Friday 21 May 2010

Barely Keeping Up with Unstoppable Forces

You can tell by my economical and sparse postings that these past couple of weeks have been a bit ... erm ... busy.

How do I catch up? I have covered a lot of stuff - it's just the actual reporting that is suffering.

There have been many distractions - the other day, this arrived in the post:

tall story
I could hardly contain myself!

tall story
And there in all their shrink-wrapped glory ...

tall story
Were my mandatory author's copies of Tall Story (10 of 'em)!

tall story
I couldn't resist putting them on a shelf to see how they looked as "real books" ...they looked  mighty fine indeed.

But I digress ...

I haven't even written up this London Book Fair event from way back in April, in which Britain's current children's laureate, Anthony Browne, appeared with illustrators Martin Brown (Horrible Histories) and Marcia Williams (who's known for turning Shakespeare and Dickens into highly illustrated comicky books) to discuss why illustration was so important even to older children.

Here are some pictures -

I then took a break from my writerly duties to knock out a website for Tall Story - designed using Jimdo. I was quietly dreading all the stuff that debut authors dread, like school visits and author talks when I suddenly realized I needed a website just for the book. I'm still working on the teacher downloads.

I also attended last weekend's SCBWI writer's retreat, which featured authors Lee Weatherly and Pippa Goodhart and agent Julia Churchill. I took rather ghastly photos so I won't be putting them up here.

In my continuing quest for more ways to neglect my family, I also attended a fascinating talk by Sophie McKenzie on what it takes to become a successful author.

Sophie McKenzie
Sophie McKenzie (Blood Ties)

I thought I might try really hard to blog about that in another post so patience, dear readers. I'll try to get there at some point.

And that, dear friends, is what I've been up to. If only all this hard labour translated into losing weight.

3 comments :

  1. The book looks great! Hard cover and everything! It is an exciting moment when you crack that box open and grab the first copy of your first book. I still have my first copy - it's my reading copy for school visits.

    At least, when you are finding more ways to neglect your family, you're doing it in a wine bar - that's got to count for something!?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey, Just stopped by to say RH UK is on top of things.

    The other day in a post I mentioned in passing that I was sad to see the US release date of Tall Story was pushed back.

    Today in my inbox - there was an email from a PR manager telling me the UK release date is June 3.

    I am really tempted. If I do buy it I am totally giving that person a shout out.

    Much congrats on the upcoming release.

    ReplyDelete
  3. hi doret! thanks so much for the kind words - sorry it's going to take time to get to the US! i did see though that a kindle edition will be released at the same time as the UK. i had no idea it was going to have a kindle edition but there you go! thanks again!

    ReplyDelete

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