http://www.darrenshan.com/ News from the Official Darren Shan Site en darren@darrenshan.com Copyright 2012 2012-02-03T19:29:48+00:00 http://www.darrenshan.com/news/article/never-let-the-bullies-win/ http://www.darrenshan.com/news/article/never-let-the-bullies-win/ I received the following email from a librarian in Wyoming today:   Our school is currently considered junior high school grades 7-9, but next year we will have only grades 7-8.  We are currently going through the process of defending your book Lord Loss to allow it to stay on our library shelves.  A parent picked up the book and looked at the cover, read the back, and immediately decided that it "promoted inappropriate values" and was not "school appropriate".  The parent filled out a form requesting that the book be removed from all our school libraries in the district.  He feels the age group for this book is "18+ out of educational system"; however, all of your books are widely enjoyed by our school population.  The first step is a meeting with the parent, principal, and librarian.  That meeting has taken place and the parent is still forging ahead with his challenge.  He questions the judgment of the librarians to have the book in the library, and he questions the reviewers summaries. Furthermore, he questions who determines you being labeled as a young adult author.  The next step in our process is to again have the parent, librarian, and principal in a meeting, but to also include a second parent and English teacher to the committee.  I am asking if you have any resources I may print out to take to our next meeting. Also, if you have anything else that you think would help support us in keeping your book on our shelves please send it to me. Thank you so much for your time and efforts.   I sent the librarian some of the many hugely supportive emails that I have been sent over the years by parents, teachers and children, all of whom considered my books not only appropriate but beneficial. I hope that helps get this disruptive parent's objections overruled, not because I want to see my books stay on the shelves, but because people like this should never be given their own way. This guy is a bully, trying to force his view upon others, to make everyone toe a line of his drawing. I've no problem with parents deciding my books are not suitable for their children -- in fact I wish that more parents would spend more time keeping in touch with their child's reading habits, guiding and encourage and, where they deem necessary, censoring. But how dare someone try to decide what is suitable for other people's children?!? That's insulting and insensitive. Unfortunately, bigots like this often shout loudly and hammer away at the system, knowing that although librarians very rarely crumble, principals and local governors sometimes do. We need to fight them at every step, never let them ban a book, never let them set OUR reading agenda, never let them drag us down to their level of happy ignorance. This librarian is fighting the good fight, and if any of you ever find yourself in a similar position (whether as a parent, teacher, librarian or student) I hope that you will fight the good fight too, stand up for what you believe in, and not just slink away and let the bullies enjoy another win. No country can ever be a "land of the free" if small-minded thugs are allowed to chip away at our freedoms and force their views on the young of the community. Blog 2012-02-03T19:29:48+00:00 http://www.darrenshan.com/news/article/my-celebrity-stalker/ http://www.darrenshan.com/news/article/my-celebrity-stalker/ Help!! I'm being stalked by Jacqueline Wilson!!! She seems to follow me everywhere I go, to the theatre, underground on the Tube... is there to be no escape for poor, unfortunate Darren Shan?!?!?     Heh heh, but seriously, our paths HAVE bizarrely crossed over the last couple of weeks. First, Bas and I were waiting for a Tube train one day, on our way back from a day touring Hampstead, where we hadn't been before. As a train came to stop, I spotted a familiar face in the carriage that we were getting onto -- Jacqueline Wilson. I know Jacqui quite well, having met her a few times over the years, especially when I was in Dubai a couple of years ago and got to spend a lot of time with her. We had a short chat on the train, and both laughed at the extraordinary coincidence of meeting in such a fashion. We're both going to the Duabi Literary Festival again this year, so when we said goodbye, we said we'd catch up in more detail then.   Nuh-uh!! Just over a week later, I went to see "Matilda" with Bas. During the interval, I went to wait for Bas in the downstairs bar while she was looking at merchandise. When she came to meet me, she hadn't bought anything -- but she HAD managed to pick up Jacqueline Wilson!!! Yes, Jacqui was there for the show too, and the pair had bumped into each other in the corridor, even though it was teeming with hundreds of other people!   