How to write in letters of blood!

Want to write a halloween poster or a playbill for a horror night? Here is the perfect typeface and style of writing to grab a bit of attention. Don’t forget – you can see this and many more videos in schools and libraries by going to my own video website, www.shoo-tube.com – enjoy!

Axel Storm – I’m doing real artwork at last!

I’m well into book two of Axel Storm artwork now. The book is called Storm Rider. Axel gets caught up in the ropes of a helium balloon and dragged up into the sky where a violent storm is brewing. Is he going to make it? You’ll have to wait until the books come out later this year to find out, but here is a sneak preview of some of the artwork I did today – the very moment that axel is hauled up into the air.

Actually, this is all great fun for me as I’ve not drawn artwork for about four years now, I’ve done my last four series entirely on the computer. It was a bit strange at first, but I’m getting into the swing of it now. The lady at the post office is pleased to see me with my bundles of artwork. It’s not quite the same, just pressing a button and emailing a whole books worth of artwork in seconds.

Last of seventeen schools in Rhondda Cynon Taf

I visited the last two of seventeen schools in Rhondda Cynon Taf on Thursday and Friday. Cwm Parc Primary clings to the side of the hill, way up at the top of the Rhondda Valley, and spreads across two floors like a rabbit warren, whereas Llanhari Primary, almost in the Vale of Gamorgan is wide open and has a wonderful garden out at the back.

I had two great days telling stories and doing drawings. My new shoo-tube.com website went before me at Llanhari, and the children were already drawing from my video lessons. It was quite a revelation for me. They were also expecting me to be able to draw, whereas I quite often arrive at a school and they don’t realise that I do the pictures too.

Years three and four were wonderfully appreciative. Every time I did a drawing, they clapped! Seems like an easy gig to me – it comes much more easily than writing!

Anyway, thanks to both schools for looking after me and bringing my grand tour of the Valleys to a brilliant end. It’s made me think a lot about Oracy and it’s role in writing and literacy too.

So Little Time

I’m off to my holiday cottage in South Wales agin this week. No, not for a holiday, but a week in schools, talking about writing.

Meantime, I’ve been asked for some finished drawing s of Axel Storm by tomorrow morning, as I’l have no more time next week. I’ve stories to write and illustrations to do. More visits next week and all the time the internet nags away wanting more!

Ho Hum! At least the sun is shining.

I love it when a plan comes together!

I’ve been telling a story about this little girl in schools and libraries for about ten years now. The story has changed and evolved in that time. I thought I had it cracked when I rewrote it around a pop-up gimmick I invented. But the banks crashed, the recession hit and it proved too expensive. I’ve been thinking about how to rewrite it ever since. I had one major rewrite, but it didn’t work at all.

It’s amazing the way the subconscious works. Last night I had an email from the editor I was working with at the time, Natscha Biebow, with a lovely picture of her son on his first birthday. She was writing to say she wouldn’t be returning to work.

I suppose, subconsciously, I’d been awaiting her return to get on with the story. Her email must have loosened something in the brain, because I woke at 5.30 with the answer. It was so simple I can’t think why it’s taken me ten years or more to think of it!

Am I going to tell you the secret? Of course not! Unless you are a picture book editor and would like to have a little look!

Writing funny!

For the first time in my life, I’ve written something that has made me laugh out loud! Actually it brought tears to my eyes. It’s the character that did it – Axel Storm’s bombastic Uncle Ritchie’s character is expanding as I write. He’s a monster! I never knew this until I began writing him in.

He appeared in the distance, driving across the plain in a cloud of dust, screeched to a halt and surprised me as well as Axel and his Mum and Dad, who knew what he was like all along – otherwise they would have stayed at his ranch. I was reading the opening chapter out aloud and was taken by surprise at how awesome he has turned out to be! Axel thinks he’s wonderful.

You’ll have to wait ’til the autumn to read it. (Unless he gets edited into something more wholesome – will I be allowed to keep the shotgun scene!?)

