Spent Friday morning going over the schedule for my upcoming tour of the USA, checking all the details, making sure everything's OK. My publicist managed to squeeze in a few more events since I last heard from her, so I also had to update the details on my site. You can find the finalised schedule in the current issue of the Shanville Monthly.

Edited more of Book 3 of "The Demonata" in the afternoon, then went for a meal with Bas and her friend, Rachel, in Limerick. I meant to work on the book again on Saturday morning, but there was a power cut!! It lasted about an hour. I was heading off for a walk with the girls, having decided I wouldn't get anything written, when the power returned. So while they went a-wandering, I got back to the editing -- and finished!!!! It's the second-last draft. My editor will come back with some more notes and corrections and suggestions a bit later in the year, I'll do my final bit of work on the book, then it will be all over, except for checking the proofs! Nearly there!!!!!!

Watched the England v Austria match in the afternoon, then the Ireland versus Cyprus game. It was a VERY nervous affair -- Ireland scored a goal early on, but apart from that they had a terrible first half, playing as badly as I've ever seen them play! They should have been a couple of goals down by half time, but luckily our keeper, Shay Given, was in great form, and kept the Cypriots out. We took control in the second half and the game ended 1-0. But it was certainly a far from convincing performance! It's all down to our HUGE game with Switzerland on Wednesday now. If we win, we're in the play-offs. Anything else and we're out of the World Cup. I've managed to get a ticket for the match, so I'll be going up to Dublin to watch it live. I suspect I might return with a few more grey hairs than I had setting out ...

Went to see a band called "Toasted Heretic" after the match. They were a college band that I liked when I was a teenager, though I only ever heard their first album. They went their separate ways for many years, but reformed recently to re-release their first two albums on a single, beautifully packaged CD, and to do a short tour. They were great live -- very funny, but very professional too, with a hugely energetic front man. You can visit their cool, crazy web site at http://www.toastedheretic.com/ where you can download some songs, read all about the band, and find links to buy the "new"CD at https://www.cs.tcd.ie/~nfarrel/toasted/nostalgia.htm I HIGHLY recommend it! Although the sound quality is very rough, the songs are top-notch. Indeed, two are, in my opinion, classics -- "The Best Things In Life Are Mine" and "Galway Bay". In fact, "Galway Bay" would probably feature in my top 10 favourite songs EVER!!!! What makes it even more memorable for me, apart from its just being a great song, is that for years, in my innocence, I didn't realise that it was actually all about oral sex!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If that doesn't make you curious to give it a listen, I guess nothing will!!!!

Edited some more of Book 3 of "The Demonata". It's going well -- making plenty of little adjustments, none essential or overly noitceable, but taken together they should make the book read a little bit smoother. I always try to fine-tune my books, paying attention to the smallest of details. The little things which readers might not even notice consciously are what sometimes make or break a book. To give one VERY small example from book 3 -- there's a scene quite late in a book which mentions a hat shop, but I'd never bothered to highlight the shop earlier in the book, since it wasn't especially important and I didn't want to shoe-horn it into the book and interrupt the action; but this time, with that very minor point in mind, I spotted the perfect place to refer to it, so that when it's mentioned later, readers will recall it. As I said, it's a very little thing, but, as the old saying goes, the devil's in the detail -- and I do like my devils!!!!

Went for a walk with Bas this afternoon. I try to fit in a walk every day when I'm at home, though I don't always manage. Usually I go on a 45 minutes or 60 minutes circuit. It's my only real exercise, and my only chance most days to clear my head after hours at the PC and watching TV and movies. Today we picked some blackberries while we were walking. One of Bas's friends is coming to stay with us for a few days, and Bas wanted to have blackberries for dessert. She's going to make a blackberry-and-apple pie later in the year -- YUM!!!!! I really enjoyed picking the berries. Autumn's probably my favourite season, full of colour, fallen leaves, conkers (horse chestnuts) and berries galore!!! It's a great time of the year to go walking, especially if you get a nice clearish day, which we did today. Picking berries is a little thing, too -- but sometimes the little things are what put the biggest smile on your face and make life memorable.

Right -- enough mushy guff!!!!! I'm going to scan in some reader's art before Bas and her friend get back from the airport. I don't know how long it's been since I uploaded any new fan art -- maybe a year? Possibly a bit less or more? Whatever, it's long overdue!!!!!