I had meant to post a blog about coincidence after our first meeting, but never got around to it. Having crossed paths with her again, I could put it off no longer! Writers often get criticised if they include big coincidences in their novels. It's something we often have to do, in order to move a plot forward, but critics don't like it. "Too convenient," they tut. "As if!" they exclaim. But the truth is, real life is far more coincidental than even the most outlandish of books. In a city of several million people, I just happen to board the same carriage on the same train on the same line at the same time on the same day as Jacqueline Wilson?!? We then both just happen to book tickets for the same performance of the same show on the same day a mere week later?!?   If that had happened in a novel, readers would be saying "No way!!" But, in real life, it most definitely was way!!! It frustrates me sometimes, when I'm writing, and trying not to include too many big coincidences. I know that in real life you can get away with anything, because just about anything can and does happen. But in books we have to behave more unrealistically in order to appear realistic! After my run-ins with Jacqui, maybe I'll throw caution to the wind in future and throw in the same sorts of twists to my books that I experience in real life. The trouble is, if I did, nobody would believe me!!! There's an old saying, that life mirrors art, but let me tell you, it's doesn't -- life is far weirder and more unbelievably twisted than art can ever be!!!!   Now, I'll have to stop at that point. Somebody's knocking on my door. I think it might be Jacqueline Wilson... Blog 2012-01-13T18:06:17+00:00 http://www.darrenshan.com/news/article/some-of-my-favourite-things...-in-2011/ http://www.darrenshan.com/news/article/some-of-my-favourite-things...-in-2011/ Although I included a quick round-up of work-related highlights from 2011 in the January issue of the Shanville Monthly, I didn't talk about any of my cultural highlights of the year. So here they are! First up, naturally, must be books! I read over 20 books last year (at my peak, many years ago, I used to read 100 a year, but these days, with all the writing and editing I do, I'm happy enough if I break the 20 mark). I enjoyed the last coupld od Steig Larsson books a lot, as well as Stephen King's time-travelleing 11.22.63. But my favourite book of the year was actually a really old one -- Crime And Punishment. I read Notes from the Underground a long time ago and didn't like it, so I'd steered clear of the Russian classics over the years. But I read War And Peace a while back and loved it, so I thought I'd give C&P a try as well, and I thought this one was great too. Yes, it's a long, demanding read, but it's far more accessible than I thought it would be, and a real page-turning -- I'd often plan to stop at the end of a chapter, then have to read on to find out what happened next! You can see every book that I've read since my teens, along with my mark for it, over on Goodreads by clicking here. I didn't read as many comics and graphic novels in 2011 as I meant to. One which I did, and which impressed me far more than I thought it would, was Alice in Sunderland by Bryan Talbot. I didn't think a book about the history of Sunderland would appeal to me much. I was wrong! I saw lots of really good films in 2011, such as The Fighter, How Much Does Your Building Weight Mr Foster? (a fascinating insight into the world of one of our leading architects), We Need To Talk About Kevin (one of the most chilling films I've ever seen), Garage and The Secret of Kells (two strangely sweet, idiosyncractic Irish movies), Midnight In Paris (a delightful return to top form by Woody Allen), Gates of Heaven (an old documentary about pet cemeteries), Waste Land (another doc, this time about a Brazilian landfill site and the people who work there), Black Swan and Up (it actually might have been 2010 when I saw those -- I'm not sure!).  