I've been pushing ahead fast on the new book, averaging 12 pages a day for the last few days. I hit the real action part of the book this morning -- the first half is setting the scene, introducing the characters, giving readers a sense that something bad is going to happen -- then the second half is slam-bang-thank-you-ma'am action!! It's not the most cerebral of my books, but then again it's not designed to be -- I think this is going to be quite a long series, and I'll spin off into weirder areas, and more convoluted plot twists, later. I want the first book to serve as a fast-paced hook, to drag readers kicking and screaming into the heart of the story, and then spiral off from there. The grand plan is to jerk the rug from under readers in almost every book, to show parts of the overall plot each time, lead them in one direction, then throw a curved ball at them. Things were pretty straightforward in my vampire and demon series -- the rules were set early on, and everything played out according to those rules. This time round, I don't want readers to know who to trust or what to believe -- it's going to be paranoia central!!!!

I've also been busy answering lots of fan mail. I tend to get more than usual at this time of the year. I've worked my way through most of the latest pile, but Pablo has already told me that another pile has been building up quickly! As always, if you've sent a letter to me, I ask for your patience -- I DO always reply, but it normally takes quite a while.

Saw a very intriguing film this afternoon -- Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. It was one of the more original flicks I've seen in quite a while, very different to any other film, dark and twisted. It's perhaps a little bit longer than it need be, but it sucked me in and held me all the way. I'm sure lots of people don't and won't like the fact that the central character is so alien and unlikeable, but I found it a fascinating dip into a very warped person's mind, and those sorts of trips always capture my fancy. Strongly recommended for older viewers who like movies which stray from conventional ideas of what a story should be and how it should be told.

That actually ties in quite neatly with an email from a fan called Chloe which I got last week. She wrote:

In your blogs, it is interesting to see you advise people on the terms of writing in general. Myself, I would like to be a writer but my style is very different; I write surrealistically, and occasionally use such things as present tense or second person which have a tendency to put people off! I do not want to sacrifice my style, but I worry that if I ever get anything published, as I would like to, it would have to be in a more orthodox format, because new things generally seem to be looked on in a more negative light than using a traditional style. Is my interpretation of this correct, do you think, or am I considering something that is impossible to predict?

I think this is a very well judged observation. In my experience the world of publishing is a two-faced beast. On the one hand, almost every publisher who holds forth on this matter will say they're always looking for fresh talent, new ideas, writers with a unique voice who can come up with original stories. On the other hand, from a cold hard business angle, they're always looking for the NEXT. The NEXT Stephen King, the NEXT J K Rowling, the NEXT Darren Shan ... whatever!! Publishers know that it's very difficult to convince people to take a chance on something new, something different, something not like anything they've read before. It's far easier to tap into an existing audience: "You like Author X? Then try this new guy -- he's just like X!!!"

As I've mentioned quite a few times before, Cirque Du Freak was turned down by pretty much every major publisher in the UK (along with quite a few not-so-major publishers) before it was accepted. Different editors had different reasons for turning it down, but an overriding factor was that there was nothing like CDF out there. Horror for children was a relatively new concept, and the few authors who'd explored it (R L Stine and Christopher Pike chief among them) had done so in a very different way to me. I was writing about circus freaks, a kid who steals and lies, who gets buried alive, who makes a blood pact with a vampire. Publishers didn't know how people would react, and so, not knowing, they chose not to take a chance on it. It makes me smile when some of those publishers now play up a few of their new authors with "The next Darren Shan!" tag line. But I'm not in the least bit bitter about it. That's just the way the industry works and I'm fully aware of it. You don't get far having a thin skin in the writing business. Publishers need to make money in order to keep publishing. They're not mind-readers. They can't always predict trends in advance. Most of the books they put out, they know how they're going to perform, roughly how many copies they're going to sell. But every so often a freak comes along that shatters all the rules. In those cases, publishers try to cash in and ride the coat-tails of that author -- hence all the fantasy books being published since Harry Potter took off.

So -- you're a young writer, starting out. Do you study the market and go with something you know will appeal to publishers? Or do you follow your instinct, write the stories you WANT to write, and hope you sneak in through the cracks and start a new trend? To be honest, I can't answer that question. Each writer must decide that for themselves. I know, WAY back, when I was 18 or 19, there was a publisher I sent a few of my very early books to. The editor there was very generous with her time, and responded with actual suggestions and comments (as opposed to a standard rejection letter, which is what most reply with). My work back then was much more experimental than most of my published work. I'm like an ice berg -- a lot of my work is hidden under water! My published output is only about half of what I've actually written over the years. I've written all sorts of books, hardcore sci-fi, sexually explosive psychological horrors, futuristic fantasies, road trip stories, even a few funny books!!

The editor said to me that if I stopped being so experimental, using different voices and tenses and story structures ... that if I just wrote a straightforward thriller or fanasy tale ... I'd get published. That was very encouraging for me -- but the trouble was, I didn't WANT to write that way. To me, writing has always been about the stories, doing them justice, going with wherever my mind leads me. If I'd wanted to make money, I'd have gone into another line of work. I wrote for pleasure and self-satisfaction. I wanted to be successful of course -- but only by doing my own thing. I didn't want to write to please an editor -- I wanted to write to please myself.

