Category: writing

And writers

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agents getting published Joshua Files

I’ve seen it and it’s brill…

The Joshua Files - Invisible City
Do people still say ‘brill’? Probably showing my age. It’s standard, okay? It’s safe.

Yesterday I met at the Scholastic offices with Agent Cox and Editor Elv to discuss Exciting Top-Secret-For-Now New Online Strategy To Promote “The Joshua Files”. Yes indeed, not content with breaking new ground with the most innovative book cover you’ll see all year, Scholastic’s whizz MD Elaine McQuade has decided to promote this series title online in a Whole New Way. Agent Cox and I are in on the whole idea, which will take readers of the book into a whole new dimension of the world of “The Joshua Files”.

At the start of the meeting, Editor Elv surprised us both by producing a shiny new advance copy of “The Joshua Files – Invisible City” (the only one so far, it was the one sent for final approval by the publishers).

I snapped a photo of the book with some of the doughnuts we were using to fuel the meeting (which was about developing online content so we had doughnuts and coffee like the ‘net geeks we aspire to be).

Here’s a video of Agent Cox and Elv looking at the book…

(If you have a Facebook account you can see the video here.)

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mgharris websites

MGHarris.net is developing

Hello to all you people who have been registering as users of this site…

 I’m working on this at the moment, as you can tell. I’m new to WordPress and not sure I’ll stick with it. Having to get quite geeky again, using FTP software and stuff. The results will hopefully be worth it; if not I’m going to stick with Blogger.

Meanwhile thanks for your interest and I hope soon to be able to actually command this web publishing software. It is non-trivial, whatever people tell you. Point and click and drag and drop it ain’t.

Meanwhile, I have been watching Armstrong and Miller via Youtube, on the recommendation of a good pal.

I love the RAF pilot sketches, right? They’re just like my teenage daughter and her friends, yeh? Who related a whole conversation to me yesterday, yeh, and she was just like, “so he was just like…and I was just like….and he was just like…and I was just like…”

And I was just like…do you know any other ways to say ‘said’, isn’t it?

Except I didn’t actually say that. Cos that would have been, like, harsh.

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Joshua Files writing

Extras by BlackBerry

I believe I have already mentioned my adddiction to my BlackBerry Pearl. Not since the luscious Palm Vx have I been so taken by a gadget. The iPhone looks very pretty but it will take a while to convince me to part with my CrackBerry.

Meeting a group of independent, London-based booksellers last week I realise that the anecdote which they seemed to enjoy most during the after-dinner conversation was the one which followed a throaway comment of mine about how most of the ‘extras’ in the book ‘Invisible City’ had in fact been written abroad and on a BlackBerry. By sheer coincidence I kept receiving emails from the desk editor at Scholastic asking for urgent additions to the book, and was always away from home at the time.

For example: the text of the integral code which readers can track throughout the book, solve and win an iPod, was written late one evening in a bar in a hotel in Nimes, France. Not because I was drinking, but I needed peace and quiet and the hotel was very quiet at night.

For example: the Q&As (if they include them) were received very early in the morning whilst we were on the isolated, corally beach near Tulum, Mexico. I had jet lag and there was no internet access in the hotel so wound up typing out the whole reply on the BlackBerry, under the bedcovers whilst the rest of my family slept. Then I went out and finished it as the sun was coming up.

What would I do without my BlackBerry? I would miss deadlines, that’s what.

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Joshua Files writing

Sneak a peek at ‘Invisible City’

Almost-final version of “The Joshua Files: Invisible City”, snapped by BlackBerry during a visit to the Scholastic offices…

Heck, I’m pretty sure it’s okay to let you see this now. After all there’s an image on Amazon.co.uk now, and when the lovely people at Scholastic videoed a promotional clip of me talking about the book, they had a whole bunch of the book mockups in the background.

I can’t take any credit for this amazing package so I don’t feel AT ALL bashful about praising it.

Itssosososocool!!!!!

See how it glows at the edges? See how there’s lots of lovely edges? See how you slip the book right into a splashproof jacket so that you can take the book to the pool, to the beach? See how the actual cover (under the dayglo-orange plastic) is mostly white, black and orange?

I dreamed of having a book design that was minimalist, graphic and mainly white and black but I didn’t even dream of asking for that, cos I assumed they’d say – “A kids’ book? White? It’d get grubby…and hey that’s a bit dull…”

I want one. I can’t wait to see what they look like when lots of them are stacked up, that orange glow reinforced in every copy.

How much would you pay for a book like this? Would you pay £6.99?

Sold! (In fact you can get it quite a bit cheaper, I found one online retailer selling it at less than a fiver. No, I’m not saying where!)

Never let anyone say I’m not a huckster for my books. Buy one! Buy them for your sons and daughters and nephews and nieces.

Go on, make me happy. Pre-order, why don’t you?

Forgive the giddiness. I’m still happy about finishing my latest manuscript. I just asked my husband to nip out to buy a box of chocolates to eat while watching TV. Tomorrow we’ll celebrate properly with un daiquiri en La Floridita.

(It’s not counting my chickens. Milestone celebrations are important, esp for scientists and writers who can work on one thing for years. If you’ve finished a ms recently, good onyer. It’s no small achievement, for anyone.)

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jaguar's realm other books writing

Finished ‘Jaguar’s Realm’…


Jibacoa Beach at Night
Originally uploaded by heyjohngreen

Well, the first draft at least…typed the final sentence.

The polishing comes next but compared to the original act of writing, that’s easy.

The final scene is set on Jibacoa beach, east of Havana, at sundown as our hero struggles for his last chance to escape…

And that’s all I’m going to say about ‘Jaguar’s Realm’ for quite a while. It’s taken over a year to write, what with one thing and another. I feel quite drained now, actually. Need a good break to get the creative juices going again.

Now to read the ms aloud to my teenage daughter and see if it’s hitting all the right buttons. (I can’t recommend this enough for polishing a ms. You get an immediate audience reaction, and when something doesn’t work you get that puzzled look…Huhhhh?)