But the standout film for me was The Secret In Their Eyes, a twisting, fascinating thriller that excited and stimulated me like no film has in a long time. You can find my marks for all the films I watch over on IMDB by clicking here. On the TV front, I've been catching up with several shows over the last twelve months (I'm usually quite far behind when it comes to TV shows). I'm loving House and The Wire. Dr Who is still loads of fun. I thought the short-lived and deliciously demented Psychoville series was criminally under-appreciated. The Frozen Planet was stunning, while Downton Abbey was enjoyably high-class tosh (really enjoyed the first season, but felt it's got overly melodramatic since then,) The new episode of Sherlock was great, stylish fun. But the show I most enjoyed was the second series of The Kingdom, a crazy show about a hospital made by Lars Von Trier in Denmark in the 1990s. I saw the first season a long time ago, but the second was really hard to track down. Worth the effort though -- TV at its weirdest, darkest best! Musically, I listened to a lot of good albums in 2011, including the new one by Kasabian, the debut albums by Grinderman and Martha Wainwright, Fred's new album, a couple of Tunng albums, and David Byrne's double CD about Imelda Marcos. But my favourite was probably The Suburbs by Arcade Fire. Art-wise, I loved the Van Gogh exhibition in Rome that I went to last January. I visited the fabulous Yorkshire Sculpture Park for the first time. I saw the astonishing (in terms of managing to get so many of his key pieces) Leonardo DaVinci exhibition at the National in London. But the show that most tickled my fancy - if only because I had no idea who the artist was, and because I absolutely expected to be dismissive of it - was Pipilotti Rist's at the Hayward. I only went because I wanted to see the exhibition by George Condo (and that was fab too!). I almost didn't even both to look around the Rist rooms, but I was so glad when I did. Playful and perplexing in equal measures. I wasn't sure what to make of it all, except that I liked it -- a LOT!!! Travel-wise, as I said above, Bas and I went back to Rome at the start of the year, and it was as wonderful as always. Rome is one of my favourite cities in the world (along with London and New York), and it's always a treat to go back, to re-visit some favourite places and discover a few new gems -- this time we stumbled across an incredible ossuary. We also went to Australia for my cousin Kevin's wedding, and had a great few weeks driving around. And to the Maldives and Sharm El Sheikh for relaxing sun-breaks. Not to forget a lovely few days in Edinburgh when the Festival was on -- my 12th year in a row that I've gone to it! But Rome... Rome is always hard to top. On the footballing front, I got to enjoy the tail-end of Spurs' first adventuresome run in the Euopean Championship, and then the incredible experience in the latter half of the season of challenging for the premiership title. We're only at the halfway mark as I write this, and chances are we won't be able to keep up with Man City and Man Utd over the second half of the season, as they've got bigger squads and way more money to spend than us, but at the moment we're one of the best three teams in the UK, right up there at the top of the league, and it's head-spinning stuff -- the first time in a quarter of a century that we've been in this position at this stage of a season! I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for a repeat showing in the second half of the season, though I won't be holding my breath!!! So, all in all, it was a rather splendid 2011 on the cultural front! Sure, I saw plenty of bad films too, listened to lots of albums that I can barely remember now, read a few books that were decidedly average. But, for the most part, it was a year full of interesting stuff, which, really, I suppose, is what life is all about -- trying to find interesting things to keep us intrigued while we're knocking around and waiting to die!!!! I'm hoping 2012 will be just as fascinating and thought-provoking a year -- if not more so!!!!!!! Blog 2012-01-08T10:42:11+00:00 http://www.darrenshan.com/news/article/the-forgotten-blogger/ http://www.darrenshan.com/news/article/the-forgotten-blogger/ Happy New Year, everybody! And welcome to my first blog of 2012 -- and, if my recent blogging schedule is anything to go by, it will quite possibly be one of a rare breed this year!! I'm well aware that my blogging entries have dipped alarmingly over the last year or so. I used to blog very regularly, almost every day, but now my blogs have become something of a rarity. In fact it's been more than a month since my last one! There are various reasons for this. One is that I used to address issues related to writing in many of my blogs. But when I'd said almost everything that I felt I needed to say about that, I collected my blogs together into the WRITING TIPS section on my site, and since then I haven't offered many blogs about that side of my life, since I think it would be repetitive. But also, the world of the web is constantly changing, and I have changed with it over the years. When I first launched my web site, I corresponded with fans through my message board and via the Shanville Monthly. While I've kept both of those lines of communication open, I don't attract the same sort of