Category: ice shock

Categories
ice shock mgharris websites

Help me to decide what to blog pre-ICE SHOCK

Check out the poll on the right-hand sidebar – you can help me decide what to poll in the run-up to the publication of ICE SHOCK (March 2nd).

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.

Categories
ice shock mgharris websites

Intriguing announcement at the new-and-improved MGHarris.net


A screenshot of the ICE SHOCK video, which plays a part in a Secret New Thing for “Joshua Files”.

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.

Categories
ice shock mgharris websites

mgharris.net is getting a makeover!

 

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…

Bye bye, old theme!

Categories
ice shock

Bound proofs of ICE SHOCK are here…

ice-shock-proof.JPG

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?

Categories
ice shock writing zero moment

Completion Anxiety Provokes Muffin Humour

muffin-ms.JPG

I’ve been all the way through the desk editor’s comments on the proofs of ICE SHOCK. The ms is covered with handwritten new bits and changes. I only have ten very minor points to address from the proof reader.

Then it’s type up my list of page changes and down to the post office with it.

Meanwhile, the last chapter of Joshua 3 (current title ZERO MOMENT) is planned, a quarter-written and waiting to be finished.

I could do both things today. So why can’t I even get started?

Completion anxiety. (Hey, it’s a real thing…)

I’m not normally a big procrastinator but as I hurtle towards the finish line, time and again, mentally, the brakes scream into action and I slam to a halt.

Today, instead of working, I want to do something else. For example, spend the day thinking about muffin based-humour. (Hey, it’s a real thing.)

Here are my favourite bits of muffin-based humour.

1. The Muffin-Top episode of Seinfeld.

2. Ross Noble, standup comedian, talks about finding human faces in muffin tops.

3. Bob Kelso and the muffin (Scrubs)

Later today I’ll put a photo of my Starbucks muffin on this post. I’ll try to get one with a face.

“Now there IS a face. Next muffin.”