LJ asked me to go on the show to talk about the emerging phenomenon of self-publishing, mainly fueled by the print-on-demand revolution. You can see what  I thought two years ago. My how things have changed, in only two years. Note how little we talk about ebooks! That’s where the action is nowadays.

Maybe I should go on Click again to update LJ on my opinion now… because as some beady-eyed members of the Joshua Files Facebook group may have spotted, I myself will be testing the waters in the brave new world of publishing and putting out an indie-published techno-thriller for older readers, set in the fictional world of The Joshua Files around May 2012…

LJ meanwhile has been developing her talents as a musician. Her latest album features her own gorgeous arrangements of traditional Christmas music, performed by LJ herself. Very tasteful and classically inspired, with a touch of gospel. I think my favourite is “I Saw Three Ships”. Perfect background music for a Christmas drinks party or the long drive to visit family, I’d say.

You can preview or download here at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/ljrich3

Like Jenkins I’m as interested in the cultural as well as publishing implications of Pottermore. I was slightly startled to see Youtuber Alex Day (nerimon) respond within hours with his video What the F**k Is Pottermore? (over 200,00 views since posted, as of today).

Was this some kind of new backlash against an author trying to control how fans play in the sandbox she created? Or just a disguised version of the all-too-familiar Potter-envy, which has resulted in a tedious stream of law suits, and critical sniffiness, such as this think-piece by a author A.S Byatt?

Two of the comments by Alex Day struck me. First, he seems to resent to being referred to as part of the ‘digital generation’. Maybe like me, nerimon senses that this is yet another spurious term trying to pin down something which marketeers don’t actually understand. Those crazy digital people! Yes. That’s right. Fear us, we are strange and pixelated!

Secondly, he suggests that if one feels strongly enough about which Hogwarts house you might be in, if such a thing actually existed, you should be able to decide for yourself.  Official or not, you shouldn’t need the official website to dictate. (Alex feels loyal to Ravenclaw. When I did the test on Facebook, it picked me as a Gryffindor. But I’d have chosen Ravenclaw too, probably.)

In Three Reasons Why Pottermore Matters, Henry Jenkins addresses whether authors should try to control the extent and manner in which which fans interact with their creation. Jenkins coined the term ‘textual poacher’ for such fans, and he’s written extensively on the phenomenon of fan fiction, in which readers/viewers appropriate published or broadcast material for their own creativity.

Where do I stand? Well, for once I have a foot in both camps.

Like a few other newish YA authors (e.g. Cassandra Clare, author of The Mortal Instruments books), I began my writing career as a ‘textual poacher’. Back in the late 1990s my good friend Reba Bandyopadhyay and I started the first online Blake’s 7 fan fiction zine.*

Without the literary multi-gym of fan fiction, I would probably never have become a published author. Writing Blake’s 7 fanfic developed me as a writer, it also introduced me to some wonderful friends.

So I’m in favour of the fan-created world. Long may it live!

On the other hand, now I’m an author too. And the world of The Joshua Files doesn’t stop at the books. There is a whole other novel in the form of the Alternate Reality Game, The Descendant. Who killed Josh’s godfather, PJ Beltran, and why? Where is PJ’s teenage daughter, Gabi? The answers these questions are answered in the form of over 50 videos, blogs, secret messages in Habbo Hotel and a code in the UK and US editions of the second Joshua book, ICE SHOCK.

Then there’s Josh’s new secret blog, which provides glimpses into his life before and after the fourth adventure DARK PARALLEL. Fans are beginning to comment on Josh’s blog, to interact with him. But fans have also created their own versions of Josh’s blog, and have inserted themselves as new characters in the investigative drama that is The Descendant, they’ve made their own video trailers.

I think this is more than cool – it’s essential to real growth of a story. A story really only takes off when it has been poached. Hence all the versions of Robin Hood, the Merlin story, etc. Now we have modern day equivalents – the new Star Trek movie franchise kicked of by JJ Abrams is a professionally-produced AU (alternative universe) Trek fanfic.

But authors should be able to play too! That’s what Pottermore is – the author’s own personal sandbox, or as Youtuber Mickeleh says in his response to nerimon (What’s Pottermore? I’ll Tell You) – it’s JKR’s “own personal bandcamp”.

Join the author there if you want, if not, don’t. Mind you, it will be the only way to buy HP ebooks.

However! Chin-stroking commentators who write that it’s the end of publishing as we know it, fundamental paradigm shift etc, may have missed something.

Pottermore is a closed shop – a site for HP fans only where they can only buy HP-related products. That’s fine when you have hundreds of millions of readers.