Edited the pages of Book 8 of "The Demonata" that I wrote yesterday, so the first draft is now officially COMPLETE!!!! I'll be editing it for the next 2 and a half years or thereabouts (it's due to be published in the UK in December 2008), but the hardest part of the process is now behind me, which is a relief. First drafts are the most interesting part of the writing experience, since that's when everything comes together for the first time -- but they're hard bloody work!!!! I much prefer the editing part!

Speaking of which, I returned to editing duties on Book 3. Made quite a few little tweaks, mostly making the rules of magic a bit clearer, and also giving a certain Bill-E Spleen a few more lines!!! Bill-E has a prominent role in the book, but as in "Lord Loss", we don't see a huge amount of him in the first third. One of my editor's comments was that she'd like to have a bit more of him, and as I'm a Bill-E fan too, I'm only too happy to oblige!!!!!!

Got a new "toy" today which I'm absolutely delighted with -- a combined DVD/VCR recorder, which makes the copying of a video tape to DVD as simple as the press of a button. I LOVE it!!!! I've given quite a lot of TV interviews over the last 5+ years, and have most of them taped. But this is the first chance I've had to transfer them to DVD, to preserve the quality and properly collect and catalogue them. My ultimate aim is to make them all available for download via my site, but that could be quite a while off (there's no sign of broadband coming to my part of the world, and it's not a task I'd like to undertake at ordinary dial-up speeds!!!). Before that, I might make them available for sale on a limited edition DVD, with notes about the programmes and my experiences, but that's something I'll have to think about a bit more ...

Wrote 11 pages of Book 8 of "The Demonata", which took me all the way up to the end! But I'm not QUITE finished with the first draft yet -- I have to edit the last 8 or so pages tomorrow. Once I've done that, the first draft will be officially in the bag, and I can move on to the editing of Book 3, and the planning of books 9 and 10. (At the moment, I don't really know what's going to happen in those books! I know how #10 finishes - even the last line - and I have snippets in my mind which I want to include in book 9, little scenes and bit of action and info. But I don't know what the actual story-lines are going to be, how I'm going to flesh them out and make them fast-paced and interesting. But I'm sure they'll fall into place over the next few months ... I hope!!!!!)

I was especially pleased to write 11 pages today because it would have been very easy to get distracted. A piece of art which I bought some months back, but had to have cleaned and re-framed, arrived yesterday, and I had people in hanging it and hooking it up to my alarm system today. I had to help them out on some of it, and could have used the break-up of my normal writing pattern as an excuse to flack off. But I forced myself to sit and write, and I got the book "finished", so I'm delighted with myself!!!!

I'm about halfway through the first series of "Angel", and I have to say it's definitely picked up after a weak start. I'm still not enjoying it as much as "Buffy", but I like how it's growing, and if the improvement continues I'll certainly take a chance on the second series.

Went to see "A History of Violence" in Limerick last night. Saw it at the Omniplex, where I hadn't been for a few years. It's been spruced up and is looking much better than the last time I was there -- although there was a big rip in the screen I went to, which was quite distracting!!! I thought the movie was very powerful, one of director David Cronenberg's best. It was impossible to guess what was going to happen next.

Wrote nine pages of Book 8 of "The Demonata". I'm almost at the end -- I might even finish tomorrow, although Wednesday is probably more likely.

Saw half of a truly awful documentary today -- "Notebook on Cities & Clothes". It's by Wim Wenders, a director whose output has been uneven, but almost always interesting. At his very best -- "Paris, Texas" and "Wings of Desire" -- he's absolutely great, but this was woeful, pretentious twaddle. Made in the late 80s, it's all about a Japanese fashion designer. Not the sort of subject matter I'd usually be drawn to, but with Wenders at the helm I was prepared to give it a go. But it sucked from almost the first minute, with Wender narrating over quite boring footage, waxing lyrical about nonsense. I knew it was going to be a teeth-grinding experience when he began babbling about his video camera having an affinity for fashion!!! In the end, I pressed the STOP button after about 50 minutes (and I was reading a newspaper for about 20 of those!). It's VERY rare that I don't watch a movie all the way to the end, even if I'm not enjoying it, but this was one of those occasions when I thought to myself, "Life is too short!!!!!"

I started editing Book 3 of "The Demonata" again today. This is the first edit I've done since settling on the final name for the book, and will be my penulitmate edit. After this, my editor will send me her fine-tuning notes, then I'll check the proofs when they're produced, and then that will be that!!! So the end is within sight ... I started the first draft back in June 2004, so from birth to print will have been an even two years!!