So I did. I kept on experimenting and trying different things and going in weird directions. Some of the books I worked on didn't lead anywhere and proved (for the time being at least) unpublishable. Some were Cirque Du Freak and Lord Loss and they went on to do very nicely indeed. But all were close to my heart. I was true on all of them. I wrote each one because I wanted to write it, because it demanded to be written. I hope they'd find readers, but if not ... so be it.

Now, I don't know if I could have stuck to my guns indefinitely. If I'd gone ten year, fifteen, twenty, without finding an audience, without making any money ... would I have continued? Would I have flogged a dead horse until I died, broke and bitter and beaten? As I say, I don't know, but I like to think I WOULD have. I like to think I'd have stood by my muse no matter what, for better or worse. The thing about writing is, books can sometimes flourish after you're dead -- some writers are only "discovered" years after their death. I like to think I would have clung to that sense of self-belief no matter what, that if the market had proved hostile, I would have ploughed on regardless, doing my own thing, hoping my stories would find more favourable ears in the hands of later generations. Every writer has that chance, that hope, no matter how bad things get.

But what's better -- to struggle on in the vain hope that your work will be appreciated when you're dead? Or to adjust and adapt to the market of your own times, give editors what they want, make a name for yourself while you're still alive to enjoy it? In an ideal world, you get both, like I have, like Stephen King did, like a small percentage of writers always have done and always will do. But many writers aren't so lucky. The time isn't right. The breaks don't go their way. The editor who might have changed their lives is off sick when their manuscript comes in, and somebody else reads it and tosses it away. I do believe that if you work hard and keep plugging away, your quality WILL show, and you'll enjoy the success of writing work you can be proud of, and work that other people (to some extent or other) will enjoy. But sometimes great writers DO go unloved. Sometimes cool story-tellers never sell the number of copies they should. Sometimes staying true to yourself means settling for less than those who play the game get.

It all boils down to what you want from your writing. Do you want to be adored and feted, sell millions and make a fortune? Or do you want to follow your dream and remain true to it, no matter what?

Well??????

A lot of my recent posts have been long and involved, so I think it’s time for a nice, short, inconsequential entry!!! 

Wrote 11 pages of the new book, which I was very pleased about, as I had some workmen come early in the morning to do some stuff for me. It’s very easy to get distracted when you’re a writer working at home, so I was glad I didn’t take the easy excuse of saying "I can’t do a full day’s work because I have something else to deal with!"

I’ve started watching season 6 of The Shield -- great TV!! It’s rattling along brilliantly at the moment. Essential viewing.

Finished season 3 of Battlestar Galactica last week. It ended with a superb cliffhanger. My gal on the inside in New York (you know who you are, bee-atch!!!) tells me season 4 has just started there. I’m almost tempted to immigrate, just to steal a jump on the release schedule over here!!!

I began reading Bloodtide by Melvin Burgess a couple of weeks ago. Fascinating stuff, although I haven’t read any of it in the last week -- I’ve been too busy writing!!

Saw National Treasure tonight. It was better than I thought it would be, though it moved too slowly at times -- if the editing had been a bit tighter, it would have flowed much more smoothly. Still, fun overall. I think I’ll check out the sequel in the near future.

Right -- that’s enough prattling! I’m off to watch some TV and take things easy, because sometimes you just have to!!!

Yesterday’s blog elicited a lorry load of responses, most of the outraged, indignant kind! While most were from kids, I was glad to see a few from adults too, and one from a teacher!! As I said, in my experience the vast majority of teachers are very open-minded and great to their kids. But you’ll always find those who are stuck in their ways or who never cared much about the job to begin with. That’s just the way life is. There are jobsworths everywhere, and we just have to endure them -- but we don’t always have to dance to their tune!!!

Wrote another 12-plus pages of the new book. I’m enjoying it more than I thought. There isn’t a huge amount of action in the early stages (although I wrote a VERY creepy chapter today!), and I was worried it might drag a bit, but so far it’s flowing ultra smoothly, the characters telling me what they want to say. In a way, I sometimes find chatty, actionless scenes easier to write than the fast-paced, action-packed ones. You need to describe things in much more detail when there’s fighting going on, or people dashing about the place. Action scenes might be the quickest part of a book to read, but they often take the longest to write!!!

My only worry so far is the race angle. I’m tackling the thorny problem of racism in this book. I’ve done that before, obliquely, in The Saga, but this is more of a direct confrontation. I’ve seen a lot more racism around me in recent years, particularly since 9/11 and the bombings in London. It worries me, the way people are giving in to fear, hatred and suspicion, and even though the new series is fantastical, I want to deal with some real-life issues in it. The problem with writing about racism, though, is that it’s ugly. It involves the use of nasty, derogatory words, words which taken out of context could prove very hurtful. It’s a delicate balancing act -- to accurately portray racists, you need to let their racist colours show, but by doing that you can insult certain readers. At the moment I’m tackling it head on, letting characters speak as they wish, going along with the casual viciousness and ignorance which lies at the heart of every racist. But I suspect I might have to tinker with it in later drafts -- not dilute it down, but make it more palatable. Then again, I dunno. My gut instinct says that if you start being too polite about racism, you risk not driving your point across. Sometimes you have to be blunt to be clear.