If you don’t, if you are, oh I don’t know, lemme see, almost anyone else on the planet, you probably still need to sell your books, e or paper, in a place where other books are sold.

Never underestimate the power of cross-buying, impulse buying and the all-powerful bookseller’s tool, 3-for-2. Or indeed, Amazon’s witchy ways of figuring out what customers like to read.

Pottermore is like a cheese shop that only sells gorgonzola. Great if you love gorgonzola, but a fan of cheddar, cheshire or brie isn’t likely to wander into there by mistake and give it a try.

Like, I suspect, all other authors in the world, when my books go digital later this year – next week for ICE SHOCK – I want them sold at all the outlets possible. Breathe easy, Amazon et al. There’s only one Harry Potter.

*Reba has read everything I have ever written and from the beginning commented as seriously on my Blakes7 fanfic as she does now on Joshua Files and the manuscript for Ultra Secret New Project. I promised to base a character in Joshua Files on Reba, so Joshua readers will be visiting Reba at her observatory in Joshua 5…

Joshua 5 - soon on Kindle?

A day does actually arrive when you find yourself typing the final words of your multi-volume young adult series. My final Joshua Files day didn’t have the intense drama of JKR finishing Harry Potter, naturally, because we can only imagine the pressure she must have been under.

And there’s also the sheer levels of immersion – all five Joshua adventures weigh in at around 375,000 words. That’s only one-and-a-half of the longer HP books!

There was however, one tiny similarity, which is that I too will admit that I had written the final page long before I finished the series. I think I wrote it back in 2009 when I was writing Zero Moment (Joshua Files 3). There’s a scene in that installment – let’s just call it the surreal bit – which put me in just the right, slightly sentimental mood. And I knew, quite suddenly, how I wanted to end The Joshua Files.

That kind of mood is difficult to bring about on demand. There are ways to get close, but if it should happen that one day you find yourself in the right emotional state to put down a particularly tricky or evocative scene, I find it’s best to go with it, drop everything and write it down.

Which is what I did that day in 2009. So when it came to the day of finishing Joshua, I had the most difficult part already drafted.

Here’s what I did that day. It was a perfect writing day – no author events that day, daughters were both at school, husband was out at meetings. I was guaranteed to have no interruptions. I had about one chapter left to write, then slide in the final scene and polish it up.

I made some toast with marmalade, brewed a cafetiere of coffee, dropped myself in the sofa in front of the 1980s movie ‘Risky Business’, the movie which launched a very young Tom Cruise to mega-stardom.

No idea why I picked that movie – it was on the Sky box and I was wondering if it was as good as I remembered.  As soon as the music started I realised that I’d forgotten just how great that soundtrack was, with the electronic dance music of Tangerine Dream. As Joel’s life fell apart, with his hopes of a place at Princeton seeming to melt away under mounting disasters, Joel seemed to snap. An almost joyous, freeing sense of fatalism overtook Tom Cruise’s character. The Tangerine Dream track ‘Love On A Real Train’ kicked in, with a relentless, yet emotionally detached drive.

I saw immediately what I wanted to write and exactly how Josh might feel during the climactic moments of Joshua 5. Like Joel from Risky Business – all the best laid plans of his young life are suddenly under threat.So, I rushed upstairs, added the track to the growing Joshua Files playlist on we7, plugged the computer into surround-sound speakers and played the track.

Perfect – just the right sense of tension, urgency and drive, yet underneath it all I could sense that Josh, like Joel in Risky Business, would feel control slipping away from his hands and into the hands of some external force; destiny. And in that moment, like Joel, who grins and says ‘F**k it”, a part of Josh is resigning himself to fate.

I finished the scene, added the finale that I wrote in 2009 and gave both scenes a brief polish.

I was done by lunchtime. I went out into the street feeling a stone lighter. On the way to pick up my daughter I passed BBC Oxford’s Bill Heine and rolled down the car window to yell ‘I’ve finished The Joshua Files’. Bill gave me a huge thumbs-up.

And that was it. No trauma, no sadness. Quite a bit of satisfaction, if I’m honest.

Will there be more Joshua? Who knows. I leave Josh in a place that wouldn’t make it difficult to allow him to continue his adventures. Yet part of me feels that the kid should be allowed to live a normal life, play his guitar, write his songs and date a girl, without having to save the world and evade death every few months.

If you’re interested, here’s the Joshua Files playlist, featuring all songs that are mentioned, quoted or alluded to in the series, roughly in order.

The final four tracks are from Joshua 5. For now, that’s the only clue you get…

Mark Robson and MG Harris

The DARK PARALLEL launch season began with a lovely event at Waterstone’s Milton Keynes, where I was joined by the dashing former RAF pilot, YA author Mark Robson.

