Figaro, Radio and Steampunko!

By Allan | Friday, 2 July 2010 at 11:21
Category: Writing | Tags: , ,

Well, can I start off by wishing all my American friends an early Happy 4th of July! Have a really great day, all of you, no matter what you do to celebrate. Hey – what do people in America actually do on the 4th July? I’d really like to know.

I do have a few things to tell you. Last week Claudia and I went to see the Mozart Opera “The Marriage of Figaro” at the Royal Opera House. The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, is one of the most prestigious cultural venues in the world, so its really something to actually go there. Its an amazing place. We had “champagne tickets” – Claudia bought them for me for my birthday. They were excellent tickets and we had seats in the stalls, in row G, right near the front.  Some people dressed up for the event in tuxedos and evening gowns (despite the fact that it started at 6pm and it was broad daylight out there!). But other people turned up in jeans and t-shirts. We were somewhere in between and we arrived early and had a couple of glasses of champagne while we watched the other people arriving. Claudia used to work in the fashion industry, so she spent the time making really funny remarks about the curious and bizarre clothes some of the people were wearing. (I know – not very kind to make fun – but we did it very quietly, so they didn’t know!) It was a really marvellous performance – the scenery was excellent and all the singers were world-class! I had a really great time – even though Mozart is not my all-time favourite Opera composer. My favourite is Richard Wagner, and my favourite Operas are his Ring Trilogy, which are based on old Norse Legends and are full of goblins and dragons and giants and Norse gods and magic swords and excellent fantasy stuff like that.

Another thing that has happened recently is that an American radio show host has asked me if I’d like to take part in an hour-long interview on his show – which includes dial-in questions from fans. I’ve agreed to do this – and I hope that some of you might be up for calling in and asking me questions. Does that seem like a good idea? The show isn ‘t till later in the year, and I’ll of course give you more details closer to the time, but I thought you might like to know that you could have the opportunity to actually talk to me. Anyone interested in doing that?

Next, I have been approached by the editor of a “steampunk” book anthology, asking if I would be willing to write a story for a new book of short stories all based in a steampunk world and all kind of fantasy/romances. I said yes, because I already have a short story idea that would fit really well. For those of you who have never heard of steampunk, it’s set mostly in a kind of Victorian world, only with inventions that never really existed – like computers, and steam powered submarines and airships – a bit like the League of Extraordinary Gentleman movie, if you have ever seen that. I thought it would be fun to write something like that! I need to submit the story by October this year – and as with the radio show, I’ll give you a better idea of it all nearer to the publication date.

We are also only two weeks away from the UK publication of the first Sundered Lands book. Gary Chalk and I have been working hard on the website and it’s almost ready to go live. I’ll give you more details soon, and I hope you’ll check it out and let me know what you think. I still don’t have a date for US publication of this series, but as soon as I do…well…you know the rest.

So? What else? We’re having a bit of a heatwave over in the south east of England right now, which makes a change. Siouxsie doesn’t like it too hot and right now she’s sprawled on the carpet down by my left side and – oh! No, she’s just got up and she’s clambered into “her” office chair which is set up alongside mine. Claudia is asleep at the moment and everything is quiet, which is good because I have a big pile of stuff in my in-tray that I need to do.

The fourth Warrior Princess book is with the American Publishers now and it has a provisional title: The Bright Blade. This may change, though.

Bye for now.

Holidays – and How to Survive Them

By Allan | Wednesday, 23 June 2010 at 07:13
Category: Writing

We’ve been on holiday. Well, when I say “been”, I don’t mean we actually went anywhere – but Claudia took a couple of weeks off work and I cleared my desk of things to do and Claudia’s parents flew in from Germany to stay with us for two weeks of sun and fun and lounging in the garden and eating and drinking way too much.

So far, so good. By the way, the reason we didn’t go away was that we don’t like to leave Siouxsie alone. Now this may sound crazy to some of you, but Siouxsie our 18 year old cat is used to having people around most of the time, and we think she would get really distressed to be left on her own while we went away on holiday – so we stay home.

Well, long story short, Claudia’s Mom got ill – in fact she got so ill, that we had to call an ambulance at 4 in the morning and have her taken to hospital. A major fly in the ointment is that Claudia’s parents don’t speak very much English (Claudia’s German, in case you don’t remember or didn’t know) so Claudia had to translate between her Mom and the doctors in the hospital.

Anyway, Claudia’s Mom recovered quite quickly and within two days she was well enough to be discharged from the hospital – but while Claudia was driving her Mom back here, the cat got ill! The poor thing was howling and running around and hiding in corners and it was very distressing. Claudia couldn’t believe it when she got home at 9 in the evening with her Mom and I told her about Siouxsie.

