New Book I Wish It Were Raining Available!

Finally, the day is here! My latest picture book, I Wish It Were Raining, is avialable to buy! 

With 16 double-page illustrations, this is my most ambitious effort to date. To say I'm a little drained after the effort put in to this one would be an understatement. 

I wrote the first draft of this simple rhyming story several years ago, and it stayed in a folder of other "stuff" for a while. A few months ago I decided to dust it off, make some improvements and contemplated seeking an established publisher. Certainly, I'd rather work with a publisher (and an agent, if there's one interested!), so, I'm not really an indie publisher by choice. 

However, I really enjoyed doing the artwork for Strawberry Scoreberries last year, so I decided to give the illustrating another go. Publishers prefer to work with their own illustrators (unless you're an established writer/illustrator), so I knew it would have to go the indie route again. I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with the illustrations and the book overall. 

So, you now know the title, what is it all about? Well, here's the sales pitch. "Sun, wind, snow, rain - What weather do you wish for, and what would you do? Maybe it's splashing in puddles all day or flying a kite as it soars like a bird in the windiest of winds. As the stars twinkle at the end of a busy day playing outside, every child looks forward to the biggest goodnight hug before bedtime. I Wish It Were Raining is written in a playful rhyme with weather-inspired scenes to spark a child's imagination." Oh, and like my other books to date, there are a few puzzles at the back.

  Here's the promotional video for you to (hopefully) enjoy!
Buy I Wish It Were Raining.

Seasons Greetings... in September?

 Er, yeah. Probably.⛄

Just wanted to drop a quick post to say a certain echinoderm will be making his return to paperback format very soon, in time for y'all to order before Christmas. 

So, where's he been? Well, I took the decision to put him on (or should that be off?) the shelf for a while - mainly because I'm a mad perfectionist and everything has to be "just right". After too long mulling over this I finally decided to reissue the echinoderm's debut story. It may take me a few days/weeks to sort but it'll be soon be available on a certain on-line retailer.

Keep your eyes on this blog where you'll here the news first!

A couple more books on the way

 So, here's the news. A couple of my stories will be included in two flash fiction compilation books that are coming out soon. I'll post more information about these books as soon as I know more.

What else? Well, there's more in the pipeline, but I'm keeping a lid on other projects at the moment. 

But, to cheer you all up I've just added a new children's rhyme called Verbal Diarrhoea. This one has been gathering dust for a  few years. I hadn't even typed it up, which is daft because I think it is one of my favourites. But then, I do suffer from typing diarrhoea........

Tritely Challenged Volume 2 Book Launch!

I have to say, Christopher Fielden's writing challenges are good fun and excellent writing exercises for aspiring writers. I say that not just because Chris has a gun jammed against my temple, but because it's true.

I've taken part in a few of these challenges (you can find links to the challenges here) and I have really enjoyed coming up with limited-word stories to meet the challenge criteria, and I think it has helped my writing too.

27th June 2020 sees the launch of Tritely Challenged volume 2, which includes a short story by yours truly entitled "Time Flies When The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Grease".

The idea of this writing challenge was to add as many clichés in to a short story with a maximum of 150 words. Not very easy, especially as writers try to avoid clichés! Given the concise nature of the stories they are well written, cleverly put composed and some are quite humorous too.

 The book is crammed-full of 100 bite-sized stories - as book clichés goes, it is something to really sink your teeth in to! As they say, You can't judge this book by its cover, but as I'm in the book then I judge it to be worthy of your pounds and pennies. Oh, and money from the sales go to charity too.

 If you fancy giving one of Chris' challenges a go, head over to his website. Here's a link to the Cliché challenge page, where you can find out more about Tritely Challenged Volume 2!


 

Wow - an update!

Wow - It's been a while since I posted to this archive of old stories and poems.

I had a few minutes to spar and managed to unearth a couple of old poems:-
AA:BB - Unity (nah, I'm not a fan of the title either!)
Funny Farm

I've got a few more stories and poems to stick up, it's just a case of finding them! I think there's a few floppy disks missing around my house with a wad of stories in various stages of development. Amongst these disks was my one and only attempt at a novel. I have a paper copy, but I really want to find the disks but haven't got a clue as to where they are.
To be honest, I don't think I would put that story on here anyway (in case I ever have a year to spare to put it right), but there are definitely stories knocking around that I would put on her for your reading pleasure.

At the moment I'm not writing anything new, though there's is a young kids book containing a special undersea character that I may polish up for submission, if I can ever get a few minutes away from the redevelopment of the NorfolkPlaces website.