Hallowe'en...

As my daughter says, you gotta love it.

And we certainly had fun. Dressed as (inept) Victorian Vampire Hunters, we welcome visitors to the ghostwalk at Wicken Fen. An almost full moon, mist drifting in from the fen, and some fantastic tableaux, including a werewolf chewing on someone and howling, and zombies emerging from the reeds!

Here's how we looked: www.marcussedgwick.com/vampirehunters.html

Oh, why is next Samhain 12 months away?!

Things Can Only Get Better...

When the first date of your world domination book tour is cancelled with 6 hours notice, you know things can only get better. Shame, I was looking forward to extricating myself from my studio and remembering what talking to other people is like, rather than all the voices in my head (these are characters I'm talking about here, people. Honest)

So instead I'm going to have to keep talking to those characters for another 24 hours and hit the road tomorrow instead. What miffs me the most is I was planning a sneaky trip to All Saints in Spitalfields first...

Onwards and upwards.

The Raven Mysteries Website is alive!

Please pop along and take a look:

www.ravenmysteries.co.uk

The Sun Also Rises...

...As Ernest Hemingway once said.

This picture is yesterday's sunset, I'm just sorry I didn't snap sunrise this morning too, as it has been absolutely beautiful. Again.

Anyway enough romanticising. More pressing matters, like that thumping great re-write I'm working on await me. Shucks. But when that book is put to bed then it's time for the sun to rise on the next one, and that is always the most exciting part of writing, I find. When all is fresh and new and you haven't had time to doubt what you're doing...

Ok! To the book!

If I Believed in Heaven it Would Look Like This

Today I finished writing the first book I've written in my new writing room at the bottom of the garden, and the whole thing fills me with joy!

The book in question is Raven Mysteries IV: "Vampires and Volts" and features The Annual Pumkpin Hunt (look out for the squishy ones), a Great Hallowe'en Ball (which gets a bit scary when the lights go out), and yes, vampires. Very naughty ones.

Vetting for School Visits

I'm not writing about the rights and wrongs of the new procedure for being vetted before visiting schools, but I thought (because I didn't know) it might help to actually set out what the exact details are and how to go about registering, since like many authors, whatever one's thoughts about it, there's just the pragmatic question of how to get on with it...

So thanks to Nina Douglas at Orion for finding all this out - here's the story...:

I couldn’t find the guidelines this morning from the DCSF and so rang the ISA helpline and I think have it clarified – see below:

In basic language, yes you do need to register – and it is open from next July, a one-off fee, for life with automatic updates fully in place by 2011!

The definition of needing to be part of the scheme is such:

In a specified place: ie school or juvenile detention or other place over the course of ‘frequently’: defined as once a month, or 3 or more occasions in 30 days

This means that for author tours and authors holding regular school events, even if not at the same school (can be different places of the same type, ie different schools), authors and those accompanying them, ie publicists will also need to register

This is not immediate, registration is from July 2010, with all ‘new starters’ registered by Nov 2010, and full scheme integration by 2011. It is a one off fee and is for life with no renewal required – it automatically updates. As far as I can make out authors can simply apply themselves through the website.

I have signed up to the e-newsletters for any news or progress on the scheme. A helpline, which actually helped is on 0300 123 1111.

And a useful presentation, is here:http://bit.ly/X7xx2

CRB checks can still be requested by schools in addition to this.

23 years

OK so it's a shocking amount of time since I last posted, but that's because I'm rubbish...

It's not quite 23 years since I posted, but it is 23 years since I left 'big' school, to where I returned on Tuesday gone to give a talk to Year 8. And a lovely bunch they were too. I was delighted to go, but have to say it was extremely weird to be back on the stage of the old hall from where maters used to bark at us all... Anyway, I enjoyed it, and didn't even have to resort to telling the story about the time I nearly blew up the pavilion...