Oh well, I have plenty of time to work on it. The point I wanted to make here was that, as I often say when offering advice about writing, you shouldn’t worry about getting things right first time round. Writing is often a voyage of discovery. You figure things out as you stumble along, and if you make mistakes, you can go back and correct them later. You’re better off writing and making those mistakes, than sitting at your desk, thinking too much and worrying. Stories will lead you where they need to go. If you let them.

Started writing the first book of what looks like my new series. It got off to a promising start -- I wrote 14 pages! But there was a lot of dialogue, so it wasn’t much more than I’d write on a normal day (10 pages is my standard). I’m always surprised by how characters grow and start talking in their own way. I usually have a good idea of the plot when I start writing, but very little knowledge of what the characters will be like. I wrote up a list of names last night. When I sat down this morning, that’s all they were -- names. But as soon as I began writing, they started taking on lives of their own, doing their own thing, saying their own thing. It’ll be interesting to see how they develop over the course of the book. I hadn’t planned to carry too many of the characters forward, but now there’s one I definitely think might have more of a role to play, and who knows, maybe one or two others will force their way into the grander scheme of things ... The nice thing is, I’ve plenty of time to consider their fate -- this book probably won’t see the light of day until at least 2012, so I’ve four years or more to tinker with it!!!

Received the following email yesterday from Rachel, in America:

I have just recently discovered just how ignorant the world can be. I was doing a report for a teacher of mine about my favorite author. Naturally, I picked you. As I was giving her my pick, she asked who you were. I said you were Darren Shan, a famous writer who has a Novel series entitled Cirque Du Freak, and another Novel series entiled The Demonata. She had told me you must not be very good, because she’d never heard of you. This upset me a bit. She asked me to name a few of your books. I named Vampire Mountain, Blood Beast, and Trials Of Death. She told me I was talking crap and needed to pick a "real" author. This made me absolutely enraged.

What she had said made me start thinking about how close-minded some people can be. Just because a book is not in your preferred genre of reading material, doesn’t give you any right to insult it and the people who do read it. It’s not like you are asking them to read it, just to not mock it. I believe everyone needs to take a bit of comstructive criticism now and then, but I believe she was just being rude. She had never even read a word of anything closely related to your work, and she was talking about it as if she had even given your books a chance. I apologize if I sound like a prattling fangirl, because that is not how I’m trying to come off. I just found it a bit sad how some people will make fun of something that they haven’t even tried. The phrase "Don’t Knock It ’Till You’ve Tried It" comes to mind, doesn’t it? I didn’t mean to bring you down or anything, Darren. I, and many, many others think you are the best author they have ever read things from. I just thought I would state how I felt on this.

A teacher who hasn’t heard of Darren Shan?!? Outrageous!!!! She should be struck off immediately!!! But, seriously, I’m not the least bit bothered by the fact that she doesn’t know who I am -- nobody can keep up with all the books that are released every year. And I don’t mind that she made a snap judgement about my books based on the titles and a brief description -- we all do that to some extent. But telling a student she can’t write about one of their favourite authors ... Well, I think that’s WRONG. Big-time wrong. You-don’t-know-what-you’re-doing and you probably shouldn’t be allowed to teach wrong. This was my reply to Rachel:

She WAS being rude!!! My advice would be to do your report on my books anyway, to prove to the teacher that she’s wrong. If she’s fair-minded, she’ll be open to your report. If she’s not, you might get in a bit of trouble -- but I’m a firm believer that in life it’s better to get in a bit of trouble for doing the right thing, than to just go along like a sheep with what other people tell you to do! And you can quote me on that in the report if you wish, since that’s one of the messages my books stress over and over throughout their pages.

I don’t think any teacher should discourage their students from reading, even if it’s books that teacher doesn’t approve of. You hear a lot of people moaning about how kids don’t read any more or read as much as they used to long ago, and while I’d argue with that, I think if it IS to any extent true, it’s largely because of teachers like this, NOT because of the usual suspects -- TV, computer games, the internet. Most of the teachers I’ve met over the years have been first-rate. They understand that we live in an era where there are more distractions for kids than ever before, and that we face a struggle to convince children to spend their free time reading instead of doing something else for fun. They also understand that children WILL read IF you give them books that they’re interested in, books which appeal to them, which will excite or intrigue them. We all want different things from the books we read, but there are books for pretty much everybody. Good teachers try to find out what their students like, and guide them towards books which will rock their socks and turn their worlds upside down, and turn them into voluntary, enthusiastic readers.

And then you get teachers like this one. Teachers who think kids should only read "real" books, whatever the hell that means!!! Actually, I know very well what it means -- a dry, outdated, serious book that will bore kids rotten, but which the teacher can understand and mark them on. Kids, I hate to tell you this (though I know a lot of you will have worked it out already), but some teachers are like some of your schoolmates -- lazy and unimaginative!! Some only want to grade you with the minimum of effort, to breeze through your reports and be able to automatically pick out the good points and bad points. They don’t want to accept a world where new authors exist, where one of their students tried to explain how a vampire or demon book can relate to their life, to their course, to literature. They don’t want new ideas or ways of thinking, thank you very much -- they’re happy with the way things are, and because they have authority over their students, they’re determined to make the students fall in line and play ball.

