprenticeships or proper jobs, and there was I, working for my dad, growing more and more miserable.

The good thing about working for my dad, though, was that he understood my need to be a writer, and he tended to be amused instead of annoyed when he’d realize my mind was far, far away at any given moment. I daydreamed a LOT when I was on the farm- that’s how I wrote- and I’m lucky that he understood that.

That notion of being a failure diminished somewhat when I got two movies made, and then vanished entirely when I wrote Skulduggery. No longer did I have the urge to prove myself to old friends or teachers. It was like a massive weight was lifted from my shoulders, like something petty and nasty and selfish suddenly vanished from my mind. I still show off- oh dear GOD how I show off- but now I do it to amuse myself, not to brag or boast or to demonstrate that I've made it. Now I show off in order to watch the reaction on other people’s faces- which is FUN.

On Saturday I was at the Wicklow Arts Festival, an event that went very well, and I met so many cool people in the signing queue afterwards. Bradley gave me a book he’d published himself, there was an AWESOME Skulduggery-girl and Little-Valkyrie in costume, and two hilariously awesome girls came along in Skulduggery T-shirts they’d made themselves. We went WAY over our allotted time for signing but it was so worth it.

Event-wise, I have nothing on until Edinburgh in August, and then the Ireland/UK/Germany dates in September/October. Which means I have time to write! Yay!

My editor and agent should be getting back to me with notes on the second draft of Death Bringer in the next week or two, and I should be getting Laura’s notes any day now, so hopefully the next draft will be the last.

Once it’s finished, though, I still have work to do. There are a few Skulduggery-related things I need to take care of, and I’d really like to start a brand new, non-Skulduggery book- but then I’ve been saying that for YEARS and I still haven’t had enough time. Oh well- maybe THIS year…