Archive for the ‘writing’ Category

Posted on November 16, 2008 - by MG

Help me to decide what to blog pre-ICE SHOCK

Check out the poll on the right-hand sidebar - you can help me decide what to poll in the run-up to the publication of ICE SHOCK (March 2nd).

My life in the next few months will consist mainly of:

1. Doing my bit in developing and testing the ARG (it has a name but right now I’m not telling…)

2. A few school visits (so far four scheduled for Jan and Feb)

3. Getting involved in pre-launch publicity -don’t know exactly what yet, my agent and I will be having a meeting with Scholastic’s publicity team to brainstorm ideas.

4. Meeting my new editor and getting thoughts started re the edit of ZERO MOMENT

It’s three-and-a-half months to go, but I sense that time will pass quickly.

OK so, in that time, what would you guys like me to blog about? If the above four things plus the usual randomness is enough, go for choice #5.

Oh and…you can pick TWO things from the list.

Posted on November 13, 2008 - by MG

Intriguing announcement at the new-and-improved MGHarris.net

A screenshot of the ICE SHOCK video, which plays a part in a Secret New Thing for “Joshua Files”.

Well I’ve got me new website design and I’m delighted with it!

Readers, I have been SO busy with stuff…so much to write about Bill Heine’s book launch party, the Oxford heat of the Kids Lit Quiz, but most of all working on the Alternate Reality Game we’re developing to co-launch with ICE SHOCK.

That’s right, I said Alternate Reality Game - ARG! Conceptually, our game is a cross between Lonelygirl15 and The Beast.

But! It’s a secret. So don’t tell, okay?

Thanks to David for the upgrade to the latest version of Wordpress and for helping me to configure and to Liam McKay of Woothemes for his custom design work in modifying his Papercut theme.

Posted on October 31, 2008 - by MG

mgharris.net is getting a makeover!

Here’s a sneak peek of my new website design, which is being done by Liam McKay of Woothemes.

We’ve gone for a jungly/Mayan/codex/grunge theme.

See how those elements naturally work together?!

I guess we’ll have to close the site down while my technical team i.e. Him Indoors/Beloved Husband uploads the latest Wordpress software and puts all the blog photos through an auto-resize program and installs the new theme files while I look on helplessly and admiringly.

I hope you all like the new site. In the meantime I am thinking up ICE SHOCK-related snippets to feed you in the run-up to publication date.

The competition for bound proofs is a GO, by the way. Scholastic have kindly offered SIX proofs of ICE SHOCK to give away. And I have come up with an idea. We’ll be making the announcement on themgharris.com by the middle of next week and contacting school libraries and reading clubs too…

Posted on October 24, 2008 - by MG

How I choose books to read

Just been glancing through an old favourite, “If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler” by Italo Calvino (from which I quote in Joshua 3, heh heh), and marveling at the passages where he writes about all the different types of books he encounters in the bookshop, most of which try to distract the reader from going to the book he actually means to buy.

Also, fretting slightly about the forthcoming release of Joshua 2. I’m sure this is normal authorial angst - will it sell? will shops stock it? will they put it on promotion for long enough? or will it sink with little trace, read only by a small fraction of loyal readers who also read Joshua 1?

(Apologies for readers if you didn’t realise authors go through this - we do. Selling books is very hard work!)

So, it bring me round to the question of how readers choose books?

Well, how?

Here’s what I do:

In order of priority:

1. New Books By Authors That I Love And Who Are Considered To Be Still In Their Prime (In my case this would be books by Haruki Murakami, Kazua Ishiguro, Mario Vargas Llosa) 

2. Book By Authors That I Love But Haven’t Yet Found Or Have Been Saving Up To Read (i.e. older books by Haruki Murakami, Kazua Ishiguro, Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

3. Books By Authors That Seem Promising Possibilities To Join My A List (for example, I may have read about an author in TIME or something and decided that it’s worth trying one of his/her books.)

4. Books Written By A Friend (now that I’m a novelist, I have more of these)

5. Books That Are So Massively Talked About You’d Be Totally Out Of The Loop If You Didn’t Read Them Too (e.g. Harry Potter, The Da Vinci Code, The Name of the Rose, On Chesil Beach)

6. Books That A Good Friend Recommended Very Highly (although authors in this category usually wind up in the third category above. Right now I am considering Laura Restrepo’s Delirium, Alfredo Bryce Echenique’s A World For Julius. Failed recommendees include the tedious Javier Marias and fellow Murakami groupie, David Mitchell (the author not the comedian). Sorry, it’s probably me not being clever enough, but there you go.)

7. Young Adult Books That I Really Should Have Read Because I’m A Children’s Author But In Fact Am Only Getting Round To Now Because People Keep Asking If I’ve Read Them (such as The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin)

8. Books Which Take My Fancy During A Browsing Session (many are purchased but few are read…)

9. Old Favourites That I Re-read Every Few Years (e.g. ‘Numbers In The Dark’ by Italo Calvino, anything by Haruki Murakami)

10. Books That Might Help With Something I’m Working On (mainly non-fiction, books on novel structure etc, but occasionally I’ll use Murakami as a mood-setter when I’m actually writing)

So there you have it. Adverts, book reviews don’t have anything but the tiniest influence.

Posted on September 29, 2008 - by MG

Completion Anxiety Provokes Muffin Humour

I’ve been all the way through the desk editor’s comments on the proofs of ICE SHOCK. The ms is covered with handwritten new bits and changes. I only have ten very minor points to address from the proof reader.

Then it’s type up my list of page changes and down to the post office with it.

Meanwhile, the last chapter of Joshua 3 (current title ZERO MOMENT) is planned, a quarter-written and waiting to be finished.

I could do both things today. So why can’t I even get started?

Completion anxiety. (Hey, it’s a real thing…)

I’m not normally a big procrastinator but as I hurtle towards the finish line, time and again, mentally, the brakes scream into action and I slam to a halt.

Today, instead of working, I want to do something else. For example, spend the day thinking about muffin based-humour. (Hey, it’s a real thing.)

Here are my favourite bits of muffin-based humour.

1. The Muffin-Top episode of Seinfeld.

2. Ross Noble, standup comedian, talks about finding human faces in muffin tops.

3. Bob Kelso and the muffin (Scrubs)

Later today I’ll put a photo of my Starbucks muffin on this post. I’ll try to get one with a face.

“Now there IS a face. Next muffin.”