traffic with them as I once did, because the young have turned to new types of social networking sites. I've always been careful about making social networking sites part of my public, online world, as I sensed from early on that they would come and go on the winds of change -- as we've seen happen with MySpace. That site was one an important link between me and my fans, but now it has become something of a ghost site. The same happened with Bebo and lots of other similar sites, and while it seems hard to imagine it now, Twitter and Facebook will almost surely be replaced in the not too distant future. That's just the way of the web. Having said that, I found that if you don't pin your colours to any mast at all, you risk alienating many of your online fans. For me, an author's website is enough. I'm not really interested in tweets from my favourite authors, or following them on Facebook. If I like a writer and want to find out more about them, I'll visit their site -- for me, that's enough. But that's probably because I didn't grow up with social networking sites. I don't want to become a grumbling old codger who moans about the world not being as good as it was in my youth. As I said above, the world of the web is always changing, and so is the world itself, and I think that's a good thing. I also think that oldies like me shouldn't be too snobbish about the newer, younger generations. I hope I'll always be gracious enough to accept that new ways are at least just as good as the old, even if I find myself out of touch with them. e.g. I don't think that bands of my youth were better than more modern bands -- I could simply connect with them more engagingly when I was a teenager than I can with bands who are now speaking to the sort of person that I used to be 20 or 25 years ago. Anyway, I'm not SO out of touch that I ignore the trends of the web completely. Like I said, I used to use MySpace, and now I use Twitter. While MySpace didn't really interfere with my blogging, Twitter has had more of an impact. The thing with Twitter is that it's more immediate, and it allows me to make quick comments about more topics than I would ever have been able to blog about. For a long time I couldn't see the point of Twitter, but now I do -- it lets people remark on all sorts of things that they otherwise would never flag up. It's quick and instant, and whils it's also incredibly dispensable, that's not a bad thing -- posterity is vastly over-rated! In the past, many creators were very concerned about creating a legacy with everything they did. I'm of that mindset, to a certain extent, but I'm starting to move on in many ways. For instance, I used to think a lot about my blogs, the same sort of way that I think about my books, as if they were going to be an important part of my body of work (the way my blogs about writing were). Now, when it comes to chatting about my day-to-day life, I'm happy just to go with the flow, throw out little observations here and there, and let them be forgotten within a day or two. That's not to say I'm going to give up blogging entirely -- this rather lengthy blog is proof enough of that!! But I'll only blog when I feel there's a genuine need to do so, if there's something I want to talk about in substance which I don't think I can cover through Twitter or Facebook. In short, don't expect TOO many blogs from me over the next twelve months -- but rest assured, I'll be constantly active on Twitter and Facebook and whatever new kid might come along to knock them off their perch a bit further down the road!! The world of the web is always changing, and while I doubt I'll ever be at the cutting edge of those changes, I'll try not to lag TOO far behind... well, not until I'm another decade or two older, at least!!!!! Blog 2012-01-01T19:24:21+00:00 http://www.darrenshan.com/news/article/shanta-claus/ http://www.darrenshan.com/news/article/shanta-claus/ My Shanta Claus story, which I post for a week or two every Christmas, is online NOW!! I plan to remove it again before the New Year, so hurry on and read it quickly before you miss this year's window of opportunity!! http://www.darrenshan.com/extras/feature/short-stories-shanta-claus-only-available-at-christmas-yuletide-favourite2/ News 2011-12-21T09:12:42+00:00 http://www.darrenshan.com/news/article/better-than-you-think/ http://www.darrenshan.com/news/article/better-than-you-think/ I've been busy editing all 12 of the "Zom-B" books over the last few weeks. I've finished first drafts of all 12 books already, but I like to spread the editing process out over a few years, giving myself plenty of time to tweak and get each book exactly the way I want. This is the first time I've been able to read through all 12 books, one after the other -- it will also be the last, as I'm close to producing my final drafts of the first couple of books -- once I've done my final bit of work on those, I won't be returning to them. I've been reminded, editing so many books, of something that I can't stress enough to young writers -- YOUR FIRST DRAFT IS USUALLY BETTER THAN YOU THINK!!!   