We swapped books and decided to interview each other about our latest offerings. Mark’s latest is a VERY shiny new exciting thing, a book about an adventure in the Bermuda Triangle! Massive coolness. I’ll be telling you about it in a few days. But for now – the interview swap. you remember how this works from my recent swap with Katherine Langrish. Interview with MG Harris about DARK PARALLEL over at Mark’s place – Trapped by Monsters. Interview with Mark Robson about THE DEVIL’S TRIANGLE here at The MG Harris Blog.

Mark, you’ve been a regular on the children’s and YA literature scene for a few years now and are something of an expert when it comes to school visits! But for readers who may not have met you in their school or read your books, can you summarize your writing career and the fictional worlds you create?

Firstly, I never intended to be a writer.  I was a pilot in the RAF and loving it, but whilst on detachment in the Falkland Islands, I got bored and irritable – so much so that my navigator uttered the life changing words ‘For goodness sake, Mark!  Do something useful.  Go write a book, or something!’  I took this as a challenge and have been writing ever since.

My first series of books were very much inspired by Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. I wanted to write something that had a similar story arc, but that was more action driven and that utilised my military background.  The Darkweaver Legacy was the result, out of which evolved my second series – The Imperial Trilogy – the story of a nineteen year old female spy who makes an enemy of a top assassin.  By now I was no longer in the RAF, as I’d turned full time as a writer, so I felt the time was ripe to write a flying story.  Dragon Orb a series of four high action dragon stories bring dragons from a fantasy world into World War I France, where they fly in secret with the Royal Flying Corps against the Red Baron!  It was an unusual idea – sort of like Biggles meets dragons.  The Devil’s Triangle, my latest labour of love, is my twelfth novel.

Would you say your influences are literary or screen? What are the big inputs into Devil’s Triangle?

I would say my influences are widespread.  I’ve always read prolifically, so there are many influences there, some of which I’m probably not even consciously aware.  Although I’m not a great cinema goer, or film buff, I’ve seen a good number over the years and yes, they most certainly influence me as well.  I would say there is a good dash of Planet of the Apes, Jurassic Park (book and film) and The Land that Time Forgot in this new series.  Now that I think of it, there are some interesting parallels with a series by Julian May that I read and enjoyed in my teens that began with a book called The Many Coloured Land.  It was set in the future where a one way time portal is opened to the Pliocene era and many of society’s misfits undergo sterilisation and then pass through the portal to escape from modern society.

Highly-evolved lizards have been in vogue ever since the original V-the Visitors series about a covert invasion of Earth by reptilian aliens. Do you think there is something in our obsession with reptiles as the enemy?

I think there is something inherently scary about reptiles.  I have a fear (I wouldn’t say phobia, as I believe this to be a perfectly rational fear) of poisonous snakes.  I’m OK with handling pythons and grass snakes, but I’m terrified of their poisonous cousins.  Over the years I’ve stumbled across quite a few in different parts of the world, and although I’ve never been bitten, these incidents have only served to strengthen my fear.

In many of the stories I wrote as a young child, snakes were the bad guys.  The very earliest story I still have from my childhood (I would guess I was about 6 when I wrote it) is called ‘The Friendly Crocodile’ and guess what… the bad guy is a snake.  OK, so the hero was also a reptile in that story, as is Nipper in my new story, but I can’t help thinking there is something untrustworthy about reptiles that goes right back to the earliest times.  Satan is even depicted as a snake in Genesis.  No wonder we fear them.

This is the first time you’re writing in a ‘realistic’ contemporary setting, after a series of bestselling stories involving swords, sorcery and dragons. How different was it as a writer? And are you now converted to blending fact with fiction?

Oh wow!  ‘Different’ doesn’t begin to describe it, MG! For me it was like learning to write all over again.  I found it incredibly difficult to begin with, as I guess I’d become used to being able to just create my worlds the way I wanted them to be.  The constraints of a real world story make the research of even the smallest details mandatory, and I found having to constantly stop writing in order to check out trivia incredibly frustrating to begin with.Now that I’ve written one story in this way, I must admit that the results are interesting, and more than a little pleasing.  I think readers will identify with my characters more easily in this sort of story and I’m sure that I’ll continue to improve my storylines the more I write this way.  I’m not sure that ‘converted’ is the right word, but I think you’ll be seeing more of this sort of story from me in the future.

The ‘Bermuda Triangle’ phenomenon has been rather neglected of late, and may I say what a genius idea it was to resurrect it! Is there a reason things have gone quiet? has the mystery been quietly solved, do you think?

