2007 was another busy year for me. Because I hadn't done much global touring in 2006, I had a lot to make up for in 2007, and the year passed in a whirl of seemingly never-ending events!! Luckily, knowing it was going to be that way, I spent four of the first five months at home in Ireland, working flat-out, and finished the first drafts of a four-book mini-series that I hope to release in 2010 or 2011 -- there might be some more info about those in 2008, though I suspect it will be 2009 before I start seriously talking about them in public.

Romania became the 33rd country to buy the rights to my Vampire books -- Transylvania being the spiritual home of all things vampiric, I was particularly chuffed about this one! I did one-off events in Derby and London (at the Festival Hall) in February, to keep my hand in. Allies of the Night was shortlisted for the I Love This Book award. Demon Thief was nominated for the Irish Children's Book of the Year. It also picked up nominations for the Doncaster Book Award, and Lancashire Children's Book of the Year award in the UK. Lord Loss was nominated for the Leeds Children's Book award. Slawter was nominated for the Staffordshire Children's Book award. And Blood Beast was nominated for the first ever Nickelodeon Kids' Choice award. I didn't win any of the awards I was up for (boo!!!) but it was a delightful surprise to receive so many nominations in the first place.

Croatia became the 34th country to convert to the ways of Darren Shan. The Demonata books also spread to other countries during 2007, as did Koyasan, the short book I wrote for World Book Day in 2006. I did another one-off event in March, close to home this time, then hit the road in April, when I went on a massive tour of the United States. I started on the West Coast and finished on the East, covering quite a lot of the States in between. It was long and exhausting, but great fun too, and extremely well organised.

May 8th marked the 10 year anniversary of when I first started to write Cirque Du Freak. Hard to believe a decade has come and gone since I first started to wonder what would happen if a boy met a vampire at a circus ... May 2007 was also when I first revealed that I would be re-publishing my adult books as D.B. Shan, starting in March 2008 with Procession of the Dead.

In June, Blood Beast was released in the UK and Ireland, and it became my first ever #1 Children's Bestseller in the UK -- a proud moment for me! It was also the #5 bestselling hardback in the UK in the week of its release, including adult books -- a mind-blowing achievement! I went on a long, gruelling, but hugely enjoyable tour of Ireland and the UK in June, meeting more fans in more places than ever before. Blood Beast was chosen as one the Top 160 Books for Boys by the UK government.

In July, the Shanville Monthly celebrated its 7th birthday, and I celebrated my 35th birthday -- we're both getting old!!! Turkey became the 35th country to buy the Saga. (NOT the 36th, as I mistakenly noted in the July issue of the SM -- whoops!!!) I toured in Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong in July. I planned to take things easy at the end of it, but then my Dad had a minor heart attack, and had to go to hospital for major heart surgery!!! Everything went smoothly and he's back to his normal self now (you'd never know by looking at him that he'd had a triple bypass!!), but the end of July and first few weeks of August were a horrible time for me.

I did two events at the Edinburgh Book Festival in August (my 8th year in a row there!), one with Mark Walden, one by myself. As usual, the Festival was one of my highlights of the year -- I just love it!!! I was chosen as Limerick Person of the Month by local paper The Limerick Leader -- it's always nice to get recognition on your home turf!!

I went on another tour of the UK in late September and the first week of October. And then I went on a last-minute tour to Canada late in October. My fifth and final major tour of the year -- hurrah!!! While I love touring, I think I did a bit too much of it in 2007 -- I was exhausted by the end, and it limited the amount of writing that I could do. So it may well be that I never tour on quite this sort of scale again. I still plan to do a lot of touring, and all over the world, just not quite so much, in quite so many places, in any calendar year. I'm getting too old to tour incessantly!!!

We kept the title of Book 6 of The Demonata a complete mystery all the way through the year, until the end of September, when I revealed it at the Bath Festival. (For those who might have missed it, it's called Demon Apocalypse.) It quickly became a fan favourite, and although it only got to #3 on the bestseller chart in the UK, it sold more in its first week than any of my Demonata books have done -- this demonic baby of a series is just getting bigger and bigger!!!

I took things easier in November and December, went on a holiday to Orlando, took in some soccer matches, theatre and plays, spent a lot of time at home, did some editing. Then, at the end of the year, I revealed that the title of Book 7 of The Demonata would be Death's Shadow, and that filming of the Cirque Du Freak movie was scheduled to begin in February 2008 -- not a bad little way to wrap up the year!!!!!!!!

TOP 10 MOVIES AND ALBUMS

Since it's the time of year when people love to display their Top 10 lists, I thought I'd get in on the act and let you know my ten favourite movies of all time, as well as my thirteen favourite albums (I couldn't whittle it down to just ten!). I'll do a list for books some other time, but at the moment I'm in London, and I don't have access to my list of books I've read over the years!! So, arranged alphabetically, here are the films:

CASABLANCA
DESTINY
GRAPES OF WRATH, THE
ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST
PULP FICTION
RAGING BULL
SEVEN SAMURAI, THE
SEVENTH SEAL, THE
SUNRISE

And, alphabetically by band, here are the albums:

THE BEATLES - Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
THE BEATLES - The Beatles [white album]
DAVID BOWIE - Ziggy Stardust
THE GO-BETWEENS - Tallulah
THE KINKS - The Village Green Preservation Society
PIXIES - Doolittle
PIXIES - Trompe Le Monde
LOU REED & JOHN CALE - Songs For Drella
THE SMITHS - The Queen Is Dead
TALKING HEADS - Naked
U2 - The Joshua Tree
THE WHO - Tommy
NEIL YOUNG - After The Gold Rush