On Fri 7th Nov I did my school visit stuff at Bay House School, in Gosport: three sessions of around 45 mins apiece with about ninety students in each session. It was TERRIFIC! All three groups were wonderfully attentive and asked all sorts of excellent questions. If anyone who was there happens to be reading this, it was a pleasure speaking to you: thank you! 🙂

As followers of this blog will know (perhaps all too well! ;p) when I post about a school visit it’s at this point that I traditionally put up a bunch of pics of me talking and gesticulating, vibrating, scratching, or waving my arms about like an idiot as usual.

Well: here, by way of a change, is….!

The above is just one of a selection of AWESOME posters that Bay House Ninja Librarians Caroline and Fleur had put up all around the school to promote my visit. Isn’t it great? And here (below), I kid you not, is a MOBILE they’d constructed to represent Tim being attacked by Professor Mallahide’s nanobots…!

Here (below) is a backdrop with more images from Tim – and some from Black Tat, too: I stood in front of it while I did my talks. My photo doesn’t really do it justice, but if you look closely you can make out the Kraken, the (or a-!) Dragon, Esme’s butterflies and more besides.

And here’s a pic of how the whole day made me feel! 🙂

A VAST AND GLEEFUL THANK YOU to Caroline and Fleur for their poster genius, and to everyone I met and spoke to, but especially to Joy Hammond for inviting me to Bay House and giving me such a wonderful warm welcome. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit. I hope everyone got something out of listening to me! 😉

FLOOF. Sorry for slight radio silence, but I’ve only just managed to recombobulate myself after last week’s incredible three-day tour of schools in The Isle of Wight: three days of speaking to my biggest crowds so far, a total of something like 1,600 thoroughly awesome young people!

Here (yikes!) is a short film I’ve managed to put together in the hope that it’ll give you a flavour of what it was like. As ever, my film-making leaves something to be desired, but the music is the Main Title from Mars Attacks, by Danny Elfman, who is a genius! 😉

An UNSPEAKABLY HUGE THANK YOU to Jenny for inviting me to the Island and for looking after me so attentively, to Diana at the Sea View B&B in Ryde for putting me up in such comfort, and to the staff and students at Swanmore, Ryde High, Mayfield, Kitbridge, Osborne, Forelands, Lake and Sandham for the wonderful kindness and warmth of their welcome. My first visit to the Island as a published author was an absolute hoot (check out the book-themed fancy dress in the pics from Lake!!!) I look forward to coming back one day very soon. YAY! 🙂

Today’s mission was four quickish (thirty to forty min-) sessions at the City of London School, which – if you happen to be a certain GIANT MONSTER – is located at convenient stomping distance from lots of deliciously vulnerable London landmarks, notably this:

Yep, it’s poor old St Paul’s!

When I explained to the students that Tim basically involves the total and utter destruction of everything visible from their school’s windows…

…their reaction surprised me. A number were extremely keen to discover whether the school itself was also trashed in the book. I just can’t imagine why, can you?? I mean, I thought the place looked rather nice! ;p

A thunderous thank you to Mr Rose and everyone else I met today for their wonderfully warm welcome. 🙂

Tomorrow I’m off on my Isle of Wight tour! Three days of three talks a day to around 250 people in each session – it’s going to be AWESOME. However: internet access at the B&B where I’m staying is apparently dial-up only. I’ll do my best to keep in touch, but if I don’t manage it (and I survive the tour!) I’ll be back soon to tell you how it all went. Scrunch you later!

Here are a couple of quick pics from yesterday’s visit to Burford School, in Oxfordshire.

I gave two short talks to the Year 7 students there, who are terrific – very welcoming and full of excellent questions!

A big thank you to Lynne for inviting me; to Polly and Joseph of Jaffe and Neale for their Samurai Bookseller skills; to Luke for kindly taking these photos – and to everyone I met and spoke to. HURRAH! 🙂

Q&A time again – in a new and sinister way! This one goes out to Andrew from Essex, who wrote in to the Tim Guestbook last week. Please excuse my stumbling steps with this new gadget: Guillermo del Toro I most certainly ain’t! ;p

The music that’s adding some much-needed class to my, um, somewhat ad hoc title sequence(!) is Dreadlock, by Future Prophecies. Got another question for me? Now you know what to do! ;p

Meanwhile, in other news, I’m ECSTATIC to announce that we have a brand new winner in the Black Tat No Monsters Were Harmed In The Making Of This Website Competition! Yes! Step forward and take a bow Jamie with his awesome Nectarine Slices! Isn’t that beautiful? It looks just like something from the Dragon‘s insides, or the end of the universe. Or, as readers of Black Tat will know, both – HEE HEE HEE! 🙂 The competition continues. Fancy your chances? Give it a wallop!