I went online and found an all night emergency vet not too far away, and we bundled Siouxsie into her basket and drove off. Siouxsie, by the way, really hates travelling, and howls all the way – plus she was in pain so there were double howlings! The vet gave her some pain killers and anti-biotics and we went home. Siouxsie fell asleep on the bed and Claudia fell asleep on the couch – until 4 in the morning, when Siouxsie started howling again. We got back in the car and went back to the emergency vet for more pain killers.

That gave us until 8.45 am when we were able to visit our normal vet. Siouxsie was given a good examination – and she was very quiet and good – apparently the pain killer included morphine, she she was pretty much spaced-out after two shots and her eyes were like dinner-plates. The vet said she most likely had a form of cystitis and that we should carry on with the antibiotics.

Good news is that Siouxsie is much better now, in fact she’s just settling down for an early morning sleep on the old office armchair next to me right now as I type. The other good news – and proof that Fate can work in strange ways to do good things – is that the doctors in the hospital here in London have finally diagnosed what has been wrong with Claudia’sMom for some time, and which the German doctors missed! So we’re all hopeful that she will make a full recovery.

And finally, Claudia phoned her partner in the company where she’s Office Manager and told him the sorry tale of her “holiday” and he agreed to cover for her for a few days more – so she’s not going back to work till Thursday night!

So, that was our summer vacation. I do have a lot of stuff to tell you, but it’s 7 in the morning now and Claudia has just woken up and asked me what I’m doing up working so early, so I guess I’ll sign off for now and get back to you soon with news of a Radio Broadcast I’m booked to do later in the year, as well as the fact that the first advance copies of Sundered Lands book one have arrived at my place and someone has asked me whether I’d like to write a short story for a fantasy/romance anthology. Oh, and probably a couple of other things, too.

Meanwhile, I’m off to make some coffee for Claudia and to mash up the last of Siouxsie’s antibiotic pills into some chocolate milkshake – that cat loves chocolate milkshake!

I hope your Summer Vacations turn out to be more relaxing than mine! But for the next week or so I’m going to laze around watching the Tennis at Wimbledon on TV.

Write A Children’s Book And Other Stories

By Allan | Saturday, 5 June 2010 at 08:38
Category: Writing

Hello there.

Sorry I haven’t blogged recently – all kinds of stuff going on!

I have a new iMac computer now. A lot of it is quite different to my slow old PC, so it’s taking me a while to figure everything out – and next week I’m going up town for a one-to-one training session, which should help. My wife Claudia is finding it trickier because she really understands how PC computers work, so she has a lot of stuff to unlearn and relearn. Which I don’t – because I NEVER knew how the old computer worked and I’d be forever yelling “Claudia! The computer’s broken again!” and she’d come in and say, “No, it isn’t, get out of the way!” and five minutes later it would all be fixed. Claudia is the perfect proof of how great being married can be! Oh, and she was out last night with a pal of hers for a midnight performance of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (oops – I think I should have called it “The Scottish Play” to ward off bad luck…or is that just for actors…?). She saw it at the rebuilt Globe Theatre (It’s an exact replica of the Shakespeare Theatre that was on the same site in the 16th Century but burned down a long long time ago.) She got home about 3:22 in the morning. I woke up for no reason two minutes before she opened the door – I think I’m getting like a cat where Claudia is concerned – I know when she’s coming home. Anyway, before she collapsed into bed, she said it was a fantastic performance. I’ll find out more when she wakes up, I hope.

What I actually set up this blog to tell you is that I have a new book out. It actually came out two days ago – but before you start wondering what book this could possibly be – it’s a non-fiction rewrite of a book I first wrote with a colleague of mine way back in 1994 – it’s called WRITE A CHILDREN’S BOOK AND GET IT PUBLISHED – and its part of the “Teach Yourself” range of books. You can check it out by going to www.teachyourself.com. Now, over the past months, since I set my website up, I’ve had plenty of people asking me for writing tips, or advice on how to get started writing, or how to turn an idea into a proper story. Well, for any of you interested in that kind of thing, this is a good book for you to read. (Modesty prevents me from telling you its the best one out there – but I do think it gives a lot of insights into the whole business of writing for children – up to and including what we call in the UK Young Adult (teenagers, to you) – and also explains the kinds of pitfalls and problems you will encounter as a new writer trying to get your work published.)

