For a long time now I've been meaning to catalogue my tour dates in one spot on my web site, to put together as complete a list as possible of all the event's I've done since I first started touring to promote my books in early 2000. Today I finally got round to making a start!!! It's not as straightforward as it might seem -- although my more recent tours are neatly laid out on my Shanville Monthly, I've changed styles and formats quite often so copying them over is quite a lengthy process! And with my earlier dates, I have to go back to my old diaries!! But I've made a good start and already complete 3 of the years -- I hope to add the other 5 over the next couple of days. If you want to see what the list was like for my very first year, you can click on the following link:

http://www.darrenshan.com/monthly/archive/Tours2000/2000index.html

I've added some notes (such as when I did my first public event, when I first used a microphone, etc), as well as approximate audience numbers where possible -- the figures aren't accurate, but they're pretty close -- where I don't have any real idea, I've left it blank. I hadn't realized I spent so much of my first year just touring in Ireland -- in my memory, I thought I'd toured lots in the UK as well in 2000, but as you can see, I just did a few events there later in the year. It was nice going back and putting this together -- I remembered places and events which I haven't thought about in years, both the good (signing for more than an hour for the first time) and the bad (my first no-show at a signing session). I recalled my first ever panel event, where the "host" spent more time talking than he allowed any of those of us on the panel!!!! My first trip to Edinburgh -- I was really nervous, but my nerves were settled when I bumped into Anthony Horowitz for the first time and he exclaimed, "Darren Shan?!? My son thinks you're a writing god!!!"

The most amusing thing I came across though was an entry from the middle of the year, when I complained about being a bit tired of performing the Cirque Du Freak scene where the woman gets her hand bitten off by the wolf man!!! I'd done it at virtually every event and was getting a bit bored of it. Little did I know that 8 years later I'd still be performing it regularly!!!! But these days I get a real kick out of it. It's not something I need to do -- I have plenty of other books to read out from -- but it always works the best in a live situation and I have fun seeing different actors put their own spin on it. It's sort of my signature piece -- I could no more not do the CDF scene when I'm touring than The Rolling Stones couldn't do Satisfaction live, or The Who couldn't do My Generation!!! I don't perform it at every event, but it's never far away, and neither is the plastic hand which I use in it!! Actually, thinking of that, I just recalled that I didn't use a fake hand in the early days -- it was something I added later. I'll have to try to pin down the date when I started to incorporate it, though I'm not sure if it's something I'll have noted in my diary. Guess there's only one way to find out ... Watch this space!!!!