My first school visit of the new academic year was a two-day booking at The Harwich School in Essex. It was brilliant. The library, where I did my talks, was equipped with a laptop and a digital projector. Since I’ve just this week been sent the latest version of what might become the cover for CRAWLERS, I took the opportunity to test it out on its target audience…!

The cover is a work-in-progress, so I’m not going to show it to you any more clearly than this (above) for now. But I will say that people’s reactions [‘Sick‘, ‘Cool‘ and – especially – ‘Ew!‘] were pretty much exactly what my publishers and I are hoping for. HEE HEE HEE!

A monster thank you to Mr Dace (above) for inviting me and organizing this terrific visit, and huge and gleeful thanks to everyone I met at Harwich for the wonderful, warm welcome they gave me. All the questions I was asked over the course of the two days were excellent. Here’s one from Bex, 12, who wrote in to the Tim Guestbook:

What’s it like being an author? I wish to be one when I’m older.

I love being an author. It’s my dream job. But like any job, it’s not for everyone. Luckily it’s an easy one to try: all you have to do is sit down, make up a thrilling story, and write it – it’s as simple, and as difficult, as that.

The internet is full of thousands of blogs and websites written by authors, which may also give you an idea of what being one is like. For a place to start, try www.trappedbymonsters.com , the joint blog I’m involved in with seven other authors (you can see a poster for Dragon Orb by one of them, Mark Robson, in the first pic above!) All their websites are fabulous, and they’re easy to find if you follow the links on the TBM ‘authors‘ page. But nothing will show you what being an author is like as definitely as making the time to give it a go for yourself.

Whether you find it suits you, or you don’t, I wish you the best of luck.

Sam

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Comments? Suggestions? Questions? Me and THE WEBSPHINX would love to hear from you! Drop us a line at the Tim, Defender of the Earth Guestbook for current or Tim stuff, or The Black Tattoo Guestbook for Black Tat stuff. First (or demon-!) names only, please. 😉