Well, I did it: zero draft of the haunted house thing is complete. My plan now is to put it to one side and work on something else for a bit, in a bid to build the necessary objectivity and creative juice to administer the Frankensteinian major surgery and spark of life this beast will need to become an actual functioning first draft.

I am mulling another short story – and, as often seems to happen with me, thinking about swordfights. Speaking of which, here (via Twitch) is my favourite thing on the internet this week. Behold… The Fruity Samurai!

This week – unless my sorry brains finally squirt out of my ears first – I intend to finish the zero draft of my haunted house story. NB: the zero draft is not the first draft. If the zero draft had feelings it would be wishing on stars and hoping to become a first draft, one day, when it grows up. Right now the possibility of becoming a finished story remains, of course, too rarefied and celestial a concept for the zero draft’s poor amoeba brain to envision. But, in evolutionary terms, while an amoeba isn’t Homo sapiens, it’s still a lot better than no life at all.

The other big thing happening this week for me is that for the first time in a while my band is meeting up again. I’m very excited, playing with them makes me very happy, so here’s something related to that…

This is Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart:

Here (via Boing Boing and The Captain Beefheart Radar Station) are his Ten Commandments of Guitar Playing. I think they work for writing too, or some of them do for me at least, maybe they will for you.

1. Listen to the birds
That’s where all the music comes from. Birds know everything about how it should sound and where that sound should come from. And watch hummingbirds. They fly really fast, but a lot of times they aren’t going anywhere.

2. Your guitar is not really a guitar
Your guitar is a divining rod. Use it to find spirits in the other world and bring them over. A guitar is also a fishing rod. If you’re good, you’ll land a big one.

3. Practice in front of a bush
Wait until the moon is out, then go outside, eat a multi-grained bread and play your guitar to a bush. If the bush doesn’t shake, eat another piece of bread.

4. Walk with the devil
Old Delta blues players referred to guitar amplifiers as the “devil box.” And they were right. You have to be an equal opportunity employer in terms of who you’re bringing over from the other side. Electricity attracts devils and demons. Other instruments attract other spirits. An acoustic guitar attracts Casper. A mandolin attracts Wendy. But an electric guitar attracts Beelzebub.

5. If you’re guilty of thinking, you’re out
If your brain is part of the process, you’re missing it. You should play like a drowning man, struggling to reach shore. If you can trap that feeling, then you have something that is fur bearing.

6. Never point your guitar at anyone
Your instrument has more clout than lightning. Just hit a big chord then run outside to hear it. But make sure you are not standing in an open field.

7. Always carry a church key
That’s your key-man clause. Like One String Sam. He’s one. He was a Detroit street musician who played in the fifties on a homemade instrument. His song “I Need a Hundred Dollars” is warm pie. Another key to the church is Hubert Sumlin, Howlin’ Wolf‘s guitar player. He just stands there like the Statue of Liberty — making you want to look up her dress the whole time to see how he’s doing it.

8. Don’t wipe the sweat off your instrument
You need that stink on there. Then you have to get that stink onto your music.

9. Keep your guitar in a dark place
When you’re not playing your guitar, cover it and keep it in a dark place. If you don’t play your guitar for more than a day, be sure you put a saucer of water in with it.

10. You gotta have a hood for your engine
Keep that hat on. A hat is a pressure cooker. If you have a roof on your house, the hot air can’t escape. Even a lima bean has to have a piece of wet paper around it to make it grow.

“Though they bear numbers, they are not arranged hierarchically — each Commandment has equal import.”

I’ve received two wonderfully heartening messages about how all my events this past week went…

Mrs E Roberts, English and Humanities Learning Co-ordinator at (all new!) Heartlands High School, Haringey, said:

“The feedback from the pupils was outstanding!  They were unanimous in their opinion on the day: they loved it! Many of the pupils are now reading your books, I think your reading of Crawlers encouraged many of them.  You especially inspired our more challenging boys, which is not easy to do! As a teacher I can see your books making a difference to our pupils and I know how excited you would be if you could see it too!”

