Archive for the ‘youtube’ Category

Posted on December 20, 2009 - by MG

Meet Inlight!

The Oxford-based indie/anthemy band INLIGHT have been making an advent calendar for their fans. Videos, interviews, Christmas recipes, scurrilous gossip and impromptu recordings to amuse you day by day. It’s kept me entertained on the few days this month that I’ve actually managed to get near my computer!

Here’s their acoustic version of Icarus, which features on the new Joshua Files series trailer.

 Inlight’s frontman Charlie also moonlights for the IT support/networking company that I co-founded back in 1997. We’re having the company Christmas party tomorrow (Monday), a formal affair with tuxedos and fine wines.  I’ll be checking in with the guys…

Meanwhile foreign editions of Joshua continue to be posted into my house, *glee*. I have now assigned all my advance copies of ZERO MOMENT, with a extra copy for surprise ONE runner-up in the Christmas 2009 ZERO MOMENT competition.

Oh and according to a Vietnamese blog article, Invisible City is on the Top 10 Bestseller List there! Can it be true?

Posted on December 7, 2009 - by MG

I am a sad YouTube addict

Well it’s true. And the YouTube is doing something to my brain.

I had a chat with a really smart guy the other day, at a party, I was only a tiny bit tipsy from the rum and coke and we were kind of shouting above the music, but even so, this young graduate student, a very clever guy  (yeah man, you know who you are if you’re reading this), was holding forth about Aztec Codices and books that had been written about them, and the disgrace, the understandable yet upsetting disgrace of the fact that the ancient knowledge of Mexico now mainly resides outside of Mexico.

Well, I felt the gaps in my knowledge, I did. I know a bit about Mayan stuff, not much really, but I have neglected the Aztecs. I felt I should go away right then and read about them.

But instead, I spent my free time on YouTube. You’ll be glad I did. I’ve compiled a little playlist of some of my favourite funny stuff, not too long. If you’re a keen YouTuber you’ll have seen these before.

Diary stuff…in case you aren’t a FaceBook friend or linked to me via Twitter http://www.twitter.com/mgharris).

I joined with some fellow children’s authors to compete against kids from Yrs 7&8 in the 2009 Kids Lit Quiz. The teams I was on were beaten in the London and Oxford rounds. At least the team from Wheatley Park School who beat us in Oxford went on to win the UK National finals!

I met with my agent to discuss the first 10,000 words of Quite Secret New Project but then had to change the agenda for our meeting at the last minute because a New And Possibly Ace Idea occurred to me and I didn’t want to break my concentration. It takes a lot to nurture a new idea to a certain stage.

What will I write next? Not Joshua 5 – I need to do something different in between or it’s three Joshua books in a row, which isn’t the best way for me to write. I like to refresh the palate with something different in between!

The next few weeks will be decisive.

Posted on September 18, 2009 - by MG

New Joshua Files series trailer

It’s been three weeks since my last blog post…and I haven’t been up to much on Twitter either. (Well am I ever?)

However, I have been hard at work putting together two new video trailers for Joshua – a series trailer and a trailer for Joshua 3 – ZERO MOMENT. (And a new Joshua-related website, more on that in another post…)

Here it is. Hope you enjoy it. (if you do, please rate highly!) The ZERO MOMENT trailer will follow next week. If you are a member of the Official Joshua Files Facebook Group you can view both videos now.

Posted on May 29, 2009 - by MG

MG – highlights from Hay-on-Wye 2009

Spent the latter half of this week at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival, the UK’s biggest celebration of books.

Highlights:

1. Lovely as ever to meet readers young and old, and to interest new people to the world of Joshua. I had to rush the signing slightly because pretty much everyone wanted to see Anthony Horowitz next. One day I will do a signings in a leisurely way and chat to everyone…

2. Saw terrific author events with Robert Muchamore (funny and frank), Anthony Horowitz (funny and hyper), and Andy Stanton (funny and MAD. 6-9 year olds go crazy for Andy and his books!). Andy is a former standup comedian and described by the Guardian as ‘one of the best performers on the children’s literary circuit’. (I’d agree)

It made me wonder if I should attempt to be funny but yanno what? No. I’m a girl, not a blokey boy like those three guys. Hard for girls to be funny unless you have way more energy than me. So you’ll be getting the laconic archaeology lecture for a bit longer until I can get away with telling childhood anecdotes.

