What have I done in two months?

This year races on but I am beating it.

A new year, which means bigger hair and a new author photo!

This year is already whizzing past and I knew it would. I’m busy, and I’d prepared myself for a few months of head-down hard graft. I’ve barely surfaced for air, which is a key reason it’s been so long since my last newsletter.

However, after three years of dealing with long covid, feeling this good and achieving so much is to be celebrated. (I must remember to stop occasionally, I must remember to rest… and these are always the hardest things when you’re enjoying your work.)

Prints and stickers for my Kickstarter campaign!

After completing the artwork for my Kickstarter book The Little Shop of Magic and getting that ready for print, I ploughed straight on into writing the first book in a new series. This is going to be announced in time for the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, so in a few weeks news will be out and I promise to write about it then. I can’t wait to show you the cover and talk about it, as I really like this new series. It’s lightly linked to Hotel Flamingo, so I’ve had the chance to create a whole new cast of characters while expanding that world. It’s been brilliant fun thinking it all out.

All I will say right now is that I’ve been drawing lots of merdogs.

BOOKS!

I’ve also been doing lots of reading. For some reason I always tend to do a lot of reading at the beginning of the year, although it’s mainly tied in to how long I lie in bed before falling asleep.

What I’ve read so far…

These are the books I’ve read so far… SAS Rogue Heroes was such an easy read, easily the equal of the TV series. And the fact that most of what the TV series depicts really happened is quite astonishing.

The Wichita Lineman - a book about one of my favourite songs – was far too long, but about 100 pages of it were great. I hadn’t realised quite how important Glen Campbell was in the history of popular music.

The Pebble Spotter’s Guide is super, with lovely illustrations of pebbles. If you know anything about me, you know I like a rock and find it quite impossible to walk a beach and not pick a few up. My wife hates me for it.

Speaking of hate, The Lie of the Land is incredible, although each chapter made me so angry for many different reasons. As a briton it will make you hate the Normans for all they dumped upon us a thousand years ago. Being a bit general here, but unlike the Romans, they didn’t build infrastructure for the people (such as sewers and road systems,) instead they focused on implementing a crappy hierarchical class structure for us all. And we’re still dealing with their legacy to this day. Time for a change, methinks!

I’ve almost finished The Bone Chests, but thought I’d include it here to make me look like an even better reader. It’s fascinating, if sometimes dense and occasionally mind boggling, mainly due to its anglo-saxon content. When a book concerns characters with names such as Earwigthegif, Aethelfluff, Oooda and… Edward (I made all these up, apart from Edward,) it can be hard to follow. Still, a book about ancient kings and queens and Winchester Cathedral is me through and through, in much the same way as a book about pebbles is.

Katie’s new murder mystery!

Now this is very exciting. I also want to add that I’ve read a murder mystery by KJ Lyttleton - whose Substack link is below.

Did I mention my debut novel is out now??

I should mention that this is the pen name for my wife, Katie Lee, but that doesn’t take a way from the fact that her first book, The Man in the Wall is brilliant. Set in a town very like ours on the south coast of England, it’s immense fun. If you like murder mysteries a la Kate Atkinson, this might be for you! It’s amazing being a part of something like this, seeing someone create a book from conception to publication is utterly wonderful.

EVENTS

Feeling more myself, I’ve been back out on the road doing events! It’s been so brilliant, taking in schools and the Isle of Wight Story Festival. It’s always tiring, but I love it. So many of the children who came to the Isle of Wight event were there because of the audiobook (on the Yoto) which is incredible, really. I even signed a reader’s Yoto card! This is the future!

Here I am doing some reading aloud!

Best of all was meeting new friends and old. I even got to spend a wonderful day with writer and illustrator extraordinaire Neal Layton. We went on a hike up a hill in the fog and I ripped his waterproof trousers on some barbed wire. Those are the best kind of days!

Hanging out with the lovely Neal Layton!

IS THIS SPRING?

What else have I been up to… Well, I’ve been getting cold a lot. I’m a little bored of winter now, and I would like a few weeks of only wearing one jumper. However, excitingly, the sun is shining today and I’ve noticed there are shoots on my willow cuttings that I planted a few weeks ago in my garden. I thought I might try harvesting it to make baskets or little fences, but we’ll see how it goes.

If nothing else it’s a sure sign that Spring is near. I CAN’T WAIT!!!

Willow cutting giving me a little glimpse of Spring.

Next update won’t be so long in coming, I promise. And then I might have news of my new series, and discuss how I’m trying to learn a bit of coding in order to attempt a little home-made video game. From little lines of code comes big games, so I hear!

PS. Some of you subscribed on my website many years ago and have not heard a thing from me since. That’s because you fell into a technological hole and have only just been unearthed. I am very sorry. If your children have since grown up and moved out (or just moved on from my books), please do unsubscribe with my apologies. If you’re happy to hang around, that would be lovely!