…And following on from yesterday’s lightning visit to schools in Nottinghamshire to tie in with Crawlers being shortlisted for the Notts Brilliant Book Award, I’ve just been forwarded this:

“Can you please pass my thanks on to Sam for the visits to Nottingham University Samworth Academy and Kimberley School. I have heard from several of the librarians who attended and they have all said what an excellent and enjoyable event it was, and how good Sam was with the students. We really appreciate him coming to visit and the author events always come out very highly in our evaluations of the award! Best wishes, Janet Huffer, Principal Librarian, Education Library Service, Nottinghamshire County Council.”

A huge and gleeful THANK YOU to everyone I met and spoke to over this last week. 😀

If anyone reading this would like to find out about how to arrange a visit from me to your school or library, you can find out all the details on my Contact An Author page, here.

As for me, I’ve ended Book Week exactly as I always seem to do – namely by catching an ‘orrible cold! Today my head only seems interested in producing mucus instead of writing, so I’ve spent the afternoon updating my LibraryThing Review Page: hit the link for all my latest book recommendations. AhhhhPHLOOPHTCH! Ahem, ‘scuse me.

Book Week is upon us again, and I’m gearing up for three school visits this week: Ken Stimpson Community School in Peterborough, Heartlands High School in my neighbouring London borough Haringey and a long-awaited return visit to The Ridgeway School in Swindon.

In the mean time, my esteemed Trapped By Monsters cave colleague Ali Sparkes has just come up with something a bit tremendous – a new author initiative called Adopt A Bookshop. I’ve adopted mine. Here’s a quiet word from them:

If anyone reading this would like to know how to buy my books and have them signed and personalized for you by me, then The Big Green Bookshop is the place to place your order. Call Samurai Booksellers Simon, Tim and Mark or contact them via their website: they’ll let me know, I’ll drop by the shop to sign the books, they’ll post them out to you wherever you are in the world. Easy.

Bookshops – especially spirited independent ones run by people who love and care about books – are an all-too-rare treat to find on our increasingly homogenized high streets. Just like libraries, you have to use them or lose them. If you’re an author, Adopt A Bookshop. If you’re a reader, visit one today!

Via a friend on Facebook here are two early glimpses of the brand new Indonesian edition of The Black Tattoo…

This (above) is, I think, a design proof. Here’s what the finished article looks like…

The only responses I find myself able to make right now are WOW! and HEE HEE HEE HEE! 😀

Wart ventriloquism, animated massacre and Joss Whedon’s Top Ten Writing Tips – it’s all happening at Trapped By Monsters. 😀

“Tell me how many books a writer has written… we can assume usually ten times that amount shelved or thrown away. And I will tell you how he spends his time: Any writer spends a good deal of his time alone, writing.”

William S. Burroughs

Congratulations to Oli and Ben, joint winners of my Favourite Favourite Word Giveaway!

Ben chose ONSLAUGHT “because it sounds cool and dangerous.”

Oli chose PLASMA “because it sounds alienised!”

I couldn’t decide which was the best reason out of those two, so I picked both. 😀

Oli and Ben: your prizes – first editions of Tim, Defender of the Earth, signed and dedicated to you – are on their way.

My thanks and best wishes to everyone who took part.

Time for a check on the state of the sinister masterplan as it stands this Jan 2011…

Phases One and Two are proceeding nicely. Both The Black Tattoo and Tim, Defender of the Earth are still out there finding readers. THANK YOU to everyone who has left lovely messages in the books’ websites’ Guestbooks lately – particularly Steve from Seattle, Karolin from Estonia, Hailey from Nova Scotia, Laura from Illinois and Casey from Queensland. Your kind words and encouragement are very, very, very much appreciated.

Phase Three: I’m thrilled and honoured and amazed to report that Crawlers is currently in the running for some awards! It’s on the longlist for the Redbridge Children’s Book Award and it’s been shortlisted for the Bolton Children’s Book Award, the Gateshead Children’s Book Award and the Nottinghamshire Brilliant Book Award. That last one has a terrific website where young readers are posting reviews of the books. Hit the link and take a look!

