Hi all,
I’ve been quiet recently and there’s a good reason for that! I’ve been working like fury on the outline and first draft of a new book. I can’t say much at the moment, but I can tell you a really weird story about what happened while I was planning it. I wonder if anything strange like this has ever happened to you? Anyway. Long before I knew anything else, I knew this story would feature a mountain. And, one night, as I was drifting off to sleep, I came up with the perfect character name. As far as I was concerned I’d invented it. But in the morning I looked it up, and not only did the name exist, but the name also means… mountain.
Spooky!
Besides writing (and having strange experiences with character names) there’s been other stuff bubbling away too. Here’s a brief rundown of what’s been happening:
Nevertell made it onto the shortlist for Stockton Children’s Book of the Year 2021, and we were finally able to hold a (virtual) awards ceremony in June 2021, thanks to the efforts of some amazing and dedicated people. It was an honour to be part of such a fantastic literary event that’s been running for over 21 years!
I had a natter to Vince Stevenson on his ‘Boomers on Books’ YouTube channel all about how I got started writing, how it’s going, and everything in between - you can check it out here.
For Shakespeare Week 2021 I joined a number of people - from CBeebies’ Ben Cajee to Nikki Lilly - in thinking up a creative response to the line: ‘To thine own self be true.’ The idea was to inspire children to come up with their own creative responses as part of a competition and just for fun - be it a collage, a poem, or (as one competition winner created) a cake! You can read and admire all the fantastic winning competition entries right here.
That’s all I’ve got for now, but you’ll hear from me again soon. Take care!