I’m writing this in some haste, partly because of all the hours I’ve ended up spending fiddling with this film. It’s harder than it looks! -Or, heh, it was for me, anyhow! 😉 But it was a worthy experiment, I hope you’ll agree, and one that I may repeat from time to time in the future. However, now I need to get away from the screen and get some shut-eye, because I have an amazing week of events in front of me! Tomorrow I’m doing my stuff at Burford School, in Oxfordshire. On Monday I’m off to The City of London School For Boys for four short talks there. Then on Tuesday (get this!) I’m travelling to The Isle of Wight for a three-day tour of schools there! By the sounds of it I’m going to be speaking to some of my biggest audiences yet. I’m very excited! 🙂 🙂 🙂

Hello!

Yep, ’tis I, fresh sprung from my slumbers. No kidding about my previous post’s ‘Sam sleep now’: Phase Three‘s first draft must have left me more knackered than I thought because for the last two weeks I’ve been racking up about eleven hours’ kip a night! But today I snapped awake for my first school visit of the new academic year – namely a return to St Augustine’s in Kilburn, London, for what were my second and third creative writing workshops, ever.

I’m still a little hesitant about workshops: I don’t like books and stories to be always associated with ‘work’. But the imagination of some of the Year 10 students in these sessions was a thrill to witness. It wouldn’t be right for me to tell you the best ideas I heard – they belong to their creators. Here are just two standout sentences to give you a flavour.

The first is simple yet chilling:

“She was alive but she was rotten inside.”

And the second…

“On the bus he reached down for his ticket – and found that his trousers had vanished.”

Today’s sessions were a bit, um, experimental in places on my part(!!) so my particular thanks to the staff and students I saw today. I hope you got something out of listening to me, because I thoroughly enjoyed listening to you.

So, now I have returned from my second excursion to Scotland as a published author! It was an absolute delight from start to finish – especially yesterday, when I was taken out by the Scottish Book Trust to visit two schools as part of their Outreach programme. In fact, this post (or a link to it!) may be appearing on the Trust’s brand new blog – glee! – so if you’re reading this from over there, a very happy Hello to you!

As you can probably tell from the frankly bloodcurdling smile above I, um, rather enjoy events, actually. 😉 Even the prospect of what, for me, is quite an early start (7.45am!) didn’t faze me – especially when the Trust’s supreme ninjas Jasmine and Chris picked me up in their spectacularly spiffy new bookmobile! Expertly placing me entirely at their mercy by cunningly plying me with Jelly Babies, Jasmine and  Chris whisked me away from Edinburgh and off to our first destination, where I spoke to around a hundred students from St Anne’s Primary School and Annebank Primary School, in Ayr.

This was a brilliant session. Excellent questions flowed thick and fast almost right from the start – which is just how I like it. In fact the students’ questions were so good that the hour flew past, with time for only one reading from Tim before it was back to the bookmobile! Following up their earlier jelly-based offensive Jasmine and Chris delivered me a stunning knockout blow with a baked potato for lunch, and by the time I’d recovered we were at St Cuthbert’s Primary School for the second engagement of the day.

Now, erm, before I say any more I think a word of warning is appropriate. As people who follow my blog will be perhaps all too aware(!) I tend to put a lot of wallop into my talks, and for reasons that even I don’t fully understand the results often seem to involve me waving my arms about like a big, black-clad baboon. But this…

Wow… it looks like I’m either about to take off, or burst into song! 😉

Well, I was excited. I was spending the day being driven from place to place like a rock star, before speaking to – and answering superb questions from – some vivacious, mannerly and thoroughly charming young people. I’ve got to say, in the words of Christopher Boone from Mark Haddon’s unforgettable The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, it was a super good day.