Phase Four is my forthcoming novella to be published by Barrington Stoke. The exact release date is unconfirmed but we’re hoping for early 2012. I’m very happy and excited about this story! I’ve already dropped some hints about it in this interview so now (exclusively! ;D) I’ll reveal the title for you. It’s called O.

-and-

Latest Phases:

OK, what follows (as promised in my previous blog post) is what I’m working on right now.

What I should or shouldn’t put in a blog post at this point is something of a ticklish decision. It’s one of the facts about writing that the journey between starting work on something and everyone being able to read it is long and uncertain. Most published authors I know won’t talk about their work in progress online until release dates are locked or a book is available to order: I can understand why. If you announce something prematurely and for some reason or other it doesn’t happen, there’s a risk of looking foolish – maybe even a failure. I’ve been thinking about that, and I’ve decided I don’t care.

Leaping into the dark is what writing is all about. Sometimes you fly. Sometimes you fall. But I don’t believe there’s any way to know in advance what’s going to happen with a project (unless of course you give up) until you’re up to your eyes in it, writing. So, whether they end up making it into print or not, here are mine…

-Since September I’ve been developing a very exciting experimental web comic with my friend the awesome illustrator Barnaby Richards. It’s a revenge story about this character:

-Still with illustrators, have you seen the amazing artwork David Melling produced for my story Jethro’s Ace of Hearts? Well, to my enormous glee and delight, David wants us to work together again on more. Not long before Christmas I sent him something completely new. I don’t do “classic” monsters, but it might just be the closest thing I ever write to a vampire story. It’s called Family. As before with Jethro, we may do something on TBM. I’ll keep you posted.

…and here’s the one that’s taking up the most brain-space for me right now, the reason I’ve been a little low-key with my online activities this month…

-On Tues 4th Jan I started writing a brand new project that may (or may not – like I say, it’s too early to tell) be my next book. It’s a long-standing ambition of mine: a properly frightening, have-to-sleep-with-the-lights-on-afterwards haunted house story.

So there you go. In case anyone who reads my blogs hasn’t worked this out yet, what’s really sinister about my sinister masterplan to conquer the universe is that sometimes (maybe always) it’s almost indistinguishable from having no plan at all. BWAHAHAHAHA! I don’t always know what’s going to happen. That’s the very thing that makes my job, for me, so terrifying and thrilling. But anyway, now you know what I’m up to – so I’d better get back to it. 😀

Thanks and best wishes,

Sam

You might be aware that I always like to have a favourite word. I’ve been putting these on Twitter (and the various other places where the feed from that appears) since – gulp – April 2009, and recently a couple of people have asked to see a full list of all my favourite words so far.

The list appears below. But since the list by itself seemed like it might make, ahem, somewhat dry reading, I figured that it might be nice to have its appearance coincide with some kind of giveaway. So here goes: vote for your ‘favourite favourite’ and you might WIN A PRIZE – namely a signed UK first edition of Tim, Defender of the Earth!

This will be the true first edition, as published in trade (ie ‘large’) paperback in January 2008 by Random House Children’s Books UK. The book – if you win – will be signed and dedicated to you or whoever you wish. I will post the book to you free of charge, wherever you are. All you have to do is the following:

–Click here to go to the Crawlers Guestbook.

–Click ‘Sign Guestbook’

-Tell me your Favourite Favourite.

–Tell me why you think it’s the best word on the list.

–Tell me how to contact you in case you win. An email address is best, but Facebook will do. NB: I edit every entry on my Guestbooks before it appears, so (barring something going wrong that’s beyond my control) any personal contact details you give me will not be publicly visible on that page: they will only be seen by me. But if you don’t leave me some way to get back to you if you’re the winner, I won’t be able to send you your prize.

–THAT’S IT!

You have until Monday January 31st, 2011. The winner will be whoever I think comes up with the best answer.