Stuff ’em!!!!

That’s what I say, and I say it knowing full well that anyone who stands up to a teacher like this faces trouble, maybe bad grades, maybe worse. But I don’t believe in bowing to ignorance and those who parade it proudly. I’m not saying you should antagonise a teacher like this, or argue with them in class, or be in any way nasty to them. But if there’s an author who excites you, an author you really want to write about -- go ahead and write about that author. Even if your teacher tell you not to. Do the best job you can. Put your heart into it. Show why this person matters to you, why their books have affected you, why you think they’re worthy of study and consideration. We’re all entitled to our views of what’s good and what isn’t. It isn’t a teacher’s job to tell their students what is and isn’t "real" literature -- they’re there to explore books with you, to teach, yes, but also to learn. Any good teacher should be open to new ideas, and in my experience most will accept an argument if it’s politely and intelligently presented. And if you’re unlucky and the teacher in your case isn’t one of those, and he or she gives you a lousy grade no matter how strong your essay, and complains about you to your principal or your parents? Well, as I said to Rachel, at least you’ll have done the right thing. Life is a series of choices. The more right choices we make, the better our lives will be in the long run. You might not appreciate that when you’re being given an F by your teacher, and your parents ground you, but hey, like the saying goes, "no pain, no gain!!!!!!"

Power to the pupils!!!!!!!!

I began prep work on what MIGHT become my next series (meaning my next series AFTER the fantasy book and 4 book series that I’ve talked about on this blog before). As I said recently, I’ve been playing around with the basic idea for a few years, trying to find my way into the story. It began to come together more concretely over the past few weeks, and news ideas have been clicking into place in recent days. It’s still at a very early stage, with lots of blanks to fill in, but today I wrote up a very rough outline of what I want to do in the first 3 books, along with a full plot outline for the first book, which hopefully I’ll start writing tomorrow. If all goes according to plan, the books will be a bit shorter than my previous books (probably even shorter than any of The Saga books), but will hopefully be released at a faster pace than The Demonata -- my aim is to write short, punchy books, many of which will end on cliffhangers, and each of which will run into the next -- i.e. it would be like the Vampire Mountain trilogy, in that it’s one big story split up into parts, only this story would be split into quite a lot of parts!!! I’ve no idea how many books there might be in this series, or even how to develop the contral conflict at the heart of the storyline (although I have a vague sense of what that conflict will be). But, if all goes smoothly with the writing, I guess I’ll find out over the coming months and years ...

I’m both excited and nervous about this new series. Excited because it’s good to be back in the saddle after almost a year of not writing anything new -- because of the way I work, I spent most of the last year editing several books (the last half of The Demonata, my three D B Shan books, the fantasy book, the 4 book series), and when you add in my tour dates, there hasn’t been much time for anything new. I get itchy when there’s a long gap between new books. First drafts are the lifeblood of any writer, and I’m always looking ahead to what comes next. Editing is more fun that writing a first draft (at least for me), but without a first draft, I have nothing to edit!! It’s exciting to be launching myself into something new again, to start out afresh and see where the story takes me.

But I’m also nervous because this is the first time I’ve ever consciously set out to write a multi-book series. The Saga and The Demonata grew organically -- I got sucked into them. I was working onbook 3 of The Saga before I got a sense of the scale of the project, and I was five books intoThe Demonata before I figured out the main story!!!! This is the first time I’ve tried to plot out a series in advance. It’s not that I made a decision to write another series -- I never work that way -- I just knew, from the moment the idea first struck me, that this needed several books to work the way I felt it could. That’s the main reason why I didn’t start work on it earlier. I could probably have developed and written a first draft of book 1 during the past year, but I knew this wasn’t a book I could write and stop at. That is, Cirque Du Freak and Lord Loss were both conceived as one-off books. I knew with CDF that there would be a potential to write more vampire books, but I also knew that if I didn’t, the book could stand by itself. That’s not the case here -- the first book of this series would have been nothing without more to follow it and take the story forward. I didn’t want to start it until I had a better idea of what came next.

A developing story is a bit like a developing photo. You can see a bit or two clearly to begin with. Then you get a very vague sense of everything around those bits. And then, as you focus in, the whole starts to reveal itself to you. The difference is, with a photo you KNOW the image will reveal itself. With a story, you have to work on it and plug away at it and force it to develop. For a long time, all I could see of this story was the bit or two that I’ve had in mind for the last couple of years. But now more and more is coming into focus, and the thing about writing is that once you get on a roll, the revelations start coming thick and fast. There’s still a lot about this series that’s a mystery to me, but now that I’ve cracked the first few books, I’m more confident that the rest will reveal itself too. In time ...

Got the following VERY sweet email today from a lady named Jo:

I’m a (nearly) 40 year old single parent and you’ve just made me cry. My soul started to sing to me last March and told me to write. I’ve written ever since. I’ve been lost and now I’m found. I’m fighting my way through the rejections that get returned to me. I’m wading through the stormy sea towards a literary agent. I don’t care if I stay on benefits for the rest of my life. I don’t care about success and fame. All I want to do is write. If I spend five years letting my soul sing then I’ll be happy. My demons and angels live with me night and day. They tell me their stories and I think the world is ready to hear them. Thank you for your blog of Saturday 5th April. I wouldn’t have even thought of reading your genre (I hate that word) but in researching agents I came across you. Went to the library and read Demon Thief yesterday afternoon and have started The Vampire Prince. You have made an old lady very happy. You’ve inspired me to keep going. God(!) bless you. I’m still crying, not big snot bubble tears, just gentle and lady like.