The only drawback of this ‘being an author’ caper, it seems to me, is that occasionally, it’s true, one is expected to produce a new book. That time has come again for me, so it’s back to the grindstone! But in the mean time my thanks to Jasmine and Chris, and everyone I met and spoke to, for their kindness and hospitality. This second Scottish excursion has been enormous fun. Here’s looking forward to the next one! 🙂

I’m writing this on my laptop. The ornery contraption seems to be behaving as of this moment, but given that today it crashed spectacularly on what was my first – and probably /last/ – attempt to use it in front of an audience as part of one of my talks (ho, hum), maybe I’d better make this quick! 😉

Here, as threatened, are a few pics from my first ever author visit to the Edinburgh Book Festival. [YAAAAY! Er, ‘scuse me. ;p] This (below) is me psyching myself up in the Author Yurt(!!!) with the undisputedly awesome Bali Rai…

No pics were allowed during the gig itself but the below, taken (thank you, Laura!) while the audience were settling down before the start, gives you an idea of the size of the crowd…

Yep, it was one of my biggest audiences for a while! So this was /not/ the ideal time for a certain machine to decide to throw its toys out of the pram while I was attempting to show some pics from my websites – GAH!! But thanks to the kindness of my listeners I think I got away with it. This was a fine session, with some terrific questions – and check out the signing queue afterwards…!

Here (below) is a pic of a young gentleman called Callum. My thanks to him and to everyone I spoke to for giving me such a warm welcome.

Today’s a public holiday here in the UK. Me, I’m just packing up my trappings before setting out on an overnight train to Edinburgh, Scotland for two days of events to do with The RBS Schools Programme of the Edinburgh International Book Festival. HURRAH! 🙂

-Ahem! Yes, as you can probably tell I’m rather excited. 😉 Over the next few days I hope to post some pics here and let you know how the trip went. Meanwhile here are a couple of quick bits and pieces before I go…

First up, I am absurdly delighted to announce that we have another winner for the ongoing Black Tat No Monsters Were Harmed In The Making Of This Website Competition: take a bow Xiaoyao from Australia (and Xiaoyao’s dad!) with… THIS. Don’t forget to click top right of that page to find out where this highly sinister and atmospheric image actually came from (HEE HEE HEE!) The next round of the NMWHIT MOTWC is now officially open. Send us your horrible things! 🙂

Next we have a fine new piece of Black Tat Reader Art, from Robert, of the band Siemi Suicide: click on the link and scroll down to check out his splendid penmanship. Robert wrote to the Black Tat Guestbook to ask permission to use Ashmon and Heshmim’s names for the band’s first album. I was delighted and honoured to say yes. Thank you, Robert!

Finally, if you have a few more spare minutes, here is an interview with me by Liz, charming co-creator of the excellent blog My Favourite Books. She’s also written a lovely review of Black Tat. Thank you, Liz!

And now… back to packing!

Hey there.

I’m currently back in full Deep Dive Mode for some serious heavy work on Phase Three. But before I go all intermittent on you while I’m away in my brain (writing my new book, in other words!) today I surfaced briefly for what was my last school visit of this academic year.

It was to Elthorne Park high school in Ealing, and it was an absolute pleasure.

I arrived in a tearing hurry, having foolishly believed that taking the journey-time promised by the London Underground website and doubling it might somehow allow me to get to the school punctually, like a professional. Silly me. Thanks – apparently – to ‘trespassers on the track’ (is there a story in there??) by the time I got through the door of the Elthorne learning resource centre my first audience was already sitting waiting. For one’s first visit to a school that’s just never a good look — very embarrassing, AAAAGH! But I jumped straight in, and things took off at top speed.

Here’s a shot of me putting my heart into my work…

Here’s me pointing at something, apparently with such great emphasis that the molecules of my arm began to lose alignment…

And here (below) is what I think is one of the silliest photos for a while – and that’s even by these pages’ fairly stringent standards of silliness. Take a look:

Explanation: at lunchtime a photographer from a local paper showed up, to take some pics of my visit. This was great, of course: all extra publicity is very welcome to the Sinister Masterplan! But what he wanted was for me and the students to pose – as if I was reading and the students were supposedly hanging on my every word. A sort of Listen With Mother effect, if you will.

While we all did our best – and much respect to everyone in the above pic for being so game! – it was just impossible to take this seriously. If you look at the pic again you can see the oh-so-fascinated expressions already beginning to fail. And in the end…

…we just cracked up completely. ;p

My thanks to Mrs Donnithorne for kindly inviting me. And a GLEEFUL thank you to everyone I spoke to today.