OK, enough preamble. Here below – from oldest to most recent – is what you’ve got to choose from. So: Ladies and Gentlemen! By (some!) Popular Demand! I present…

All My Favourite Words Since April 23rd 2009

discombobulated, grackle, mucilage, cedilla, gizzard, vim, ruminant, cud, spry, squalid, guppy, blight, irascible, rutabaga, cloister, gristle, gawp, truckle, curmudgeon, schism, gubbins, smolt, shirty, ignition, quango, squab, macaroon, unguent, zugzwang, savage, seepage, pungent, moot, corpuscle, crepuscular, spleen, murk, plasma, lurid, salamander, pigment, glycerine, coagulant, grimace, baleful, macaque, gnaw, knurl, snood, glottal, inscrutable, clandestine, cormorant, lugubrious, scree, narthex, crimp, manacle, sphagnum, scrupulous, irk, spikenard, hawser, ellipsis, disgruntlement, lipid, mandible, shrike, fluke, insinuating, pernicious, usurper, prehensile, gelid, swarf, skulk, calamity, diminish, onslaught, oaf, tantamount, beak, mollusc, conglomerate, hispid, compunction, sloop, colossal, ventricle, mulch, baffle, spiracle, stint, nonplussed, fathom, aghast, thrive, pelt, plunge, wrack, goad, undulate, potash, snivelling, expunge, miasma, bulwark, cumbersome, tallow, smirch, gantry, buffoon, glut, torpid, asunder, mottled, palp, snit, tungsten, squeamish, tabernacle, throng, tumult, conclusive, demolish, harangue, ignominy, bamboozle, tokamak, millipede, winch, menace, lobster, scythe, mammoth, tendril, feast, marauder, morbid, slice, unutterable, cantankerous, buckle, abominable, sconce, hankering, churlish, battlement, parallax, absorb, inept, repulsive, grotesque, dreadnought, quash, yam, wretched, precipices, pulsating, bungle, furtive, ominous, soluble, dissolute, gallivanting, thole, spurious, doff, husk, hibernation, snooze, malingering, jostle, ormolu, succinct, scathed, flagrant, squamous, recalcitrant, ptarmigan, nebulous, huckster, reprehensible, stilted, griddle, plangent, quartile, broach, yolk, engrossed, propulsion, spinnaker, discrepancy, sepulchral, shoals, plenipotentiary, pulverised, clotted, agglutinated, blemish, crucible, phlegm, writhe, spindle, beware, drench, snout, cnidoblast, slathered, tangible, trifling, kibosh, jagged, nargile, turpitude, gargle, sedition, carnage, woe, maelstrom, crust, licentiousness, quaff, whelk, embezzlement, spume, incandescent, sluggishly, abolish, concussed, barnstormer, mesmerism, loathsome, misanthrope, sunk, diplomacy, hustings, tacit, hurtling, volatile, snaffle, spine, glyptodon, affront, siphon, blatant, helix, mouldering, unconscionable, malevolent, relish, ganglia, beacon, geode, gullet, dismissal, bismuth, sluice, curdled, glare, vernacular, smock, simmering, perihelion, subduction, gangplank, wince, fripperies, bluster, hence, overweening, rivet, meteor, cataplasm, marmoreal, sequestered, poltroon, scowl, recursive, nodule, trample, throaty, gargantuan, infested, upheaval, skirmish, rhinoceros, truncated, sump, sumptuous, vitriol, miscreant, turmoil, contagion, phospholipid, sidling, somnolent, marrow, cudgel, succumb, nozzle, smattering, obliterated, straggle, acrid, baulk, congeal, buffer, nucleus, lackadaisical, illicit, roost, inveigle, rife, blurt, corroborated, blear, salacious, exultant, grovel, insidious, agog, fecklessness, yawl, flummox, inimical, spool, neglect, bladderwrack, kelp, haphazard, occiput, plunder, brouhaha, wassail and shirk.

I suppose I shouldn’t be allowed to choose more favourite words until we have a winner. So, have at it! 😀