Book signings and Christmas fairs... and sheep

It's that time of year again, and dates for Christmas fairs are filling up, mostly in November and into December, I probably should get back into sheep production to save a last minute rush - last year I seemed to spend every night in November knitting extra sheep to keep up with demand, and this year I have a few other hand made items in mind...

Sheep on the loose... this is what happens when Downboy the sheepdog isn't around

Everyone has a book inside them...?

They say that everyone has a book inside them, but not everyone has the passion to cultivate that book and release it into printed form...

Ideas and inspiration spring up at the most unexpected times, but not every flash of inspiration has enough momentum to become a book. That's why I don't write down everything that pops into my head - if it's meant to be it's going to stick around anyway - some characters simply won't go away, so they're not going to be forgotten just because I didn't make a note of them the first time they popped up...

Some characters will have so much to say for themselves that they become a series of books - yes I have such a character, Iver NO-Idea sprang up as if from nowhere when I was reading an article about how to write - now I'm not sure that anyone can tell you how to write. You can be taught the rules of grammar and the structure of a story, but the fun really starts when you start playing with the rules, and just let your imagination run riot...

Doodle Mayhem was born out of the idea that you shouldn't let a character take control and do their own thing - whoever thought up that rule certainly hadn't met Iver No-Idea, born out of a simple doodle drawn by Eric in class, when he couldn't think of what to write... the character really took off when he started to talk to Eric, and he literally got his voice...

Buy now

 First in the Doodle series

Eric would rather doodle than write a story, but when the words start to disappear off the page in front of him, and his doodle starts talking to him, he thinks he must be dreaming.

Eric's doodle has come to life, and he's getting bored; he jumps into Miranda's story, where he gets attacked by a rubber, then he's blown off his feet when Natasha sneezes. Miss Roper is getting angrier by the second. How will Eric ever finish his story, when his doodle just wants to have fun, and create havoc?

Step into a world where drawings come alive, meet Eric's doodles Iver No-Idea and his dog HB as they cause their own brand of trouble.

46 page paperback

Black & white line drawings

ISBN 978-0-9560232-4-7

Website escapee

Welcome to my homepage - actually this piece is an escapee from my homepage - for some reason people can find my blog but not my website. So for those who haven't found my little cyber Bookshop - this is a piece of what you're missing - that and the books of course...

My little piece of cyberspace that's just for me and my books - and some sheep... oh and a few cats.

My equivalent to a business meeting is to sit on the garden seat with a cup of coffee and a few cats. There's my usual two, Captain and Steve who always come out with me and distract me into playing with a ping pong ball, and dangle bits of grass, and even a dressage whip - which they all like to chase.

So that's where the cats came into the stories, but what about the sheep...? Well they just bubbled up from somewhere in my imagination and had to be released... makes me wonder what else is lurking in there waiting to come to the surface... 

The sheep took on a knitted form last Christmas when I wanted a new fun element to add to my table at book signings, well I couldn't take the cats - that would cause a bit more fun than anyone could handle...

Monsters in kids' book...

My very first book bares the title The Monster Under The Bed, and is rarely passed by at book signings without some comment...

Everyone it seems has some sort of monster under their bed, be it noisy plumbing or just a shadow that becomes something more with the addition of a little imagination...  but my point is that it brings a smile of recognition to most adult faces, even if they ultimately don't buy the book, for fear of setting up a fear of monsters in their children, or fueling one that is already there..

But surely the fact that they smile as they remember their particular monster, shows that children actually enjoy the idea of monsters, as long as they feel safe throughout. A story about a monster can be quite exciting, and of course we're talking about children's stories here, so we know it's all going to OK in the end. So let's not deny the next generation their fare share of exciting books, with monsters to overcome...

And on that note, my next book has a definite monster theme too... no apologies - kids love it!