If you are interested in this book, I’d recommend you buy (or borrow) the 2010 update – the older versions that you might find on Amazon etc are pretty badly out of date now. Believe it or not, when we wrote the first version, we had to explain what the internet was! (“Some people even write on computers these days – and there is this new invention out there called the world wide web, which is full of useful information.”) Yes, just sixteen years ago, most people had to have the internet explained to them, it’s true.

What else? Oh, I’ve finished the rewrites of Warrior Princess 4 (very few – they really liked it) – and it is now about to wing its way over the Atlantic to be looked at by the American editors in New York.

Oh, and we finally got the DVD of Alice In Wonderland – and watched it – and totally loved it. As some of you may already know, I am a total Alice in Wonderland freak – I have the two books (wonderland and Through The Looking-Glass) as hardback copies, I have them unabridged on talking books, I have a radio play of it, I have an Alice in Wonderland chess set, I have pictures on the walls, and I have ornaments of the Mad Hatter, White Rabbit and Alice as well as a bass-relief of the Mad Tea Party. And I also have five versions of different Alice in Wonderland movies on DVD, going all the way back to 1933! Although the Tim Burton version tells a different story than the original books, I thought it was great. Okay, I’m done talking about Alice now – in fact, I’ve kept you reading now for long enough, I think, so I shall disappear now…bit…by…bit…until only…my…grin…is……left….

Warrior Princess and Other Things

By Allan | Tuesday, 20 April 2010 at 09:30
Category: Writing | Tags: ,

Those of you who have been paying particular attention may know that for the past two and a half months, I have  been scribbling…well, typing…away at Warrior Princess Four. Well, last Friday I wrote “The End” at the end and sent it off to my UK editors with a sigh of relief.

Those of you who pay even closer attention will also know that this is far from “The End” in real life! This is what’s called the “first draft” of the book. It is now going to be read by two colleagues of mine – a really smart guy called James, with whom I occasionally go out for an evening of wine and conversation, and a rather charming woman named Clare, who actually lives in New York and who I have only spoken to via the phone – on conference calls, which are a bit odd, if you have never done such a thing.

They are now going to read the book and come back to me in a few weeks time with their thoughts, suggestions and comments about how it could be improved. (For anyone reading this, who doesn’t already know, this is all fine and perfectly normal. Every book ever published in the whole world always goes through this editing process).

I will then take a look at their suggestions, change the things where I agree with them, and write back with things I don’t think want changing, explaining why. One of the good things about this process is that it makes me think about why I have written certain things – are they really as good as they could be? Have I really explained things properly? Do I need that scene at all? Could I make this piece of action a bit more swift and involving? Etc etc.

Then, I will send the “new improved” typescript (now called the “2nd draft”) off to them, and they will forward it to the American Publishers in New York – who will also read it and make sugestions etc, before sending it back to me again. I will do the same lot of things again to try and fit in with what the American Publishers think the American readers would want – then it gets sent back. Providing everyone is happy, the book will then go off to be copy edited – meaning the grammar and punctuation etc will be checked. Once that has been read and approved by everyone – the book goes to typesetting and printing. Phew! Oh, and somewhere along the route, it will get a title!

Anyway – despite the problems with the Icelandic Volcano and the clouds of volcanic ash floating over Europe, my friend and collaborator Gary Chalk is coming over from France to visit tomorrow for a few days. We’re going to be working on the Sundered Lands website, so that should be fun.

Oh – and if you haven’t already done so – check out the new Fan Forum on http://faerieroom.proboards.com – it looks really good and lots of fans are already getting involved with it.

Well, that’s about it for now. The garden is beginning to look good, what with the spring and everything. We got out all the solar lights over the weekend and now every evening the garden is full of twinkling lights! Ahh! Cute! Claudia is off to Germany in a week or so to visit her folks over there, and I’ve promised to decorate the living room while she’s gone. Then I have to clean the decking and the patio – and by then, Warrior Princess should be back for me to get busy with. A writer’s work is never done! Bye for now.

Blog? What Blog?