Aw, gee, shucks -- that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!!! This is why I try to tell it like it is when I’m writing my blogs. I know some people think I’m being negative, but I’m not. Writing is hard, it’s a struggle, and if you’ve made the choice to seriously go for it, I think it’s important that you hear other writers talking about the hardships of the job. I think REAL negativity for young writers would be to read blogs where established writers gave the impression that writing comes to them easy, that getting published was child’s play, and that they’ve been living in the lap of luxury pretty much since day one. That would just be depressing for someone finding it hard to get their ideas on paper, who’d been rejected loads of time, and who wasn’t making any money from their writing!!! When you hear a published author saying yes, it’s hard, but it’s worth the hardships ... I think that gives you encouragement.

Bas and I went for a drive this morning, a walk through the small mountains around West Limerick in a charming little spot called Ashford. It was chilly but sunny for most of the walk, but we got a couple of hail showers too. I like walks where the weather throws a few different things at you -- it makes the walk more interesting!!

Spent the evening adding some reviews of Procession of the Dead to my D B Shan site. As always, I add every review of my books that I can find, whether they’re positive or negative. I’m delighted that most of the reviews so far have been pretty upbeat. There have been a few knocks and criticisms, as every book will attract, but the general response from the critics has been surprisingly good. I say surprisingly because I wasn’t sure what the reaction would be when I re-released my adult book. I think most children’s authors would agree with me when I say that there’s a very definite degree of snobbery towards children’s books in the world of adult reviewers. A lot of reviewers and journalists tend to look down their noses at children’s books and children’s authors. I can understand that, and I don’t have any problem with it -- it’s the way things are, and if you choose to work in children’s literature, you just accept it and get on with things. But it can be a problem if you make the crossover from children’s books to adult novels -- reviewers can view the move with mistrust and sneeriness, and form an opinion of your work long before they open the cover. I wasn’t sure if Procession would be given a fair crack of the whip on the reviewing front. But, to date, it has, which has left me feeling very pleased. It’s always nice when you’re treated fairly! If you’re interested in checking out the reviews, click here: http://dbshan.co.uk/thecity/category/reviews-of-procession/

There was one thing I forgot to say in my last blog (that’s the trouble with long entries -- it’s easy to forget points which were very clear in your head at the start!). Although writers should, in my opinion, measure success based on how happy they are with the stories they create, there is of course the possibility that any writer MIGHT hit the big time and make loads of money!!! That’s another thing that keeps us going when times are hard and the whole world seems to be against us. If you work hard, you can catch a lucky break at any point of your career. There are writers like me who got a break fairly early, but there are others like Anthony Horowitz who took more time to really get going. My star started to rise with my third published book (i.e. Cirque Du Freak). Anthony had carved out a very nice career for himself over a period of roughly 20 years, but it wasn’t until Alex Rider came along that he went stratospheric. Eoin Colfer took off early with Artemis Fowl. Jacqueline Wilson and Roald Dahl struggled to establish themselves. There’s no way of telling when fortune will smile on a writer. Sometimes quality shines through quickly and is rewarded -- other times it can take years, even decades. But it can happen to ANYONE. Honestly. That might seem like an OTT statement, but it’s not. There are people who’ve written drivel for 20 or 30 years, who suddenly turn around and stumble across a great story that makes them millions. There are books which go ignored when first released (Foundation by Isaac Asimov, and The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho spring to mind immediately), which later are acknowledged as classics and go on to sell phenonemally. Every would-be writer should bear this in mind -- even if all looks grim, and it seems like you’re never going to catch that wave of public recognition and financial reward -- hang in there. Because your moment CAN come. Don’t bank on it happening -- as I said, make quality your aim, and be prepared to settle for that if you have to. But don’t be afraid to dream big either. As crass as it might sound to echo a Lottery slogan, it really and honestly "COULD be YOU"!!!!!

Finished my first edit of book 4 of my four book series today. Very pleased with how it currently reads, although there will be a LOT of tweaking and fine-tuning to do over the next few years. But for an early draft ... yes, I think it’s sitting very nicely.

Saw a French film called 36 this evening (original title was 36 Quai des Orfevres). I was very impressed with it. It had some flaws, but I loved the way it started out as one movie and then led you in a completely unpredictable direction. Up to the halfway point, I thought I had it all figured out, and was settling in to follow it to a fairly normal conclusion -- then it all changed and I didn’t know what the hell was going to happen next!! But it did it in a natural, believable way -- a truly difficult trick to pull off. This, I think, is what more writers should be looking to do -- pull the rug out from under readers and take them on an unexpected journey. I’m always looking for the different angle, a way to suck readers in and then land a sucker punch (in the beginning, nobody knew Cirque Du Freak was about a vampire until Steve confronted Mr Crepsley quite a way into the book; it was quite late in Lord Loss before people realised they were reading a werewolf story). There might be no truly original stories left to tell, but there are always new ways to tell old stories, and there always will be. You just have to search hard to find them ...