I find writing the first draft of a book the hardest part of the writing process. It's also the most disheartening. When I'm in the middle of a first draft -- indeed, even when I've finished it -- I often think that a book is deeply flawed, that it isn't working, that I'll have to re-write it completely or even scrap it. The dialogue will seem stilted. I won't feel like it has rhythm. Sometimes I'll wonder why I ever started it in the first place. Then, I leave it for a few months, and when I return to it, a magical thing happens -- it gets better without me doing anything to it!! Of course nothing has actually changed when I return to a completed first draft -- except inside my head, and the way I respond to it. Having finished a first draft and given myself a good break from it, I can look at it more objectively, and what I find more often than not is that the book works far better than I feared. Sure, I'll have to go through it several time before it's ready to be published, tweaking and fine-tuning and sharpening-up. And yes, sometimes, I have to cut out a lot of passages, or re-write certain scenes, or fit in new scenes in certain places. But, generall speaking, the books are far more solid than they appeared to be when I was huffing and puffing my way through the first draft.   As I say elsewhere in my Writing Tips, it's vital that you finish what you start. You won't really make great advances as a writer until you start completing first drafts. You never learn as much about story-telling as when you take a story all the way to its natural end. So it's important not to judge your first draft too harshly. Have faith in yourself and the story you're telling. Ignore the voice of doubt at the back of your mind, the niggling worries that it's no good, that you're wasting your time. Nobody gets it perfect first time round, and even established, experienced authors like me worry. It's natural to worry. Just don't let your worries put you off your stride. Keep pressing on, stick with it, and see it through to its end. Because what you'll almost always find when you look back is that your stories -- and you -- are usually a lot better than you might think they are!!!! Blog 2011-11-25T19:48:28+00:00 http://www.darrenshan.com/news/article/irish-book-awards/ http://www.darrenshan.com/news/article/irish-book-awards/ If you're Irish, this is the last day (Sunday 13th) that you can vote for "Ocean of Blood" in the Irish Book Awards. If you haven't done so already, please vote for it now, and ask any of your friends who liked it to vote for it too. Cheers!! http://www.irishbookawards.ie/PublicVote.aspx News 2011-11-13T11:53:31+00:00 http://www.darrenshan.com/news/article/farewell-old-friend/ http://www.darrenshan.com/news/article/farewell-old-friend/ This day last week I bid my final farewell to an old friend of mine -- a certain orange-haired vampire who went by the name of Larten Crepsley! On November 1st I did my final bit of editing on Brothers to the Death, the fourth and final book in The Saga Of Larten Crepsley. Although the book won't be released until late April 2012, because of the way publishing works, I always have to deliver my final draft several months before a book sees print. It's all done and dusted now -- I've gone through the page proofs which my British and American publishers sent me, spent a few days carefully going through them looking for any mistakes and making a few very minor final tweaks, and that's that!!   This series took just under four years to complete, but of course I've been living with the character of Larten Crepsley a lot longer than that. In fact, by the time Brothers see print, I'll have lived with Mr C for 15 years! I wrote the first draft of Cirque Du Freak back in May 1997, which is when Mr Crepsley first entered my life. I didn't know much about him in the early days. I thought he was going to be a good guy, but that wasn't set in stone -- he was very mysterious and brooding in the early books (for reasons which the new series explain) and there was a possibility that he could have become the villain of the piece. But as I got to know him over the writing of the next couple of books, it soon became clear that he was to be the moral compass of the series. I think the books worked so well because of the relationship between Darren and Mr Crepsley. Without that, I don't think they would have had the heart and soul that they did.   