My brilliant mate Katie, who designs and maintains all my websites, is about to head off on maternity leave. Before she does, she’s just completed a mammoth list of updates. If you check out the sites for The Black Tattoo, Tim, Defender of the Earth and Crawlers you’ll find that all broken links have now gone, the links between the sites and the homepage are much clearer and the Reader Quotes, Q&A, Editions Details, Reader Art and Interviews pages are now fully current with all the latest. In addition, to my particular glee and delight, I can now – at last! – also show you THIS:

And THIS:

Congratulations, arm-waving and awed disgust to Welly Woo, creator of these images and the undisputed winner of Round Ten of the Black Tat No Monsters Were Harmed In The Making Of This Website Competition!

As the sinister masterplan has continued, keeping on top of its online element has been no small task – particularly for The WebSpinx who (lately) has kept it all going through a major house move while bringing up a very young child and expecting another. I think my sites for The Black Tattoo, Tim, Defender of the Earth and Crawlers – plus, of course, my homepage – all look awesome, so I hope you’ll join me in raising a virtual glass in salute to Katie and her hard work.

All Hail the Mighty WebSpinx! Here’s wishing you all the best, my dear. And thank you so much. 😀

Sam

A new Phase Five is underway. I’ll tell you more as soon as I can, but for now suffice it to say that for the whole of last week I spent all my writing time reading fashion magazines for research. For a man who has basically worn variations on the same outfit for the last fifteen years (namely, of course, THE BLACK) it’s been quite an education, I can tell you. ;D

Meanwhile, if you’ve a further ten minutes to spare, may I suggest you click through to Trapped By Monsters for an amazing video by three blokes who’ve built a time machine in their garage.

I’ve been assessing the progress of my Sinister Masterplan to Conquer the Universe.

Phase One: The Black Tattoo. I’m delighted to say that I recently accepted an offer from a company who want to translate and publish the book in Indonesia. I’ve also been receiving some wonderful and heartening messages lately in the Black Tat Guestbook.

Phase Two: Tim, Defender of the Earth. Take a look at this…

This is the German edition of Tim, published just last month – a pleasingly pulpy-looking and pickuppable paperback. I was particularly happy to discover that KER-RASHHH! — the noise the Big Ben tower makes when Tim caber-tosses it into Mallahide’s chest — has been rendered into German by translator Lisa Kuppler as the satisfyingly evocative KRAWUMMM!

Phase Three: Crawlers. I’ve recently signed a deal to have the book translated and published in Hungary. An unabridged UK audio edition is also in the works.

Phase Four – the title of which I’ll announce in due course – is a novella to be published by Barrington Stoke. That’s signed, sealed and delivered, current release date January 2012.

Phase Five… OK, here’s where it gets difficult.

On Aug 6th of last month, after six months of writing, thirty-five thousand words of draft, four hundred pages of notes and a lot of agonizing, I abandoned the project I’d thought was Phase Five. This was not an easy decision to make. Admitting to myself – and my agent and publisher, and now you – that I led myself down a story dead end wasn’t and isn’t easy either. I don’t approve of writers who make too much fuss and drama about the job but I can reaffirm for you now (in case you didn’t know) that failing to write a book can be every bit as exhausting as finishing one can be, with the additional effect of a massive, crushing drain on one’s morale. For the few weeks since, I’ve been taking some time off. I’m feeling better. I’ve now scraped my sorry remaining braincells into a loose, watery bolus and I’m preparing to embark on a completely new story, from scratch.

It’s scary, but exciting too. In an email to me yesterday fellow TBM stalwart Barry Hutchison asked, “Do we have the best job in the world, or what?” He wasn’t going to get any argument from me. So: time for me to straighten my spine, and start all over again…

…into what, it’s too early to say. My pupal case is fully formed and hardening; what’s inside has already lost its old shape and is now splitting and twisting into strange and interesting new ones.

The above pic is from this excellent photo gallery of various creatures viewed through an electron microscope.

Cheerio. See you whenever I emerge.

Recently on Trapped By Monsters: Are Cows Monsters? The Fighting T. Are Owls Monsters? and Alan Moore’s Top Five Tips for Would-Be Writers.

Right: if you’ll excuse me I’ve got to climb back into my writing bathysphere.

DIVE!

No Crawlers News or Favourite Words from me just now: I’m in full deep dive mode on Phase Five of My Sinister Masterplan.

But here’s a TBM post on one of the best things I’ve found out about so far this year. ;D

This weekend UK national newspaper The Independent published a feature listing The 50 Best Summer Reads, as chosen by a panel including TBM‘s own Ali Sparkes.

Guess what was number 22?

Before anyone gets tempted to start yelling ‘fix’, here’s a review on TBM in which Ali talks about Crawlers in a bit more detail. As she told me when I emailed to thank her for that, if she’d thought the book stank she “just would not have mentioned it. ;)”

Thanks, Ali! I owe you some fudge, that’s for sure. 😀

This one’s from Books For Keeps:

“[…] When ‘a long line of spider-like creatures’ starts to emerge from the air vents of the theatre’s foyer, the stage is set (so to speak) for a schlock horror story which, in some moments at least, is definitely not for the faint-hearted, though it must be said that its pacing is brilliant and all the more remarkably so in a narrative which is skilfully compressed into something just under six hours of a particular evening. Horror apart, however, Enthoven’s novel merits considerable notice in its nicely observed delineation of gender roles and social nuances; this in other words is a novel for a readership some distance beyond what the horror genre usually targets.”

It’s a very positive review and I’m pleased, of course. But – like most of the reviews by adults that I seem to get for my books – it’s a bit “I wouldn’t normally like this sort of thing, but…”

For contrast, here’s this:

“Crawlers had me reading non stop for two days… I LOVED IT. It was insane, thrilling, and how do I put this… AMAZING!!!!!”

An especially big thank you to Christina, 14, from Canada, who sent me these kind words via my Facebook profile. 😀

Two quick pieces of news about The Black Tattoo. First up, I’m thrilled and delighted to say that I’ve been interviewed about the book for Fresh Dawgs’ Book Blog, a new site written and produced by young readers in the USA.

My thanks and best wishes to MG, who kindly described Black Tat as “so exciting you can’t put it down.” For his interview questions and how I answered them, click here.

Second thing, THIS:

It’s the book’s Romanian edition! It’s a paperback, and a fine-looking item as you can see. I have now learned that the Romanian word for bats is the rather beautiful ‘lilieci’. Something new every day in this job. ;D

Meanwhile: my latest post for Trapped By Monsters is a FREE STORY IDEA – yours to take and do with what you will. Hit the link and help yourself.

The cartoon in the ‘In the City’ column of the current issue of my favourite satirical magazine Private Eye made me giggle like a loon. But I couldn’t help but be struck by a strange resemblance.

In the style of their Lookalikes feature, I present the following:

‘Tim, Defender of the Earth’

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‘Awesome Cartoon by Robert Thompson, In The City / Private Eye June 2010’

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Snee hee hee!

Sam

PS: Long-term followers of my online shenanigans may recollect that this is not the first time that Tim, or someone very like him, has made an appearance in Private Eye. 😀