Monday 5 April 2010

These promises.....

......it has been a long, long, long, long, long, long time since my last blog post. Various technical reasons (i.e. I'm useless) combined with me looking around for some different way to do the website and failing to come up with anything which really turned me on/launched my boat. are to blame.

I've also shifted a lot of my more newsy stuff over on to Facebook, so anyone who wants to join me there feel free to send a request. I'm not proud, I accept anyone, apart obviously from Free Presbyterians. Oh, alright.

So what has been happening these past few months?

Nothing. Everything. It always feels like things are quiet, that the pace is slow, and then when I look back I see that actually there's lots going on. Workwise I've finished writing the third Mystery Man novel, provisionally called 'Dr. Chicago'. Not sure when it's coming out as I'm waiting to sign my next contract with Headline. But the good news (or bad news, depending on whether you're my mortal enemy or not) is that they're buying the rights to some of my backlist, which means that all of the Dan Starkey books will be back in print. Hard to believe that it has been five years since the last one, 'Belfast Confidential'. I thought then that I probably wouldn't write any more, but I probably just needed to rest him for a while, so he's coming back. The book will/should/could/might not be called 'State of the Union' and the opening line will/should/could/might not be:

'Fuckety fuck fuck fuck, here we go again.'

And that's all I have, no plot, no anything. It'll almost certainly be a couple of years before it's out, so don't hold your breath, unless of course you're very good at holding it, in which case, hold it.

As ever, I'm juggling a few other projects. I've been working hard on a new series of children's books, The SOS Adventures, the first one of which, 'SOS: Icequake' comes out in June, swiftly followed by another, 'SOS: Firestorm'. These might be described as 'environmental thrillers', or, indeed, might not.

TV-wise I've written a 60-minute pilot for a Mystery Man series, and another sixty minute pilot for a tv original called, 'Alice Glass' - both of these are at the stage where they just need a yes or no from TV controllers, so they'll either get made or they'll disappear off into oblivion. That's the nature of TV.

I also have some VERY INTERESTING news about something else, which is a bit of a departure for me - no, it's not the pole dancing - about which I'm sworn to secrecy at least for a couple of weeks.

Oh, I'm on a roll now. What else is there? I've been to India for a week courtesy of the British Council, which was great, and those very wonderful people at the University of Ulster are making me a Doctor of Letters in July.

Fucking hell, I haven't just been blowing my own trumpet, I've been blowing the whole orchestra. Oh - that doesn't sound right. But you know what I mean. I suppose that's what these things are for.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Colin
    You do sound pretty busy even at 2am. Do you reckon entering a crime story competition is a good way of deciding whether to start writing a proper novel?
    2-5000 words just seems so much easier than climbing the other mountain of 100,000 or so?
    I've a busy job, young family and at an age when either I do this, or go back to running faster marathons or becoming a headmaster?

    Any which way I look at it, I'm frigged for the next while. Any pearls of writerly wisdom?

    Good news on the tv developments. Keeperlit.

    Nigel

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  2. Honestly? I would say no. If you want to write a novel, write a novel and don't put it off. Juggling job/family is hard, but even finding thirty, forty minutes a day should be possible, and the secret is doing that EVERY day. You'll soon find it builds its own momentum.

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