Well, I’m back on the b
log. An extended holiday packed with houseguests and road-tripping gobbled up July and August, and the edit of Joshua Files 5 gulped down my September.
(Big announcement about Joshua 5 over on themgharris.com, btw)
Rewriting, as any author will tell you, is mentally exhausting. You have the editor’s notes that point out all the flaws in your manuscript, all that’s needed is to fix things. Sometimes this means breaking your plot and putting it together in a better configuration. I received my editor’s notes whilst on holiday in Spain. During a long swim, I mentally put together the new, improved plot. Luckily, it still seemed to work when I returned to my computer.
So after emailing the second draft of Joshua 5 to my editor, I’m now free to write about two exciting upcoming events I’m involved in. Two events which demonstrate the awesomeness of Oxford.
The first, next Saturday, is the 2nd Kennington Literary Festival. In aid of the wonderful little Kennington Village Library, this event is pure ‘localism’. You can come along and meet Oxford authors including Bill Heine, Brian Aldiss, Korky Paul and also – me!
Here’s the article in The Oxford Times: Literary line-up to aid village library
You can download the full brochure for the Kennington Literary Festival 2011. Or later today you can go pick one up from Starbucks in Summertown or the Jericho Cafe, where I will be dropping some leaflets.
BBC Oxford’s Jane Markham interviewed me about Joshua Files, time-travel fiction and the Kennington Festival – you can listen on the interviews page.
My event is on SATURDAY 15TH OCTOBER 2.20pm-3pm. Free for under 16s! Send your teenagers along to hear some Joshua secrets, tea and biccies in the village hall afterwards.
Meanwhile fellow Oxford author Dan Holloway and I seem to have successfully lobbied Blackwell’s, Oxford to organise an event to celebrate the launch of our beloved Haruki Murakami’s new book, IQ84. Read more about our plans here: We Love Murakami. I’ll be making Cosmopolitans and Coolman Martinis, still deciding on which mocktails… Dan might be making Wind-Up Bird spaghetti. Any volunteers to make rude phone calls to him while the pasta cooks?
So much excitement! And Swindon Youth Literature Festival coming up in November!
Meanwhile I will now work on Surprise New Project – an adult techno-thriller set in the Joshua Files universe. More on this soonish! And Ultra Secret New Project, about which I am still keeping mum…