I received the following email from Amy today:

I was really happy to see your last blog entry.  I have been reading a book about writing, and it talks so much about how hard and frustrating it is to be a writer. I really like writing, but all of this talk of how being a writer is not all it’s cracked up to be is starting to make my doubt how much I really like to write. You say that the average writer doesn’t make enough money to live on, and that kind of scares me. It’s not the money I care about, it’s the idea that you will write books and stories, but not many people will fall in love with your stories as you have. You are successful. You’ve sold many copies of your stories in many different countries. I don’t understand why everyone seems to have such a negative outlook on the writing life. I was at a bookstore the other day, and there was a newly published author sitting their, selling copies of his book. He said that he’s been writing for thirty years and he JUST got his first book published. I know that I love writing, but I need to hear more positive things about writing! If it’s so bad and stressful, then why do people spend hours plucking away on their computer every day???

Why indeed?!? I think we’re all mad!!!!! Seriously, I hope I don’t sound negative when I talk about the writing process. I’m trying to pass on the best advice I can, to help those who REALLY want to be writers -- i.e. those who are prepared to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. The underlying message of all my comments is about the most positive you’ll ever hear -- "You CAN make your dream come true!!!" Virtually anyone can become a writer. There’s no magic involved. No special deals need to be struck with Satan. It’s something you can do all by yourself, by working hard and not losing faith.

But those are the two main keys, and that’s why I come back to them so often -- hard work, and keeping the faith. Unless you’re famous in some other field (e.g. an actor or model who decides to write a book, which sells purely on the strength of your name), you’re going to have to work VERY hard to get your work published. That’s a simple fact of life, and it’s a message I like to stress, because at the end of the day it separates the wheat from the crap! When I talk about having to work hard, and spend hours and weeks and months and years locked away from the world in order to develop and get your work published, poseur writers think I’m being negative -- I’m denying them "the secret formula" which will allow them to become brilliant quickly. They believe in an Andy Warhol and Big Brother universe, where everyone should be entitled to 15 minutes of fame just for being themselves, where dreams should automatically come true.

I don’t.

I think success can only truly be appreciated if it’s earned. And most writers think that way too, I’m sure, because like me they’ve had to work damned hard to get what they have. There are two types of dreamers in this world -- those who just dream, and those who pursue their dreams. Those in the latter camp read my blog entries and (I hope!!!) inflate with positivity and enthusiasm. Because they get it -- if you work hard, and dedicate yourself to your dream, YOU can be the next Darren Shan, J K Rowling, Stephen King or William Shakespeare. Hell, you can be the next Jilly Cooper if that’s your wish!!!! Writers don’t have magic buttons which they press to succeed -- they get ahead by working hard. Would-be writers who are told that don’t sit there thinking, "Gee, I only wanted to do this if I could press a magic button and do it quickly." They think, "Thank the gods there aren’t any magic buttons -- it means I have the power to do this myself!!!!"

So, in short, I will always stress the need to work hard, because it’s the sort of encouragement REAL young writers need.

As for keeping the faith ... Well, again, although some of my comments might seem to paint a bleak picture of despair and economic doom, I continue to point out the monetary pitfalls of being a writer because it’s important that you know what you’re getting into -- and that you know you’re not in that boat alone. Thousands of books are published every year, but most of us only read the more popular books. I read the occasional out-of-field novel by an unheard of writer, but for the most part I go for successful writers whose books I enjoy. I don’t think I’m unusual in that. I imagine most of you reading this are similar to me in that respect. But that can create a seeming imbalance for youong writers. If you’re only reading work by established, top-notch writers, that’s all you’re going to be aware of. If every writer whose work you like is successful, sells millions of copies, and makes loads of money, you might think ALL writers are like that. And if you set out to become a writer, and find that you’re not one of the lucky few who crack the big time, you might think that you’re a failure, since you’ve falled short of the standards all your favourite writers have set.

But let me tell you this -- NO writer is a failure. It takes a hell of a lot of guts and imagination and bravery to become a writer. You set out on a task to create something out of nothing, to pluck ideas from the air and weave them into a story which has never been told before. The financial rewards for most writers are pitiful. Most don’t earn a legion of loyal fans. Most have to work in other jobs to support themselves. Most have trouble getting their work printed. Most writers’ works that ARE printed don’t sell very well and go out of print long before the writer dies. Most are unloved, not respected, not acknowledged. And you know what?

It doesn’t matter a damn!!!!!

