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…

Cats and Dogs

Because, sometimes, dogs just want to sit on cats.

Death Bringer

It is here! Finally! I present to you, my loyal Minions, the cover of Book 6- Death Bringer!

I'm trying to picture it on a shelf in a bookshop, with that glorious red and the silver, and the shiny foil around the title, and the sheer size that the book is going to be, sitting there, on the shelf, making all the other books tremble in fear...

As you can see, we went for a mid-battle shot of our two heroes, which is a radical departure from Tom's sketch that's all over the interweb. Tom always comes up with lots of possible ideas, so I'm always being sent sketches, and on the basis of those sketches we decide what works best. The final books in each trilogy are going to be mid-battle shots- we started it with The Faceless Ones, we're continuing it here, and we'll finish it with Book Nine.


AND we get to use a tag-line that I've wanted to use since Book Two - "Kicking Evil Very Hard In The Face". Oh I love that line. It's so long and unwieldy, whereas tag-lines are meant to be short and snappy. But Skulduggery, of course, just HAS to be different...

And as for the title, I think it was always going to be Death Bringer, even before I'd consciously decided on it. The second trilogy is a "two word title" trilogy- Dark Days, Mortal Coil, and now this one. The title style in the final trilogy will change yet again.

I really like this cover, I think Tom did an amazing job, and the fun doesn't even end here. At some stage over the next few months we'll be unveiling the back cover (which is ASTONISHINGLY good) and I hope to sneak you out a chapter before September.

I am just too good to you, I really am...

Divergent

The cover is finished! The cover is finished! Are you ready to see it? Are you??

Well, unfortunately I don’t ACTUALLY have it, but I’ve been assured that it’s finished and that it’s brilliant, and that I’ll be able to show you all tomorrow.

Ahem.

The cynical among you may begin to suspect that all of this is the result of bad planning and borderline incompetence on my part, as I had promised to reveal the cover oh, maybe two weeks ago.

However- the nice and the kind and the generous among you might recognise this as a cunning way of drawing out the mystery and building the excitement, and regard all these delays and missed deadlines purely as brilliant marketing on my part.

It is, of course, entirely up to you to decide which of these kinds of people you are- cynical and suspicious (boo!) or nice and lovely and so very pretty (yay!).

So, while we wait for the cover to be revealed tomorrow, I now have a Blog post to fill, and I want to mention a book I’m reading which I think is brilliant. It’s called Divergent, and it’s by Veronica Roth, a new American writer. I’ve read the first hundred pages here- http://browseinside.harperteen.com/index.aspx?isbn13=9780062024022 - and I absolutely love it so far. It’s set in a Dystopian future- because those are ALWAYS the best kind- where the population splits itself into Factions according to their personality traits. People are always telling me I must read The Hunger Games- and I will, I swear I will- but Divergent grabbed me from the first paragraph, and now I’m pretty much helpless.

Aside from the great idea at its centre, this book is REALLY well written. I make no apologies for the fact that I’m a snob when it comes to the quality of writing- no matter how wonderful the premise, I simply can’t read it if the words don’t flow like they should or the characters aren’t genuine. I reckon I’ve improved as a writer since the first Skulduggery, and the later books are much better written than the first one (even if the first one remains my absolute favourite), but Miss Roth seems to have bypassed that awkward debut-writer stage completely. If she’s this good now, how good is she going to be in five books’ time? Scary good, is the answer.

If you’re looking for something new to read, click the link above and try it out. 

I wear fedoras now. Fedoras are cool.

Just have to say- Doctor Who ROCKS.

That is all.

Bah! Delays!

Okay, fine, I HAD wanted to unveil the new cover sometime this week, but obviously that hasn't happened. I've been assured that I'll be able to do it sometime NEXT week, though, so hopefully that'll work out.

In the meantime...

I'm feeling much better these days. I haven't gone back training yet- I haven't recovered THAT much- but I went in for a few tests on Wednesday and they have pronounced me fit as a proverbial fiddle and told me that I'm pretty much immortal, which I knew already. But still, always good to hear a second opinion.

I did an event last night with John Connelly in Easons in Dublin that was a LOT of fun. John is a crime writer by day, but at night he writes the wickedest books for younger readers- he's written The Book of Lost Things and The Gates, and has just come out with his new one, Hell's Bells. He read an excerpt from Hell's Bells and, for the first time ever, I read an extract from one of MY books. I normally don't read aloud because I have a stutter, and I much prefer to just walk around the stage and ramble on about cats and dogs and weird-looking children. But last night I thought I'd do something new, so I read, and it was actually a lot of fun- but what made it cooler was the fact that it was an excerpt from the new book. I decided that it wouldn't be an action scene or a chase scene, or in fact anything to do with the actual plot. Instead, it was Valkyrie at home with her parents and her baby sister- so there was a LOT of her dad being his usual oddball self, which really seemed to go down well.

Afterwards there was a signing session which, ahem, kind of went on until AFTER the store had actually closed... But the Easons staff were all really cool about it, even though they had to stay late, and they seemed to be having a good time while I chatted and doodled and signed. I even met some people who visit this Blog- so say hello in the comments section, dammit! Especially you, Elizabeth, who came up to me after I'd signed her books and asked for a hug. Awwww. I LOVE giving hugs. Elizabeth now has a special place in my heart...

I'm just looking at my calender here for May... Let's see... Okay, I'll be at the Brighton Festival on the 8th, then I'll be doing something with Children's Books Ireland on the 22nd, and I'll be at the Wicklow Festival on the 28th. So if you're around, drop by and give me a hug.

Update:

While I'm not one hundred percent back to normal, I'm certainly getting there. The medication I've been given seems to have scattered my mind a little bit, making it hard to focus- but there are only a few pills left, and once they're gone, my great and glorious mind shall return...

In the meantime, I just want to let you know that at some stage over the next few days, I'll be posting the REAL cover to Skulduggery 6 here on this Blog, and not Tom's sketch that has been doing the rounds on the interweb. Along with that, you'll also be getting the official title, which may or may not be what you're expecting.

At the moment, Tom is finishing up the cover and it's looking- no surprise here- absolutely amazing. You better have a bucket handy, because when the cover is revealed your heads are going to explode and your brains are going to need something to leak into. Which is, I'll freely admit, somewhat gross.