I have already lined up the anecdotes, will save that for another post. First will search for photographic evidence, muahaha.

3. Andy Stanton and I hung out at the Kind of Blue jazz concert. Jimmy Cobb, former drummer with Miles Davis, played on that hugely influential album and now leads a very tight band of tenor sax, alto sax, trumpet, bass and piano. Oh man. Imagine hearing that music…then seeing Jimmy at breakfast at the Swan Hotel in hay next morning! I mentioned to him that Kind of Blue is an important reference for Josh in ‘Joshua Files’. ‘Very interesting’ nodded Jimmy. ‘Write the name of the book down so I can find it…’.

Yeah. Cool, huh?

4. Also chatted with Julia Eccleshare and her charming son George. Good luck with the exams, George. Hope you make those 3 As!

5. Ate much cake and wine with the fab Sir Philip of Ardagh, who agonised about leaving the party atmosphere at Hay for the genteel spa-town charms of Cheltenham. ‘I want to stay here and hang with my homies’ he complained.

6. Philip, Andy and Anthony are soon to be our little daughter’s new favourite authors. I don’t believe a child should live on Roald Dahl and nothing else. Weaning started tonight, with Anthony’s ‘The Switch’.

7. Mr Horowitz gave me a discarded page from his first draft of the new Alex Rider, signed over to my niece and nephew in Oz who LOOOOVE him. I gave Anthony an Invisible City postcard. Anthony swiftly moved to deciphering the code without a single key word!

Code crackers, watch and learn…

Posted on April 22, 2009 - by MG

Glad to be back

How to adjust to being back from what may well be the best holiday of my life…? Yes – it was perfect. And so was the company of my sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephews.

Cos sometimes it can be a right downer, getting back to the everyday disorder of life. And I live with people who have decided to torture me on a daily basis with their flagrant disregard for my OCD. Everywhere I look in my house I see things which make me sad.

I do have a choice, obviously – I can give up all notion of doing anything else with my life other than cleaning and tidying after my children. Or I can try to ignore it by writing stories.

(Btw you wouldn’t know I have OCD-levels of tidiness tendencies to look at my house, you’d think ‘what a family of slobs.’)

That’s why I don’t invite people to my house. (A Stygian stables of housework or stories. Can’t manage both.)

Luckily I have a job I totally love – I write children’s books and I’ve just started a new one. A few nice literary festivals coming up – Stratford, Hay-on-Wye, West End Festival in Glasgow.

Joshua 3 (ZERO MOMENT) to revise. Joshua 4 (title under wraps) to write. I met Editor Polly for coffee and cake in Oxford yesterday. We chatted about what needs doing on ZERO MOMENT and then I told her The Entire Plot Of Joshua 4.

That’s right. Someone apart from me now knows what is going to happen in the next two Joshua books.

Ahhh but. I know that some of you are watching this blog for any hints of what is going to happen. Well there’s a lot I won’t reveal because it’s part of the Puzzly Twisty Mysterious side of the story. But maybe I can let spill that the Sweet Lurve side of the story is going to develop over the next two books. And mostly it will be agony for Josh. I’ve been listening to a lot of songs about boys in love with girls they can’t have. heh heh.

Frank (German translator of Joshua) says I am ‘evil’. Or was it ‘cruel’? It’s true. I am. But what am I gonna do? Unrequited love is the only romantic kind.

Been watching lots of YouTube too. Seinfeld, salsa dancing. I hear there’s a bigscreen version of this where the shows go on for ages! Must investigate.

Here’s a YouTube clip of cute Northerner, Anthony Hill, a student who is also a singer-songwriter. Does a lovely line in covers of other songs too. Sings while playing guitar, sitting on his bed.

This is his version of Scouting for Girls ‘She’s So Lovely’. All about a guy in love with a girl – who has a boyfriend. “She’s so lovely…” he sings and wonders, “I don’t know how we’ll make it through this…”

Yep. That’s Josh in the next two books. *evil laff* Can you guess who the girl is?

If you enjoy this, be sure to watch some of Anthony’s own songs. My new favourite is Ode to Sangria.