Amy asks why people spend so long plucking away on their computers if it’s all doom and gloom. The reason is -- we work in the dream industry. When you write a story, you create. You bring a new form into the world. Even if it’s not a very good or original story, it’s unique. It’s something you’ve created that nobody else can do in exactly the way you did it. It’s like giving birth to a child, except you can do it dozens or hundreds of times over the course of your life -- and you don’t have any nappies to change!!! Writing is a buzz, a wonderful feeling. It’s like playing your favourite sport or game -- great fun. It’s harder than most sports, because you have to put so much into it -- you can’t just have a writing "kickabout", the way you can play a casual game of soccer at the back of your house with your friends. But that means the rewards are so much greater. The reward of following your dream. Of doing something unique. Of daring to show your inner soul and imaginings to the world. Of saying "I’m special, I’m an individual, I’m not afraid to step up to the mark, I’m not afraid to fail, I’m going to go out on a limb and chase my dreams until death robs me of them." Money isn’t the REAL reward about being a writer. Fame isn’t the REAL reward about being a writers. You can be an apparent failure in the eyes of the world, as most writers are -- but still be one of the greatest success stories this world has ever produced, as ALL writers, by the very act of writing, are.

THAT’S what I’m trying to say.

Night night folks. Keep on dreaming.

The Authors For Autism Research auction has just finished, and I’m absolutely delighted (and, truth be told, a little bit amazed!!) to be able to report that the winning bid to have your name featured in one of my books was ... £1020!!! To break the thousand pound mark was incredible -- the only other author in the auction to do that was Lee Child, whose auction made about £150 more than mine. In fact the next highest bid for an author after mine was £424!! Which officially makes you guys some of the best fans in the world!! But then, that’s no news to me!!!!!! Thanks to everyone who participated -- you’ve helped raise some much-needed funds, which will go towards a very good cause. The organisers of the auction will be contacting the winning bidder and putting them in touch with me, so that they can confirm what name they want me to use, and in which novel. I’ll also be sending them a signed copy of the book when it comes out.

Advice to would-be writers -- keep it short and sweet!!! I’ve noticed with my blogs that when I post a really long entry, as I did yesterday, I usually get far few responses than if I post a shorter, snappier one! This is completely understandable -- people lose interest if they have to plough through a lot of long paragraphs, or lose track of what the point is, and just ... tune out!! It’s the same as when you’re in class and your teacher drones on and on and ON about the same old thing -- you just want to scream, "Enough already!!!!" With my books, I re-write and edit them several times, tightening up, to try and ensure readers don’t get bored or side-tracked in the middle of a chapter. But with my blog I’m more stream-of-consciousness -- my readership is tiny compared to those who read my books, and you’re getting these entries for free, and it’s meant to be a diary more than anything else, so, yes, from time to time I ramble -- and I make no apologies for it!!! As I often say, it’s important to write LOTS, to get in as much practise as you can, so that you get to learn more about words and how to express yourself. So in a way this blog is a kind of testing ground for me, a way to play around with my thoughts, to keep in the habit of writing something most days. I almost never know what I’m going to write when I sit down to compose an entry, whether it will be short or long -- I just go with the moment!!

I received the following email from Jack today:

I’m 15, and I love reading. I’ve read The Saga of Darren Shan and they’re my favourite books. However, as I’m getting older, I’m pondering taking my interest further and becoming a writer.

I know I’m creative enough, and my teachers tell me I’m bright. English has always been my strong subject. However, I have reservations about the idea. From what I can tell, writing is a very sink or swim business. You can spend months, years even, writing a book and either it does’nt get published or it isnt successful.

I’m not going to go into too much detail, as like I said, I doubt this will even get read. If however you do read this message, and if you have the spare time, could you give me your advice? Could you sum up in one message all of your writing experience and knowledge? This is something thats really bothering me, and hearing advice from my favourite author would really put things in perspective for me.

Sum up all of my writing experience and knowledge in one message ... Jack, you’ve made one of the fundamental errors of young writers worldwide -- you think there’s a secret formula. As I often state on this blog, there isn’t. It all boils down to hard work and lots of experimentation. My best advice is to stop looking for advice -- just crack on and write!! And I say that in a totally friendly, helpful way -- I too believed there was a secret to writing when I was your age. But it’s important to be told that there isn’t -- the sooner you realise that YOU have the power to decide whether or not you become a writer, by actually writing and not thinking about it and looking for shortcuts, the sooner you can make headway and take real steps towards realising your dream.

Jack’s right about it being a very sink or swim business - and the sad fact is that most writers sink, quickly and messily and horribly! Have no delusions if you want to be a writer -- from a financial point of view, life sucks for most of us!!! I read a statistic recently that the average annual income of writers in the UK under the age of 35 is ... £5000. You read right -- five thousand pounds. A year. And that’s the average -- which means it includes the high-rollers. So some of the those writers are earning hundreds of thousands of pounds a year -- which means a lot of others are making far LESS than £5000. Can you imagine a teacher in the UK working for £5000 a year? A doctor? A butcher? A sales assistant in a discount store? A server in a fast food restaurant?

Most writers can’t afford to write full-time. They do it as a hobby, at night after work, at the weekends, in their holidays. Only a small percentage can afford to support themselves by writing. And only a tiny percentage make what would be considered a considerable sum -- there are VERY few rich writers!! You have to do it because you love it. You might get lucky and sell millions of copies and make bestseller lists all over the world -- but the odds against that are similar to having a very good win on the lottery. Some truly excellent writers never make much from their books -- quality, alas, doesn’t always guarantee a good income. But if you work hard, apply yourself, stay true to your dream and push yourself all the way, you WILL learn to tell the very best stories you can tell. And THAT is the secret of what being a writer is all about. To write a story and be able to look at it and say, "That’s the very best I can do, and it’s taken a hell of a lot of hard work to do it that good" -- that’s where real success lies. Creating something you can be proud of should be the goal of every writer. It’s great if others like it too, and lots of people buy it and you make lots of money. But that’s always a bonus. Write because you love writing. Go work in a bank if you love money.