The Ghastly Business of Editing

Here’s a new video for you in the Writing School line, all about the ghastly business of editing. Everyone hates it, but the thing is to unclench and let go. Writing is a journey from me to you. Editing is the process of letting go. Hope you like it.

OMG – I think I’m a cartoonist!

Taken from Wikipedia:

Calum MacKenzie in his preface to the exhibition catalog, The Scottish Cartoonists, published in 1979 by the Glasgow Print Studio Gallery, defined the selection criteria:

The difference between a cartoonist and an illustrator was the same as the difference between a comedian and a comedy actor – the former both deliver their own lines and take full responsibility for them, the latter could always hide behind the fact that it was not his entire creation.

I began my career as an illustrator, and even though I was writing and having my own books published from the start, some twenty-three years ago, I thought of myself as an illustrator and worked mostly on other people’s stories.

Time moved on, and even though I still spend most of my time drawing and illustrating, I’m thought of now as an author. I’m often asked in schools who illustrates my books. People seem surprised when I say I do. I’m blessed with two talents – most people would be happy with one of them.

But, I go on to explain, the thing that ties the to together is storytelling, In fact I’m probably happiest in front of an audience drawing and telling stories live. Illustrators often write, writers very rarely illustrate. It’s storytelling that makes an illustrator different to other artists.

People of ten refer to my “cartoon style”. They say it in an apologetic way as if trying not to offend. Reading the quote above this morning, made me wonder – is that what I am? Am I a cartoonist, but I don’t know it? I feel that what I do write are really graphic novels or even Manga, in the Japanese sense. In the west we think of Manga as being a particular style, which should really be termed Anime. As I understand it, Manga is the telling of stories with lots of pictures and text – which is what I do.

However, authors get treated a lot better than illustrators and I think illustrators are treated a tad above cartoonists. Cartoonists tend to be dismissed as ephemeral, whimsical, cheap comedians, whereas it is assumed illustrators can probably do proper art if they tried.

Perhaps I’d better stay convincing people that I’m an author and stay in the room with wine and canapes – The artists tend to get shoved in a room out the back with beer and sandwiches!

Writing and faffing

I’m so pleased that I’ve finished the fourth Axel Storm story before I go off to MIlan on Sunday. These things can play on the mind. I’ll be able to go away and not fret that I should really be writing.

I seem to have been away from home for most of this month. I tell myself that I’ll try and do some work while I’m away – but it never works out that way. A full day talking to children in school is very tiring and I never really get anything done while I’m away.

Having finished my story and emailed it to my editor, there’s nothing else to do but faff! Checking stuff before I go off on Sunday. Online checking in, google mapping, working out itineraries, charging batteries and getting ready for when I get back because I have two days in school in Gloucester at the end of next week. Busy, busy, busy, then a whole two and a half weeks at home for lots and lots of writing!

Glynhafod Junior

If I thought Cwmaman was at the top of the valley yesterday, I was mistaken. Way up high, much further on is Glynhafod Junior School, where I was today. A couple of hundred yards further on the village stops and the mountains continue – wild and empty.

Year Five and six came up with a new idea for how Viking Vik invented football. Another school I went to suggested that he made a ball from a pig’s bladder, today we had a leather bag full of leaves and sheep’s wool, which was a more satisfying plot. One girl went on to improve the story by bringing in a bit of enmity between Vik and his half brother, Wulf. In her story they invent dodgeball!

With year four, we got into a quite deep conversation about what the children would take from Earth to an alien classroom on show and tell day, as Ricky Rocket has to do in A present from Earth. One boy suggested a gun, which made us question what this would say about Humans!

Year three came up with a great idea for Monster Boy. An giant Electric Eel is living in a pond in the Forest and is electrocuting things. Monster Boy puts it’s power to good use, lighting up a fairy light walk through the Forest that brings in the tourists in their droves – great!

The school is almost 100 years old. In the staffroom is a wonderful push-button control panel, which I guess once rang bells in different classes. One button is marked, Master. Is this to call up a previous, frightening, overpowering headmaster or just a master button that rings all the bells at the same time? I’d like to think it is the former!

Thanks everyone for a great day.