Dalkey! And Forums!

For all you readers in Dublin/Wicklow, I'm going to be appearing at the Dalkey Book Festival this Sunday at 12 PM...

And does anyone know what happened to the Skulduggery Forums? It seems to have been replaced by a... web-sitey... thing...

And because I have nothing further to add, here are two well-timed photos...

A/NZ Tour Locations

Alrighty then, here we go.

New Zealand- from (roughly) the 8th to the 11th of August, I shall be visiting:

Auckland

Wellington

Christchurch


Australia- from (roughly) the 12th to the 21st, I shall be visiting:

Brisbane

Sydney

Melbourne

Adelaide

Perth


I know we have a few readers in Christchurch who read this blog, so I'm glad to be able to visit after missing out last time around. And I know most of you in Adelaide and Perth were CONVINCED I wasn't going to get anywhere near you (especially you guys in Perth) so, y'know... this tour's for you!

And now, because I realised whatever picture I post here also pops up on the Facebook page, I shall post another picture of Gina Carano. Because she's lovely.

And another of Ronda Rousey, keeping the "hand-wrap" theme going...

What do you mean they have nothing to do with what I've just posted?

Vague Tour Dates, Carano and Rousey

For those of you wanting to know tour dates and locations, I should have them soon.

I mean, I have them NOW, like, but I'm not going to tell you what they are until they're finalised. I simply can't. What if, for example, I mentioned that my publishers are thinking of sending me to a town near you, and you organise your mates to go along, and start making plans, and then a week later I announce that, actually, we're going to be missing out on your town because we simply don't have time to visit?

That would suck, would it not?

So, I'm keeping them to myself for the moment. I've just sent an email off, checking on when I can announce, and hopefully it'll only be a few days.

As it stands, though, and without getting into too much detail, I think I'm spending 4 or 5 days in New Zealand, and then about 10 days in Australia. I'll be visiting a lot of cities I've been to in the last tour, while also adding some new ones. Right now, my main focus is making sure I get to spend enough time at each particular location, but this timetable is TIGHT... I just don't want to get into a situation where I have to rush to the airport when there's still 50 people waiting to get something signed...

And then the Ireland/UK tour kicks off. Unlike previous tours, where I was gone for 10 days, we're only going to take the first three weekends in September, in order to fit in as many big signings as we can.

The kind of tours you go on tend to change DRASTICALLY depending on how your books sell. When you're starting out, or when your audience is smaller, writers get sent to a load of schools in order to get the word out. Then, if they're lucky enough for their books to catch on, the schools come to THEM, in theatres or community halls or whatever. And then, if they're REALLY lucky and their books have an established audience, the best use of their time is these huge public signings, where they get to meet as many readers as possible. It's frantic, it's hectic, sometimes only one book can be signed per person, but the whole point of it is to send everyone away with a smile on their face.

Except me, of course. By the end of these signings, I can no longer smile. My face-muscles tend to melt.

This year is going to feel weird because I'm not going to Germany, like I've done every year since 2008 or so. The reason for this is because my German publishers want me over early NEXT year for one of their festivals, so all you German readers will have to wait just a little longer...

Speaking of festivals, I've got a few coming up. I'll be at the Dalkey Book Festival on the 17th of June in Dublin, I'll be in Cheltenham in October, and... okay, I have a few others that are apparently unconfirmed, so I'll wait until I know for sure before announcing them.


Hmmm... I'm thirsty...


Do I have anything of interest to say to you? I'm trying to think...

I've been watching a few movies, ever since I finished the book. Watching some TV. The Avengers kicked all kinds of ass. Words cannot express how much I loved that movie.

The Grey surprised the hell out of me. Wow.

Dexter is its usual brilliant self.

I'm loving how much Game of Thrones is being loved by the general public.

Umm... is that it? Is that sincerely all I've watched?

Actually, the only other show I've been watching is the only reality show I'd EVER watch, The Ultimate Fighter, where all these fighters train and fight in order to be awarded a contract with the UFC. Mixed Martial Arts is just terrifying to watch because your favourite fighter might be winning round after round after round, and then he makes one tiny mistake and the fight is over. Not even boxing is as nerve-wracking as MMA.

But to my mind there is one thing cooler than MMA- and that is Women's MMA. I've mentioned Gina Carano before- she was in Haywire, some of which was filmed in Dublin, and she's going to be in the next Fast and Furious movie- and she began her career as an MMA fighter. As you can probably tell by my books, I have a healthy respect for women who can fight, and Gina Carano is probably one of my favouritest women in the world right now.

And my other favouritest person is Ronda Rousey, the current Strikeforce Women's MMA champion. From what I've seen, Rousey is wonderfully upfront and honest, and if you have a few minutes, go on You Tube and take a look at her fights. I say a few minutes because most of them end within the first 60 seconds or so. Her armbars are AMAZING.

Do yourself a favour, though, and look at the Miesha Tate fight LAST. And only if you have a strong stomach. Honestly. The way that arm bends back on itself is just stomach-turning.

In one of the books, I can't remember which, Val looks at Tanith and wishes she had shoulders like hers. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you those shoulders. 

This Is Awesome...