By Allan | Tuesday, 23 March 2010 at 09:11
Category: Writing | Tags: ,

This isn’t really a blog…this is just a blog to apologize for not blogging new blogs for a while – and to explain that I’ll be blogging again in a few weeks.
Thing is I’m up to my ears in Warrior Princess book 4 (No title as yet!) – I’m about 50,000 words in and it’s taking up most of my attention and energy right now. I should be finished with the first draft in about 3 weeks, though, after which, as most of you will know by now, it will go to the English editors for thoughts, suggestions and and comments.
It’s been a bit tricky to concentrate, as my friend and collaborator, the illustrator Gary Chalk came to visit a couple of weeks ago to discuss new ideas and to go to some meetings up town. I’ll let you know about the new ideas if and when they turn into something that will get published – meanwhile we’re just showing them around to publishers and keeping our fingers crossed. Oh, and we had some publicity photos taken – I’ll post one or two of them here when I get a moment. It’s about time you knew what I look like these days, rather than how I looked five or so years ago! (Grayer, mostly!)
There’s been a bit of bad news for German fans of The Faerie Path series – it’s called Elfennacht in Germany. The publishers have decided only to publish the first four books – the last two won’t be translated into German and published over there. As you can imagine, this will leave German fans rather up in the air – the series for them will end with the last scene of The Immortal Realm. A lot of Germans speak English these days, so I’m hoping that many of my fans over there will be able to pick up the books in English and follow the story that way. Shame, though! In case you’re wondering, it is because the sales of the books in Germany haven’t been great. So, you can see now what I’ve been telling you for a while – getting more books published is all down to good sales. And it will be the same in America – for sure there will only be a 7th book if sales of the first 6 are high enough for the publishers to think it is worth it.
Word of mouth from fans, online blogging and publicity, and all the MySpace and You Tube attention the series can get will help. Speaking of that, check out the following two YouTube videos:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj3GxfQKc9o
which has pix of actors who could play the parts of various characters,
and www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIyyJCkNT9M – which has a great little trailer of a possible movie if it was made in Bollywood!
The Publishers have also been in touch to tell me that they want me to sign two books for that Winter Escape promo thing they did in February.
Anything else? Well, I’m still working on getting a Gallery on this site and a Fan Forum – more news on that towards the end of April, I hope.
Okay, that’s it for this non-Blog Blog.
I’ll be in touch when there’s more news.
Meanwhile: keep spreading the word, people!
bye for now
Allan

Cirque du Soliel

By Allan | Monday, 15 February 2010 at 14:32
Category: Writing

Last Saturday evening Claudia and I celebrated Valentine’s Eve by going to see VAREKAI by the Cirque du Soliel.
If you have never heard of the Cirque du Soliel, let me tell you it is totally amazing and well worth checking out if they come to a town or city near you!
It’s a two hour show, full of tumblers and acrobats and high-wire acts and jugglers and all that kind of thing – and the costumes are so colourful the world outside looks like it’s in black and white for a while after you leave. The music is also wonderful and the performance is stunningly good.
I was watching it and thinking – this is EXACTLY the kind of entertainment I’d have at a Royal Wedding in Faerie! If ever a movie were made of the Faerie Path series, I’d want the Cirque du Soliel to perform in the Great Hall in the Royal Palace. If you’d like to get an idea of what they’re like, google Varekai Cirque du Soliel -and you’ll find some websites to look at.
Totally brilliant!
Oh, and for Valentine’s Day itself, we had champagne and red roses delivered! Romantic, or what?

Fan Mail

By Allan | Saturday, 13 February 2010 at 09:43
Category: Writing | Tags:

this blog is aimed in particular at Kristal Patton – but also at anyone else who writes to me and doesn’t get a reply.
Thanks Krystal for taking the time to write to me and tell me how much you like the Faerie Path series. I did try to send you a reply to your mail, but my server rejected your email address and wouldn’t send it.
I just want to say here that I try to reply to all the mail I get from fans, and that if you don’t get a response, it means either the mail never got to me or I was unable to send one back.
I start the day reading fan mail and I always read everything I am sent – your mails mean a lot to me and I don’t want anyone who reads and enjoys my books to think I don’t care about you. I do!
Oh, and while I’m here – Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

Faerie Path Winter Escapes Promotion

By Allan | Friday, 5 February 2010 at 13:00
Category: Writing | Tags:

Hi there! Some of you may have noticed mention of a special promotion that the publishers of The Faerie Path series are working on right now.

They have given me the following URL, so you might like to check it out:

http://bit.ly/bHNTQx

Also, there’s more stuff on: http://seaofpages.blogspot.com

The seaofpages blog suggests that the book being given as a prize will be a signed copy – but I’m not sure that’s correct – Harper Collins the publishers certainly haven’t asked me to sign any for them. Anyway – if any of you guys win the book, get in touch with me by sending a message from the Contact page, and I’ll arrange for you to send me the book for signing.

Latest News

By Allan | Thursday, 4 February 2010 at 12:24
Category: Fan Club, Writing | Tags: , ,

Wow – February already! For the time being all the snow we’ve been getting in England has gone away – and we were getting plenty! Up to 16 inches in the Counties around London. I’ve had to trek to the bottom of the garden to break the ice from off the bird-baths, but apart from that, I’ve learned that working from home can be really great when there is four inches of snow outside!