I think there will always be those who will be believers and those who will dismiss the mysteries as a load of bunkum!  Has the region gone quiet?  That depends on what you read, but in terms of media coverage, I suppose you would have to conclude that it has.  The most recent book I came across during my research was by an American author called Gian Quasar, published in 2004.  He claimed in the book that there had been over 1000 unusual incidents recorded in region during the 25 years running up to the publication of his book.  (This will obviously not include the famous incidents like Flight 19 and the USS Cyclops that were long before this.)  How accurate his stats are, I don’t know, but the book was certainly an interesting read and there are dozens of websites dedicated to the ‘ongoing’ mystery.

The quiet undercurrent of public interest is still there, but no one seems to have used the mystery as the focus of a fictional story for a long time.  I’m finding it fun to play with some of the reported phenomena of the region and use them as a vehicle for creating a science fiction/fantasy story.

Part of the realistic setting is that it requires an author to construct very credible family relationships within familiar constraints. I was impressed at how well you did this, how much time you were willing to give to the emotional impact of the disappearance of Clare (the missing mother). Was domestic drama an aspect that you relished writing? Did you get any inspiration for the relationships from your own family or extended family?

I’m not sure that I ever ‘relished’ the idea of writing domestic drama, but I do recognise that people like it.  Look at what the writers of Dr Who did with the families of the Doctor’s various assistants over the past few series and it’s easy to see that family drama is a theme that crops up again and again.  The popularity of soap operas seems never ending, so having an element of this in my ‘real world’ side of the story seemed essential if I was to give it broad appeal.

As for drawing aspects of the relationships from my own family – no, not really.  Though I did steal the names of the characters from members of my family!  My youngest sister is Clare, her husband is Matt, and their children are called Sam and Neve.  I changed the spellings of their names a little in the story and made the children twins, which the real Sam and Neve aren’t.  I did ask them first if they were happy for me to do this, of course.  Fortunately they thought it would be fun to have a special part in the story.  It has sort of made it their story, though none of the characteristics of the fictional characters are even close to the real people.

Parallel evolution is a fascinating topic! I will admit that a teeny part of me – the biochemist – did wonder why velociraptors would evolve to become human-like in the past 65 million years, when they had failed to go anywhere close to that in the previous 150 million. Evolution, as I understand it, happens because of external pressue. Organisms evolve out of a death-trap (by acquiring camouflage, for example) or they adapt to a lack of food. Velociraptors were already efficient predators, as far as we know, and likely at the top of the food chain or good as. So in the parallel universe, what might have happened to force them to evolve opposable thumbs and human-like intelligence? Is this a mystery that will be addressed in future stories?

I’m sure I read somewhere that had velociraptors been given enough time to continue to evolve, the projections were that they would have become more humanoid, and possibly even warm-blooded.  I couldn’t quote the source now.  It’s something I read sometime in the dim and distant past.   I wouldn’t claim to be an expert in this, but this article was in the back of my mind as I developed my ideas for the parallel earth.  I think the combination of this idea and the cunning and adaptability of the raptors in the film Jurassic Park combined in my mind to evolve the raptors in the way I have.  I don’t anticipate exploring the evolution process in future books, as the action will very much centre on the current political and social evolution (and revolution) that is about to shake the raptor world.  There will, however, be more on some of the historical events in our world that have created the Bermuda Triangle legend into the phenomenon it is today.

Devil’s Triangle is actually a clever, subtle satire on contemporary energy and pollution issues. Did you plan this political angle? Personally I love a good political/religious undercurrent in children’s books, but find that it can become wearing if it is too preachy. Devil’s Triangle gets the balance absolutely right!

Yes, the energy and environmental issues were very much planned.  The way the High Council in my alternate Earth seem set on covering up the true impact and ramifications of their global environmental problems from the wider raptor society was always intended to be a none too subtle parody.  However, I detest books that obviously set out to preach on political or religious issues, so whilst the problems are ever-present in the story, I try to keep the focus on the characters.  I’m delighted you feel I have the right balance.

At the end of Devil’s Triangle you’ve taken two characters to a horribly dangerous world from which it appears there is no return, with another character hell-bent on reaching the same destination. What is next for Sam, Niamh and Callum?

Things are set to change fast in Eye of the Storm.  Sam and Callum discover that someone (Amelia Earhart’s grandson as it happens) has been developing flying machines in the alternate world.  Callum instantly starts thinking this might offer them a way home, whilst Sam’s mum and her band of rebels are more set on stopping the raptors from gaining the power that flight brings.  Sam and Callum are therefore set to take part in a ‘Mission Impossible’ style kidnapping at the start of book two.  As for Niamh, well she manages to slip through the fingers of the police and goes back on the run… will she find a way to catch up with the boys?  I’m not saying.  What I will say is there is plenty of action ahead for all of them.