Hmmm .. this has been another of my rather lengthy entries, hasn’t it? I guess I won’t have to spend too much time tomorrow sifting through replies ...

Went to a quick in my local pub last night, with Bas, an uncle of mine called Mike, and a neighbour called John L. I like a good pub quiz and have entered a few in recent years, always just for fun. But last night we almost won! We came second in the end, just 2 questions behind the winners. In a weird way it’s almost worse finishing so close behind than it is to wind up mid-table -- you go away cursing the answers you should have got right (such as when the Chernobyl Disaster happened, or the year of the Great Fire Of London). If only you’d thought a bit harder, you could have been top dog!!! True, it was only a small village pub quiz, but I’ve got quite a competitive nature once I get going, and to me it was the same sort of feeling as if one of my books got to second place in a chart but only sold a few less copies than the top-placed book. I was pleased to climb so high, of course, but dagnabit, when you get that close, it’s a pain in the butt not to go a tiny bit further and WIN!!!! Oh well -- maybe next time ...

Today I finished editing the third book of my four-book series. I also put together the April edition of the Shanville Monthly, and sent out an email to everyone who subscribes to it. The emails are still flowing out as I type -- there are over 16,000 email addresses in my database, so it takes a LONG time for my system to process them all, at least 12 hours, sometimes a lot more if the system hits a glitch along the way!!! I’ve been doing the Shanville Monthly for close to 8 years now, and even though the internet has come on in leaps and bounds since I first started (I used to send out the monthly emails using Outlook Express for the first few years!!), and there’s probably a better, swifter way these days to keep readers up to date with all the latest news, I like the old-fashioned feel of the monthly. It’s like a magazine or comic that comes out once a month. I look forward to bringing all the news together and sending it out in one big monthly lump, and I hope you guys do too.

If you read the April Monthly, you’ll see that I mention a new series that I’m tentatively edging towards making a start on. I can’t say anything about it yet, mostly because I don’t know much about it -- hell, I don’t even know if it will come together, if I’ll even start on it at all!!! But I think it has the potential to be a multi-book series, something on the scale of The Saga or The Demonata. I’ve been playing around with ideas for it for a few years, teasing away at the few scenes and ideas which have been knocking around my mind. It’s been slow, hard going, but I think it’s coming together -- in recent months I’ve been thinking about it more and more, piecing together different parts, running various plots and ideas through the mill of my imagination. I have the sense that I’m ready to push it further, to sit down and start putting ideas on paper.

This is the part of the job that’s hardest to explain, and the part that I think is of most interest to other people. It’s the creative maelstrom that comes before the actual beginning of a book. Right now I have scraps of ideas and story-lines which might one day form the core of a long series. But they’re nowhere near complete. There aren’t just gaps in the structure -- there are black holes!!!! I’m going to try to pull enough of those ideas together to get me started, to set me on the path of what will hopefully work out. But I can’t fully explain how I’m going to do that, because I don’t really understand the process myself. All I know is that I have to work on those ideas, bounce them off each other, ask questions of them, sniff around them. What happens if I do this? What happens if I do that? Will I throw in a bit of sci-fi to see what happens? Where do I want to set it?

So many questions. So many ideas. So many possibilities. If I sat down and thought about the scale of embarking on such a project, I’d be terrified and I wouldn’t have the courage to begin!! Something I often say to young writers is "Don’t think too much!" Writing can be a scary prospect if you brood about it. You just have to get stuck in. Of course you can’t actually do that until you have SOME idea of where you want to go. But a sliver of an idea is usually enough. Inever have all the answers to a book before I start it. Getting a few key facts straight is normally enough to get me going -- after that I just have to trust that the story will suck me in and reveal more of itself to me there further along I stumble with it. I said before on this blog that the trigger which made me sit down and write my four-book series was a scene set on a ship -- I saw the scene unfold in the cinema of my mind, and knew I had to start writing ASAP. In this case the trigger seems to be a personal trait about the main character. I had an insight last week, nothing major, but as soon as it flashed through my thoughts, I knew it was RIGHT, and it made me want to start writing. I think a lot of writing is like that. You ask questions, consider all sorts of answers, and wait for one to strike you as RIGHT ... as TRUE ... as MOTIVATIONAL. The answers are different for each writer, and in each instance, but once you stagger across it, you KNOW. I don’t know HOW you know. You just KNOW. And that’s when you begin to write, or at least begin to seriously prepare to write -- because something about a story (maybe a key scene, maybe a trivial detial) compels you to.

I don’t know how much sense all that makes to you guys -- or even how much sense it makes to me! Writing is both very simple and very complicated. When I try to go beyond the most basic advice, I always feel as if I’m skating on hair-thin ice. Anyway, the long and the short of it is, I’ve a germ of an idea for a new series, which may or may not happen, depending on how much mileage I can wring out of the idea over the next few weeks or months. Once I know more, you guys will too. Until then, like myself, you’ll just have to wonder.