Oh, and my publishers would like me to include the Amazon link so you can pre-order this wonderful, wonderful book. Now, normally I hate linking to ANYTHING that has to do with selling my own books... and this is no exception...

(oh, and I also have no idea how these words ended up in the middle of the page like this, but hey...)

This is the link:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingdom-Wicked-Skuldugery-Pleasant-Book/dp/0007480229/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337938025&sr=8-1

Whether you use it or not is up to you.

PS

The colour for this one is shiny GOLD.

PPS

I think now is the time to applaud one Mister Tom Percival.

Aimless...

Hello there,

It is I, your humble Golden God, here to brighten up your day with another one of my electrifying entries into this accursed Blog-thing. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to write about, however. Ever since I finished the book I've been kind of... aimless.

Not ENTIRELY aimless, of course. I did have things to do once I'd finished- other bits and pieces of writing to finish off. But I've finished those now, and so I'm back to being a little bit lost as to what to do.

I've been visiting a few schools- which is something I don't get to do a whole lot of anymore during my official tours. When you're a writer starting off, school events are ALL you do, because you need to reach as many people as possible and get them interested in your books. But once you reach a certain level of awesomeness, visiting individual schools is not really the best use of your limited time. So bigger school events are planned, where multiple schools come to a theatre or hall, and a lot more public signings are scheduled. By this stage, it's all about meeting the readers, and making it easier for the readers to meet you.

But throughout the year I tend to visit schools in and around Dublin, organised by teachers or librarians or parents. It's all about "this person knows that person who knows my cousin's friend", and that's how they get in touch. I can't do an awful lot of these smaller school visits, because I don't have the time, but for some reason I've been visiting a school a week for the past month or two. Which is, I admit, NOT the best use of my time when I have deadlines as tight as my deadlines have been. But hey.

So, the week before last I was at a school in Lusk. Last week I was at a school in Swords. And this afternoon I was at a school in Sutton. Next week I'll be at a school somewhere in Cork and then- THEN- I'll stop. No more. I need a break. I've got my Australia/NZ tour in August, my Ireland/UK tour in September, and before all that I think I have to pop over to LA for a bit. I need a BREAK! I need to do normal things! I need to stop signing autographs!

Ah, the life of a tortured artist...

Oh, and before I go, something you MAY be interested in. This Friday I will be posting again. Why, you ask? What could I possibly have to post mere days after THIS wonderful entry?

Oh not much. I don't expect there to be much writing involved, actually. Just a single image, perhaps. A single, solitary image appearing on the accursed Blog, sometime on Friday... What could it be? Something to do with the new book? Some kind of image to do with the new book?

It's a mystery, that's what it is. I guess you'll just have to check the Blog on Friday to find out.

UP

Bwahahahahahahahaha!

Mmmmm Violence...

Glory be, glory be, it's done. Finished. Done and dusted. Over. Practically. Almost.

The edits are all done. I have the weekend to go over KOTW one more time and then we send it to the copyeditor. The copyeditor basically makes sure I haven't made any huge mistakes, and corrects all the little ones before it's too late. She'll tweak and suggest and cut and replace, and then she'll send the manuscript back to me and I'll make my final adjustments, and that'll be it. Boom. Over.

Right now, the book clocks in at 134,729 words. Considering that Death Bringer was marginally over 118,000 words, that's quite a substantial increase. Golly gee, it's gonna be a big book! We're going to have to reduce the font size again to cram as many words onto the page as possible, but our font size is typically big anyway, so at least we have room to play with.

This is the first book where I've had serious discussions with my editor about the level of violence. (Well, I say serious... he was TRYING to be serious and I was making jokes, but you know...)

It's a weird thing, to write a series, because the readers get older as the books are released. Valkyrie gets older, the situations she finds herself in become more grown-up, and the themes get darker and darker as the end approaches. What all this means is that occasionally I fall into the trap of assuming that the Skulduggery readership is able to handle whatever I throw at them. And for the most part, they are.

But there will ALWAYS be new readers. There will ALWAYS be a nine year old who picks up the books for the first time and reads them in a few weeks. And it's unfair to expect that nine year old to be able to deal with content that is more suited to teenagers and adults. So where does that leave me?

In a weird place, that's where. On one hand, I've NEVER viewed this series as strictly children's books, and that view just keeps getting stronger and stronger as Valkyrie gets older. But on the other hand, I have a responsibility to the younger readers to not give them anything they can't handle.

And all of this makes me ever-so-thankful that we have such a thing as editors. I wrote this book in two and a half months of sheer WORK. There was no time to doubt myself and no time for second guesses. Whatever I put down on the page stayed on the page. When you have a more relaxed timetable you can afford to wonder about what you've just written but when the deadline is rushing towards you like a screaming train you just WRITE. With that in mind, I'm not surprised at all that I went too far in some areas. And it was so much FUN.

The battle still isn't over, by the way. Nick, my editor, still thinks I could be a little less bloodthirsty, while I think I'm just bloodthirsty enough. Some serious things happen in this book, and I reckon I needed to be as brutal and uncompromising as possible in order to achieve what I needed to achieve. But we have another week or so of him trying to be serious and me making jokes before I have to make the final decision.

And now a picture!