Dark Parallel meets Devils Triangle

Wow – what fascinating answers. I could have chatted all day long with Mark, but we kept having to sign our books and meet readers!

Hope you’ve enjoyed that as much as I did! If you still haven’t read my own interview by Mark, hop over to Trapped By Monsters, or Mark Robson’s blog – where you can find out more about Mark Robson and his books.

A Pied Piper leads Kennington villagers in protest at library cuts

Update on the Pied Piper March in support of the Kennington Library (see Save the Libraries – Kennington (Part 1 of 2))

I received a lovely letter from the organiser, Paddy Landau, as well as a CD of photos from the day. The event was a huge success! Councillor Keith Mitchell turned up to the tea party with the children and heard Korky Paul and I reading to the children of St Swithun’s Primary School. he then received baskets of petitions and posters from the children. In his address Keith outlined a number of options open to the council to make the savings required of them by the Coalition Govt.

The Pied Piper March was covered by local news, radio and TV. And here’s the GOOD NEWS! It seems to have worked – the plans to cut 20 of 43 libraries will be entirely rethought.

County tears up library closure plan

Funnily enough, Councillor Mitchell didn’t mention cutting salaries of highly paid council executives…of which I should stress that Councillor Mitchell is not one – he is an elected official. But there are people in Oxfordshire County Council who are paid top salaries to plan, for example, exciting new road schemes. Not to implement those plans – that would be people far down on the ladder.

Call me old-fashioned but I think that when your household runs out of cash you stop paying the architect to dream up that enormous extension and concentrate ONLY on repairs until there is money in the bank again…

That’s my tip for saving the libraries, anyway. Cut some salaries – just a bit! However, I suspect the extra revenue might be raised bythe return of Sunday and 24-hour parking charges, and the resumption of the speed cameras…

Katherine and I are interviewed by two teenage readers, Libby and Patrick Caffrey, who have been following both Katherine’s TROLL FELL and my Joshua Files series.

You can read the interview with me over at Katherine’s blog, Seven Miles of Steel Thistles.

Katherine and I have decided to swap blogs for the day. So here on mgharris.net it is all about Katherine and WEST OF THE MOON.

WEST OF THE MOON  – an abridged version of the TROLL FELL trilogy – is the kind of book that will have you wishing that you were a teenager again so that you could read it at the most humdinging age, hunting around for a teenager to give it to and then snuggling down to enjoy it all by yourself, the wretched teen can get her own book…

Katherine writes beautifully, perfectly pitched simplicity with just occasional, delicious use of unusual words that settle the reader right into the world of Norse mythology. The story opens when Peer, a twelve-year old boy is whisked away from his friends and neighbours after his father’s death. He’s taken to live with two evil uncles who are in league with trolls to steal children. Yet what could easily become a bloodthirsty tale of child abduction becomes an atmospheric, brooding and charming tale of a fishing village in the craggy north where trolls and humans try their best to get along, with occasional misunderstandings. There is darkness and cruelty in Troll Fell – but it comes from the lonely shapeshifter Granny Greenteeth and bullying Uncles Baldur and Grim.

It’s a heroic tale of family, young love and the bravery of two kids – Peer and Hilde, who eventually travel to the fabled lands ‘West of the Moon’ for their biggest challenge. And kept me thoroughly entertained these past few nights while I’ve been in Switzerland!

Katherine studied English at university, got a job, got married, had children and went to live in France and then in America. She began visiting libraries and schools, telling stories aloud. This turned out to be excellent practice for being an author! She moved back to England and began writing the stories that turned into the Troll Trilogy, ‘Troll Fell‘, ‘Troll Mill‘ – and ‘Troll Blood‘ (HarperCollins) which was recommended in the ‘Top 160 Books for Boys’ compiled by the School Library Association.

Katherine’s latest book Dark Angels (US title is The Shadow Hunt) has been  nominated for the American Library Association’s Best Fiction for Young Adults 2011.

FOUR BIG QUESTIONS FOR KATHERINE LANGRISH (by Libby and Patrick Caffrey)

1          How do your editors affect your work and have you always worked with the same editor?

What an interesting question!  Readers often assume an author simply writes the book and has it published in exactly the same form, not realising the role editors play in the process.  And as you might guess, the role of an editor varies from author to author and from book to book.

