It means there’s a twist in the competition; a twist that I’m only telling you guys here on mgharris.net

Firstly though - the competition. I announced this over on themgharris.com - you can read the full story there.

The basics are - you have to take the deciphered message of the code in INVISIBLE CITY and discover the single word that Josh has buried within the text. The code was a replacement code that over one hundred readers correctly deciphered. But what most people haven’t known until now is that there’s a second code.

And what I haven’t told anyone else yet - is that this word is a Very Important Clue in the Alternate Reality Game (ARG) that we’ll be launching along with ICE SHOCK.

So even if you don’t win the bound proof of ICE SHOCK - you can still crack the clue and be ready for the ARG.

One more thing - the method that you need to use to decipher this clue is also used by Josh in ICE SHOCK to crack a very cryptic message about his destiny…

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.

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.

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…

Finally, the bound proofs are here. I’m saving one for the auction of promises at my daughter’s school and the others are being passed around some eager friends and family.

Might also give one away as a prize for a competition here and on themgharris.com

But what should the competition be…? Send in your suggestions.

What would YOU do for a Klondike bar bound proof?

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.

Back from Australia and it was straight down the A34 to Chichester for a reunion from Mia and Joss, the two kids who appeared with me on BBC Radio 4’s go4it.

Becky, (Mia and Joss’s mum) runs Just Write for Kids, a children’s weekend writing club. Cool, huh? What a terrific idea.

About fifty budding young authors aged 6-14 packed into a cute little nursery school to talk Joshua Files with me. I hope I didn’t come across too dazed after the lengthy plane flights of the day before!

Brother-in-law Paul reckons it’s too cold to swim without a wettie. But Our Kid is tall and strong and lives in the mountains! Nothing can put him off!

Ah, mes braves, so much to tell about my visit to Western Australia, I don’t think I’ll have time.

Bullet point summary then:

• My sister’s new baby is awesome. I couldn’t get enough of holding him. 8-week old babies are delicious. They just lie in your arms looking up at you with their gorgeous little eyes.
• My sister’s whole family is awesome. When two very good looking people marry and produce children you get beautiful kids, but my nephews and niece are also clever, funny and adorable. I say this entirely without bias.
• Claremont is terrific. They know things about baking there that have long been forgotten in this country. The coffee shops of Claremont (and prob Australia in general) are several notches above what we are allowed in the UK. I still have fond memories of the passion fruit muffin I ate the last day I was there. With whipped cream on the side, and not the spray kind!
• The Indian Ocean looks fab but it’s devilish cold down in Perth, where Antarctic currents wash up on the beaches. It took me a whole hour to pick up the courage to swim at Meelpup Beach, despite the dazzling soft white sand and crystalline, turquoise water. Waters are sharky, too…Great Whites and tiger sharks munch on Western Australians all too often.
• Talked to almost 400 students at local Claremont schools. Great fun and some wonderful questions. Including one (of a long series of intelligent queries) from a Year 9 (= to UK Yr 10) at John XIII College.
  “Has becoming a writer changed you as a person?”
  Hmm, very perceptive to imagine that it might. The answer is a resounding yes. As I told the Year 9s at JTC, I used to spend precious little time on inner contemplation, the opposite, in fact. As a scientist and an entrepreneur I was quite sniffy at all the industries around self-help; NLP, psychotherapy for the mentally healthy, basically anything that encourages you to look into your inner self. Even now I’m uncomfortable with those things. An inner voice objects with the cry “Stop finding yourself so damn interesting!”
  But as a writer I’ve been forced to spend hours and hours mining my feelings and emotions and memories for material. Yuck! I had hoped I could write entirely without recourse to any of that. But I’m not clever enough to write intellectually dense yet emotionally spartan material. I’ve become rather contemplative. It’s all a bit embarrassing.
• A new friend, Daniel confirmed a long-held suspicion of mine; over a plate of slow-roasted, aged organic beef and a glass of decent Cab Sav, he told me that men fall properly in love only once. “Your first girlfriend kills you,” he said.
  In ZERO MOMENT I am currently enjoying tormenting poor Joshua’s tender young heart. Since I’m a girl I can only guess at what teenage boys go through. (Well I observe, remember and then guess.) Daniel’s comment was timely confirmation.

I encourage all my male readers to backup - or deny Daniel’s assertion. Does your first girlfriend spoil you for all those who follow?

My good pal Sarah tagged me. This is how it works: Display the award. Link back to the person who gave you this award. Nominate at least 7 other blogs. Put links to those blogs on your blog. Leave a message on the blogs of the people you’ve nominated. You can only answer in one word.
1. Where is your cell phone? Bedside.
2. Where is your significant other? Downstairs.
3. Your hair color? Brown.
4. Your mother? Dead.
5. Your father? Dead.
6. Your favourite thing? Stories.
7. Your dream last night? Weird.
8. Your dream/goal? Achieved.
9. The room you’re in? Bedroom.
10. Your hobby? Salsa.
11. Your fear? Illness.
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Here.
13. Where were you last night? Singapore.
14. What you’re not? Athletic.
15. One of your wish-list items? Office.
16. Where you grew up? Manchester.
17. The last thing you did? Slept.
18. What are you wearing? PJs.
19. Your TV? Old.
20. Your pet? Rattish.
21. Your computer? Red.
22. Your mood? Eager.
23. Missing someone? Always.
24. Your car? Beetle.
25. Something you’re not wearing? Underwear.
26. Favourite store? Borders.
27. Your summer? Productive.
28. Love someone? Madly.
29. Your favorite color? Red.
30. When is the last time you laughed? Now.
31. Last time you cried? Ages.

I tag MaryD, Susie, Frank, Moanie Miss Groanie, Rich, Solvey and Esruel. But you don’t have to play. There’s no gypsy curse, if that’s what you’re thinking.

Good Old Rotters (actually it should be ‘Rotto’ - the preferred Aussie form)

Originally uploaded by mgharris

Well here I am at Rottnest Island, formerly a prison colony now converted into an eco-island playground for Western Australians.

I brought my daughter and her cousins to enjoy the gorgeous unspoiled beaches and crystal clear pools of (chilly!) water.

As for me, it may be the last chance to enjoy the sun before returning to an autumnal UK…

Ah, Rotto. Just as good as my brother-in-law used to tell, back when we shared tissue-culture room cleaning duty, in my younger days working in the lab.
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