I have been working on the suggestions for The Charmed Return (Faerie Path book 6) that came to me from the American editors, and the manuscript is back with them again at the moment. I think the book is not due out till January 2011 – which must seem like entire lifetimes away! The thing is, publishers like to have a “finished” book in their hands 12 months before they publish – I’m not really sure why, but it is partly to do with advance publicicty and print-runs and stuff like that. Hopefully, in a few months, I should get a cover I can show you and then some sneak-peeks like I did with The Enchanted Quest.

I have the green light for starting to write Warrior Princess 4 now – so I’m going to be getting down to that from next week. It should take me till about mid-April, so if I’m slow at answering your mails or posting new blogs over the next eight or nine weeks, I apologize in advance.

As the eagle-eyed among you may have noticed, I have a couple of new “Coming soon” books on the Home Page – and I’ve added some new information about Warrior Princess Book 3 (The Emerald Flame) and also more about The Sundered Lands series.

My information at the moment is that The Emerald Flame will be out in October this year. I’m intending to post some sneak-peek stuff for this in the same way I did for book 2 – but it will be a few months before that starts happening.

Some of you will have noticed that Marisa’s Fan Site is down at the moment. I’m hoping this will be sorted out quickly, but for the time being there’s not really anything I can do about it. Sorry.

On the other hand, I have been speaking with a friend of mine – the one who helped me to set up this AllanFrewinJones site in the first place, with the plan of adding a “Picture Gallery” page here. I can post some photos and drawings and paintings of mine here, as well as letting you see alternate books covers for other countries. And I’m also thinking that maybe I could post pictures that you guys create – I think it would be fun to see how you imagine the characters and places in Faerie look. Does that seem like a good idea?

Also, I’m considering adding a “Fan-Fiction” page, which might work a little like the Fan Site – letting you chat among yourselves and post your stories online for other people to read.Thing is, that kind of site really needs a moderator – someone who will regularly check what’s being posted and weed out spam mails and anything else that shouldn’t have gotten in there. I’m not sure I’ll have time to do that, but I’ll have a think about it and let you know what’s what in a little while.

A lot of you guys are asking about the possibility of a Faerie Path book 7.

Here’s the thing: originally I was asked to write three books. These books sold well enough for the publisher to come back to me and ask for three more. So, in answer to fans who are clamouring for book 7, 8, 9 etc – it’s really out of my hands right now. If the word is spreading about The Faerie Path series, and plenty of people are buying the books, then there’s a good chance that the publishers will want more. I know that some of you are already out there spreading the word – and the more you do this, the more likely it is that there will be a 7th and an 8th book.

Amy Havre posted a comment a few days ago, asking for good ideas about how to spread the word. So – why not let us all know your thoughts on this. If you’ve already started telling people, tell us what you’ve done, and also post some ideas about what you think might work. You know the kind of thing: airships flying over New York with BUY THE FAERIE PATH BOOKS! written on the side. That kind of thing! Over to you!

The Enchanted Quest: Publication Day!

By Allan | Monday, 25 January 2010 at 11:55
Category: Writing | Tags: ,

Well, it’s finally happened – book 5 of the Faerie Path trilogy (???) should now be in the stores in its hardback form. (I also think book 4: The Immortal Realm is due out in paperback at the same time).

I received a couple of copies of the book last week, and for the first time, I was able to sit down and read it through without needing to – or being able to – change anything.

One of the things that drives an author a little bit crazy on the first read-through of a newly published book, is when they spot things that could have been better – and it’s too late to change them!!!

These are usually only small things – descriptions that I think I could have written better – dialogue that could have been tweaked a bit to improve it, etc – but after a whole year of tweaking and polishing, it’s too late now. It’s now up to you guys to let me know whether you like the book – whether I’ve done a good job with it or not.

I hope you’ll get back to me about The Enchanted Quest – but can I ask one favour, please? If you want to say something specific about the plot -could you write to me via the contact page? I’d really like to avoid posting any plot spoilers online right now – at least for a few months.

On other subjects, I’ve just heard back from the American publishers about my storylines for Warrior Princess book 4 – and the good news for me is that they like the way the book is going! They had a few thoughts and suggestions, but on the whole, I’ve been given the green light to get writing. So, that’s my work sorted for the next two and a half months – writing Warrior Princess 4. It doesn’t have a title yet, but I’m sure one will pop up at some point!

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