Some authors like their editors to be hands-on, involved from the outset, talking through plot, structure and even characters.  This can work especially well if the author is a planner, someone who likes to know where they’re headed well in advance.

Me, I’m the other sort.  I’m a kind of secretive hermit.  I try to tell people as little as possible about what I’m writing, and this includes my editors, who have to be very patient and restrained!  I usually spend a lot of time before I even begin, just privately thinking and mulling over my characters, getting to know them and their world.  Once I really know who they are, plus their surroundings and situation, I set off with them, usually with only the vaguest idea where we’re all heading.  That way, I stay interested.  (A friend once described this to me as ‘weaving my parachute on the way down’, but for me it seems to work!)  Only when the book is finished does my editor get to see it.  I re-draft as I go, so by the time I’ve got to the end, I’m usually fairly happy with it, and happy to show it.

At this point, my editor (and I’ve had several by now, so no, not always the same one) will read the manuscript.  She will come back to me with her overall impression (hopefully good!), and with some more detailed suggestions, perhaps for cutting passages here and there to improve the pace, or asking me to look again at whether a certain chapter works, or perhaps strengthening a character or two.  Often she’s 100% right; sometimes I don’t agree and we argue it back and forth a little: but her input is essential.  If there’s one rule in fiction, it’s that you can afford to cut out a lot more than you think!  So I really appreciate my editors, who, to a woman, have been professional, tactful, intuitive, and as keen as myself to make the book as good as it can possibly be.

2          The Troll Fell trilogy has a lot to do with folklore – is this something you were brought up with as a child or did you have to research it while writing?  If so, where did you find information from?

The answer is, a bit of both.  Yes, I grew up reading fairytales, and was always interested in folklore and legends.  They creep into stories even for quite little children more often than you’d think.  One of the earliest books I remember reading all by myself was ‘The Tale of Mrs Tiggywinkle’ by Beatrix Potter.  If you think about that story for a moment – it’s about a little girl, Lucie, who runs off up the mountain called Cat Bells in the Lake District, trying to find her pocket handkerchief (her quest).  She finds a door in the hillside, goes in, and meets Mrs Tiggywinkle who is obviously a hedgehog – we can see that from the picture! – but who is also a kind of fairy laundress.  While there is nothing threatening about the story (or is there?  Those prickles poking out of Mrs Tiggywinkle’s gown are a bit unsettling), Beatrix Potter is clearly bringing together all sorts of folklore here: stories about children who run away or are taken away to fairyland, the underground elfland under the hill – and who may not always return safely…  And behind the comfortable figure of the fairy laundress is the more dangerous one of the Washer at the Ford, the banshee, the fairy laundress who washes the bloodstained clothes of those who will die in battle.  I can’t pretend I was aware of all those echoes when I read the book at the age of five or six, but I was certainly aware of a sort of mysterious depth to the story.  And that was why I loved it.

But going back to my own books, for ‘Troll Blood’, the third part of ‘West of the Moon’, I needed to do a great deal of research into the folklore of a Native American people, the Mi’kmaq of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. I spent many, many weeks in Oxford’s Bodleian Library, reading ancient copies of journals like The American Anthropologist and the Journal of American Folklore. Often these included direct translations of stories told by named individuals to the person who wrote them down – and therefore authentic.  And I avoided like the plague volumes with generically vague titles like ‘Legends of the North American Indians’, which almost never provide sources, and sometimes don’t even say from which tribe or nation the story is supposed to come.   (If you think how big North America is, you can see that talking about ‘Indian legends’ is about as useful as putting Greek and Scandinavian mythology together and labelling them ‘European legends’.)

3          You just released ‘West of the Moon’, the abridged version of the Troll Fell trilogy – how did you decide which parts to leave out and why did you feel the need to abridge it?

Actually I believe that ‘West of the Moon’ is greater than the sum of its parts… I wouldn’t so much call it an ‘abridged’ edition, as a ‘revised’ one.  ‘Abridged’ always suggests to me something rather lopped and truncated, and I did not want that to happen!  No episodes or characters have been cut.  What I did get rid of was a lot of unnecessary repetition, especially in the first third of the book, ‘Troll Fell’, which was, in places, a little wordy!  To me, this new version is tighter and runs more smoothly as one three-part story.  I hope readers will agree!