Mr Crepsley has easily been the most fascinating character I've worked with, certainly in my books for children and teenagers. I always loved writing his scenes. He was a stuffy old bat, but that was part of his appeal -- it made his rare happy and warm moments all the more affecting. I've never smiled as much writing as I did when describing humourous scene sinvolving Mr Crepsley -- and, similarly, I've never felt as moved emotionally as when I've been writing scenes in which he suffers. He was a joy to write, and has been a large part of my life for the last decade and a half. I was even thinking about him in the gap between the end of Sons of Destiny and the start of Birth of a Killer. I hadn't planned to write a prequel series, but Mr Crepsley wouldn't get out of my head. I kept thinking about his past, how he became a vampire, what had happened to him in the 200 years before he met Darren. And eventually I was drawn back into the world of vampires and started to tell his story.   I'm sad to be leaving Mr Crepsley behind, but at the same time I'm proud to have done him as much justice as I hope that I have over the past fifteen years. And although I won't be writing any more books about him, I'm sure he'll never be that far from my thoughts. There will always be a bit of Mr Crpesley alive within me going forward, and I hope that a little bit of him will live on in you guys too. Even in death, he WAS triumphant!!! Blog 2011-11-08T18:57:43+00:00 http://www.darrenshan.com/news/article/zom-b-in-the-usa/ http://www.darrenshan.com/news/article/zom-b-in-the-usa/ My American publishers, LittleBrown, have bought the rights to my “Zom-B” series!!! They will be publishing all 12 books at the same time that they come out in the UK, starting in September or October 2012, with a new book every 3 months. And as the following article about the sale mentions, the books will be illustrated!!! We’re still discussing the exact specifications of this, how many pictures we’re going to include in each book, whether they’ll be single panels or graphic-novel type pages, etc. And, before you ask, yes, the illustrations will be appearing in the UK editions too! More news to follow as and when it breaks!! http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/book-news/deals/article/49319-deals-week-of-october-31-2011.html News 2011-10-31T10:16:03+00:00 http://www.darrenshan.com/news/article/all-done-on-first/ http://www.darrenshan.com/news/article/all-done-on-first/ Today I finished the first draft of the twelfth and final book in my Zom-B series. (I've been referring to it as Zom-B 12 on my Twitter, but of course that's not the actual name -- I won't be revealing the titles of the individual books for quite a while yet.) So, does that mean the series is done and dusted?!? Well, not quite. I work in quite a strange way. I like to give myself LOTS of time to work on a series, so that I can rewrite and edit at my leisure, across the whole span of the series, rather than take things one book at a time. I wrote the first draft of the first book three and a half years ago, in April 2008. I've been pegging away at it since then, writing the first draft of each of the subsequent eleven books in turn, while editing the earlier entries as I've been going along. So, while the first is at a very advanced stage, needing just a couple of more edits before it's ready to see print, the last few are still at their first draft stage. I'll be working on the series for at least another two and a half years, rewriting, fine-tuning, editing each book into its final, tightly knitted state. So there's still quite a way to go untuil I'm totally finished.   But getting the first draft of the final book out of the way is a MAJOR achievement. Once the first drafts are all in the bag, it's simply a case of chipping away at what I've created until I'm happy with every book. The hardest work is behind me, where I've had to create each book out of thin air and commit each to paper, one slow word at a time. Now that the hard graft is out of the way, I can relax a little and enjoy the editing process over the next few years -- although I'm sure I'll start working on first drafts of other books during that time! It also means that if (heavens forbid!) I was to have an accident and go toes-up tomorrow, somebody else could take care of the editing duties and ensure that the series goes ahead and sees publication as planned. I'm always worried, when I start a lengthy series, about making it to the end. There are so many things that could go wrong, and I'd hate to die halfway through and let down my fans!! At least now, if the Grim Reaper comes calling for me, I can slip away with a clear conscience and not leave any angry fans behind moaning about me leaving the work unfinished!!!! Blog 2011-10-28T16:35:47+00:00