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I spotted a great auction on ebay -- signed, first editions (UK versions) of all 12 books of "The Saga of Darren Shan"!!!! It's not often that an auction like this comes up, so if you have money to spare and want to get your hands on an ultra rare complete signed set of "The Saga", this is the time to act!!! I don't think there are too many people out there with a full signed set, so you'd be joining a very select club!!!! By the way, I have nothing to do with the auction, so please don't think I'm trying to drum up sales to make a profit!!! I just thought you lot would like to know about it! (If the price doesn't shoot up, I might even bid on the books myself!) The link is http://cgi.ebay.com/DARREN-SHAN-ALL-12-SIGNED-ALL-FIRST-EDITIONS_W0QQitemZ6980379003QQcategoryZ90961QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem and it currently has 7 days to go!!!!! Good luck!!!!!!!!

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I received the following e-mail today, from Veronica, in Australia:

could you help me around your site? See, I can't find the release dates for your books... either I'm blind or they're not there... Could you direct me to the release dates (for Australia) please... I want to buy the first book of "Lord Loss" as soon as possible!

As I told Veronica, I don't know!!! It might seem strange, but apart from the UK and America, I usually don't know when books of mine go on sale in different countries!!!! Occasionally I find out in advance, but normally, even in major Shan countries like Japan and Taiwan, I only find out after the book has been released! Of course, I could make enquiries and make a detailed list of all the release dates, but with 30 or so publishers to contend with, that would be a time-consuming job!!!! If you're a Shan fan and live outside the UK, Ireland and America, and want to know when a book is due out, try contacting the publishers directly. You can find info on all my publishers in the LINKS section on my web site.

Ten more pages of Book 8. I was thinking of doing some more tomorrow, but then I looked at the date and realised it's time for another issue of the Shanville Monthly!! So I'll be working on that instead.

Saw an Icelandic film called "Falcons" which was pretty good. Iceland looks lovely. I liked the scenes with the falcon too. I went falconeering last year and absolutely loved it. I only did it for an hour, walking around the grounds near where they were kept. I meant to go back and do it properly - i.e. go on the hunt with one of them - but so far I just haven't found the time. Maybe this will spur me into action, though with my schedule over the next couple of months, I suppose I'll have to wait until the new year ...

Wrote 10 more pages of Book 8 of "The Demonata". Also plotted out the last couple of chapters. Had an idea for one of the earlier books in the series (book 6) while I was doing that. The nice thing about writing the way I do is that I can bounce about between books, tweaking earlier novels in response to ideas or changes in the later entries. It can get a bit confusing at times, but I like the chaos!!!

Hung a few paintings in the evening. I've got a lot of artwork sitting around or lying in drawers. I've started hanging it over the last few months, but it's going to be a long time before I get everything up. In fact, there won't be room for everything, so a lot of it will have to stay under wraps until and unless I build onto my house or move -- or else I'll just flog some of it on ebay!!!

Saw "The Breakfast Club" again. It's definitely a movie that's best appreciated by teenagers. I liked it when I saw it tonight, but it didn't hit me the way it did 17 or 18 years ago. Still, I'd certainly recommend it for anyone in their teens, especially if you feel like life's dealt you a raw hand and you're all alone in the world. This film will help show that most kids feel awkward and out of place at one time or another. My teenage years were pretty miserable in a lot of places and I know that I took a lot of comfort from movies, books, comics and bands which reflected the uncertainty I was feeling. It's comforting to know that you're not the only person in the world with problems and fears.

Got back to work on book 8 of "The Demonata". Wrote 10 pages. There wasn't much dialogue, so they were 10 fairly packed pages. I'm moving into the closing stretch now, although there's still quite a way to go. I'm hoping to finish some time next week. I also have to do an edit of Book 3 before I head off for the States in a couple of weeks -- so it's busy, busy, busy here in Shanville!!!

Had a meeting with my agent this morning, to discuss a few bits and pieces, then flew back home from Gatwick on Ryanair -- hey, I might be a global bestselling author, but when it comes to short-haul travel I've an eye for a bargain!!!! Went shopping in a newly refurbished store in Limerick (the Jetland) and stocked up on grub for the coming week. Unpackd back home, opened my post, then watched "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". I've seen it a few times before. I don't love it as much as some Python fans do, but it's a lot of fun. I watched it now because I'm going to see "Spamalot", the mnew musical version, on stage in New York in a few weeks, so I wanted to refresh myself with it!!! My favourite Python movie by far is "Life of Brian" -- one of the funniest movies ever made, in my humble opinion.