I was also able to lose all those bits you have to put in to a sequel, so that readers who don’t know the first book will be able to understand what’s going on. You know what I mean, the bits that go something like ‘But Harry was no ordinary boy! Ever since the extraordinary events of his twelfth birthday, when an invitation to become a pupil at Hogwarts’ School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was delivered to him by owl post at the house he shared with his horrible relatives, the Dursleys…’

4          Hardback, paperback or Kindle – and why?

Oh, ideally all of them.  First of all, a hardback book is just such a lovely, durable thing.  There are hardcover books I owned as a child, which are sitting on my bookshelves right now in perfectly good condition and have been read by my own children, and will still be there in twenty years time to be read by my grandchildren, should I ever have any.  And I believe the next generation will still be reading real books, too – alongside Kindles, or whatever will have replaced Kindles by then.

Because real books are so handy – especially paperbacks.  They are relatively cheap to produce and buy and pass along – and it doesn’t matter too much if you drop them in the bath, or get sand in the pages, or leave them on the floor to be stepped on or chewed by the dog, or out in the garden overnight to be rained on…

All of my books are available on Kindle as well as in traditional formats.  But I haven’t got a Kindle of my own yet, though I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.  It will be useful if I go on holiday (cutting down on the pounds of book-weight I normally cart about with me). But I will have to be careful with it.  I must NOT leave it lying around on the floor, or out on the patio catching dew. I must not balance it on the edge of the bath while I lie back up to my ears in the nice hot water.  Perhaps owning a Kindle will improve my character and make me a better, tidier person… and perhaps not.

THANK YOU TO KATHERINE FOR VISITING MGHARRIS.NET ON THE WEST OF THE MOON BLOG TOUR!

You can follow Katherine’s blog tour tomorrow down at Scribble City Central.

On top of the Eggli. No skis.

As I tell kids when I visit schools, the Eggli mountain near the Swiss town of Gstaad is where I broke my leg skiing, the ‘lucky break’ which gave me the time and mental space to start my writing career.

I hadn’t been back – until today! Visiting my brother Michael and his family, I joined them at the top of the mountain. In fact I’m writing this post whilst sitting on a deck chair, facing the sun and a gorgeous view of gleaming snowy mountains. In fact…is that a tinge of tanning I can feel on my face?

Michael has given me his iPod with his playlist of Ed Reardon’s Week. Essential listening for writers, I’m assured. It’s probably because I insisted that we check to see if the airport WHSmith’s had my books. All authors torture themselves like this. Luckily I left happy – they had ZERO MOMENT.

My tiny, three year old nephew and niece are schussing around the piste as if the skis were extensions of their legs.

I’m in the middle of a bunch of author visits – last week with kids from St Edmund’s in Hindhead, Bampton Primary, Cheney School Oxford, and St Bartholomews, Newbury. Next week – College du Leman in Geneva. Photos and a big round-up to follow.

Coming soon: On March 10th Children’s author Katherine Langrish and I swap blogs for the day! Two teenage readers, Libby and Patrick Caffrey have read West of the Moon, a new abridged version of Katherine’s Troll Fell trilogy, and also The Joshua Files. They’ve put together some questions for Katherine and I – we’ll be answering on 10^th March. It’s all part of Katherine’s West of the Moon blog tour.

I’ve been reading WEST OF THE MOON and telling a very simplified version to my three-year old niece and nephew. Trolls stealing young children, evil Uncles Baldur and Grim, it’s going down a storm! I overheard my nephew playing a game later which featured Uncle Baldur as the villain…

Ah. The shiny shiny snow beckons. Maybe I should take a little walk around the top of the mountain.

MG at Kennington Literary Festival (photo by Mostly Books)

It’s all over the Internet and the news – to save money, local governments plan to close down some libraries. In Oxfordshire, 20 of 43 local libraries are threatened with closure. The communities are protesting, demonstrating, writing letters. This is the moment to persuade the county councils to change their minds!

I’m involved with the Save the Kennington Library Campaign. I’ve written before about this lovely village library and the Kennington Free Literary Festival that the community organises to support their library.

Local primary school children who use the Kennington Library have written letters to Cllr Keith Mitchell, who leads the Oxfordshire County Council. The Save the Library campaigners have written to Cllr Mitchell and to local MP, Nicola Blackwood, inviting them both to tea with the kids on February 7th, and to receive the letters of petition.

I’ll be joining with Korky Paul, an Oxford neighbour and illustrator of many wonderful children’s books (including Winnie the Witch), to read to the Kennington children.

Local media have also been invited to record the event. We’re very much hoping that Cllr Mitchell will turn up!

Here’s an excerpt of a letter I wrote to both.

The Government proposes to radically overhaul education, which I support. In that instance, it isn’t proposing to close schools and let natural selection take over! Libraries deserve the same, albeit on a smaller scale.

Please – consult with stakeholders, ask for proposals and bring in examples of best practice.

So…roll on February 7th…! I will post a report from the event, right here on the blog.

UPDATE: To see how it all turned out, see Save the Libraries – Kennington (Part 2 of 2)

The Joshua Files - Dark Parallel proofs

I know, the New Year ’round-up’ should refer to the previous year. But I’m exhausted just thinking about it. In general, I’m starting the year tired. “Why do we have New Year?” my Teenage Daughter asked me. “How is it a ‘new beginning’? If you commit a crime on Dec 31st 2010, you’d still be punished in 2011.”

So it is with seasonal illness. If you spend the Christmas/New Year period suffering repeated attacks from viruses and secondary sinus infections, you start the year exhausted.

Lots happened last year and mostly very good, luckily for me. But with a diary that is getting packed out, I’d rather look ahead. So here are my forward-looking highlights of 2011.

1. My sister’s wedding. Little Sister is getting married in Melbourne, Australia, giving me a lovely excuse to visit.
2. First ever visit to school in Europe (outside of UK). Looking forward to meeting the students of College Leman in Geneva!
3. Publication of Joshua Files book 4 – DARK PARALLEL. The photo shows the stack I’ll be sending off today to winners of the New year’s prize draw and to some book bloggers who have expressed special enthusiam for Joshua.
4. A decision about After Joshua, What Next? If you follow this blog you may have heard me refer to Ultra Secret New Project. Well, New Editor has now read the manuscript and given me some pointers about how to improve it. So it won’t be much longer before I find out… (AL Kennedy saved me the bother of writing about what it’s like waiting for an editorial report over Christmas in her blog post Waiting for book ‘go’… Basically – what she said.)
5. Teenage Daughter’s UCAS application is in. Will there be offers? Will she get the grades? Is this the year when my Firstborn Leaves Home?
6. My first London Book Fair. Big trade fairs make me dizzy, as I learned when running an IT business. Without a stand to focus on or a conference speech to make, I get terribly baffled and have to go and lie down. So I’d foresworn never to attend a Book Fair unless invited as a speaker. I’ll be talking alongside Francesca Simon (author of Horrid Henry) about school libraries, in an event run by the School Libraries Association.
7. Book deals! My fingers are tightly crossed for two ridiculously talented friends of mine from very long ago. Sarah Hilary (crime writer) and Christian David (author of a rollicking historical biography-fiction) are both writers who secured literary agents last year. They are now working on edits prior to the big submission process – to editors! I won’t be happy until they are recognized for the huge literary talents that they are.

It’s a particularly lovely set of events. No lurking gremlins as yet. However, I find it easier not to look too far into the future. The plots of my own stories almost always involve calamity striking the minute everything seems to have gone calm. Not that I enjoy such a rollercoaster in my own life. I try to make lemonade when served lemons. Nevertheless, it gets increasingly tiring, all that lemonade-making. That’s what they don’t tell you about getting older. Yes, you get wiser and more experienced, so lots of things are easier. But your energy levels diminish.

No wonder people turn to magic beans and nutrional supplements and exotic exercise regimes. If only all it took was Berocca.

However, I am still aching pleasantly from the weights I did at the gym a few days ago. I will change nothing! Maybe lose a little weight to look good in the Diane Von Furstenberg dresses.

Happy New Year!

If you haven’t seen it yet – here’s the draw for the advance review copies of DARK PARALLEL. Once again I’m assisted by Matt Barnard from Summertown Starbucks.

It’s a memorial to the man he worked with for twenty years, good as: Vincent John McKeown, an incredible project that deserves wide support: a fund to help disabled people and their carers to enjoy the arts.

Christian is telling stories inspired by Vincent’s life, which ended abruptly last year after a long struggle with multiple sclerosis. Christian has spent most of life since graduating as a carer for the disabled, whilst also producing an amazing variety of artistic works (novels, plays, musicals, poems, as well as literary underground art/poetry/pop magazine, The Illustrated Ape.)

The web comic (gorgeously illustrated by Charles Cutting) is a series that begins with Vincent eschewing the afterlife (upstairs it’s Sunday every day and there’s a lot of Kum-bye-ahh; downstairs it’s always Monday morning and full of venial misery, as well as horned-ones in suits). Instead, Vincent chooses another, purely poetic route…

Vincent was a poet and a lecturer before the MS made work impossible. Christian used to accompany Vincent to as many arts events as possible. (They became experts on all the churches of Oxford too…) But it often took effort – try using the London Underground if you’re disabled…

So now the idea is to raise money so that other disabled people and carers can enjoy something that they don’t get as much chance to do as they might like. You can give money via the website to help for transport, or donate tickets. (Hint – putting on a show? Know any theatre producers? Tell them about The Vincent Fund!)