Check out my first post on the Trapped by Monsters blog here – and see the first book I ever wrote!

This isn't the final cover for Furnace: Execution, but it's almost there. I love it, what does everybody think?

Oh, and for those of you who are wondering what 'Furnace: Execution' is, it's the new name for the fifth and final book the series. It was originally due to be called 'Furnace: The Crimson Mile', which was a nod to one of my favourite writers, but I thought 'Execution' was scarier, clearer, and more in keeping with the rest of the series!

Good title? Bad title? Let me know!

If you're reading this on my blog then you might have noticed that I've had the whole thing redesigned! I've been trying to blog more regularly, and I thought what better motivation than to have an awesome new layout complete with pictures and video and loads more booky bling. I didn't do this myself, I have to confess, I hired a very cool guy called Ian Forster to do it for me. Thanks Ian!

However, just when I thought I might be able to blog at least fairly often I suffered a hideous, terrifying blow! I was invited to do a talk the other day in a place called Boggart's Gob, and happily accepted thinking it would be a lovely literary festival like so many others I have been to. On arriving, however, there was just one large, moist, smelly tent with a banner hanging over it on which 'Book orfurs in heer' had been written. Despite being slightly suspicious I walked inside – only to discover that I wasn't in a tent at all but an actual Boggart's Gob! It took me a little while to pass through the foul beast's digestive system, and when I finally plopped out of its rear end I realised that things were far, far worse that I ever could have imagined. I had been...

Trapped By Monsters!!!

Yes, my worst fears have come true. Having earlier this year attempted and failed to rescue the eight authors held captive underground by hellish monster jailors (read all about it here), I now find myself buried miles beneath the earth, deeper even than Furnace Penitentiary, where the worst nightmares of the world dwell in filth and squalor.

You can read about my first encounter with the other unfortunate authors here.

So I'll be blogging regularly over there from now on (I don't want to, but the monsters have told me if I fail to obey them they'll make harps from my intestines, drumsticks from my arm bones and maracas from my, er... well, you get the idea). And if anyone has any great ideas for a rescue then let me know!

By the way, if you ever get invited to a place called Boggart's Gob then please, for the love of all that's holy, don't go!!

Hot on the heels of the new US cover for Lockdown comes the brand new US cover for Solitary. I think it looks awesome, really great colouring, and they'll make an amazing set. And more good news is the fact that they've removed the tagline from the cover of Lockdown, which is a huge relief! Anyway, as always let me know what you think!

I love them!!

My publishers in the States have just sent me the cover for the paperback version of Lockdown and I have to say I was blown away when I saw it! I absolutely love it. Talking to people who've read the books, most say that the characters who stuck with them the most, who gave them nightmares, were the wheezers – those gas-mask wearing, hypodermic wielding freaks who stalk the prison at night dragging inmates off into the tunnels beneath the cells. So it's great to have such a striking, terrifying image of a wheezer smack bang on the front cover!

Of course some of you might be wondering why this particular wheezer is wearing a full gas mask, rather than the half-mask they do in the books. Well, the answer is artistic license! I don't think book jackets have to be 100% accurate to the story. The wonderful UK covers for the Furnace series certainly aren't. The job of a book cover is to try and sum up the flavour of the story in an appealing, eye-catching way, a strong visual advert for what kind of book it is. For Lockdown, the cover needs to set up an atmosphere of claustrophobia and fear, a promise of terror, and I think this does it absolutely perfectly. I'm thrilled!

I think this new design is being transferred over to the hardbacks as well, which is a shame in a way because I loved the old design too. But this one really is fantastic! The only thing I'm not sure about is the slogan...

What do you think?

The cover copy for Furnace 4 has just arrived! Spoiler alert!!!

We escaped Furnace, but the nightmare followed us.

We broke out of Furnace but we’re still not free. The city is in lockdown; roads sealed, police everywhere. And there are worse things here – creatures of death sent to bring the world to its knees.

I’m turning into one of them, into a monster. To put an end to this blood-crazed madness I have to travel into the heart of the darkness. I have to find Alfred Furnace before he finds me.

Soon the whole world will be a prison.

Whadya think?

This is a piece I wrote for the Guardian Family section three years ago about writing and brothers. I'd totally forgotten about it!

"I still remember that icy day in late February, 1996, salting the path while I waited for Mum to return home, and not doing a very good job in the hope that she and the new baby would slide right on past the front door and into someone else’s life.

I was sixteen, and after teenage years of unparalleled clumsiness around girls I was finally growing into the person I’d always wanted to be. There were big things ahead, but all of a sudden there was a very little thing threatening to undermine my newfound confidence with some overpowering noises and odours.

And it wasn’t just the fact that there was a baby in the house that was upsetting. The new arrival confirmed – in a way that several years of living together and even marriage hadn’t done – a relationship between Mum and a man who was twenty years her senior, and who was separated from my fourteen-year-old sister and me by what seemed like ten generations, not one.

I had wanted things to change, but not in this direction. And each ear-piercing scream that penetrated the fabric of our small bungalow was a painful reminder of the way things were. (And it’s true what they say, a baby’s cry cannot be ignored – even by a sixteen-year-old with a new stereo and a penchant for Metallica.)

It was only some weeks later that I began to appreciate this tiny, wriggling creature that had invaded my life. It was partly the fact that he now had a name, Jamie, and his wrinkly little body was fleshing out like a balloon gradually being filled with air – both of which made him, in my eyes, a person not a thing. Of course, it might also have had something to do with the fact that Mum decided a new baby with the vocal strength of an opera singer was not the best way to help two teenagers revising for their exams, and had decided to move into her husband’s house down the road.

Far enough away not to interrupt Neighbours, but close enough to see every day, Jamie suddenly became a very welcome addition to the family. Still holding on to the vestiges of my teenage annoyance, I tried to maintain an aura of grumpiness every time I went round to visit him, but he would only need to burble or burp or sneeze or laugh and I’d feel my heart melting. I couldn’t quite believe that he was my brother, that we were related, and each time I saw him I realized with greater clarity that the big things I had planned were actually ridiculously tiny in the grand scheme of things, and that this little thing was one of the most important people in my life.

So my plans changed. Instead of packing my bags and finding the university that was geographically furthest from my house – standard practice post-A-Level – I decided to stay put. By this time Jamie was a toddler, and we’d see each other most days. The mere thought of going for weeks, maybe months, without Lego inventions or water pistol fights or trips to the toyshop or endless adventures in the garden was unbearable. I knew, without being aware of it, that my little brother was an anchor, one that kept me close to everything and everyone I loved. I can’t even begin to imagine where, and who, I’d be now if he hadn’t come along.

But while he anchored me physically to a little corner of suburban Norwich, imaginatively he opened up whole new worlds. Seeing Jamie meant putting the stress and strain of life on hold. I could forget about work, with him there were no burgers to flip, no clocks to punch, no letters to file, no rear ends to kiss – there were only adventures waiting to be experienced.

We would cast our boat away from the real world, sailing to fantastic islands, to long-forgotten times and places not yet discovered. We would battle terrifying foes, invent gadgets with miraculous powers, take rides on breathtaking flying machines or dive to the very depths of the oceans on the backs of sea monsters. We would be pirates, astronauts, heroes, villains, saints and devils, a myriad of vocations all united by the fact that whatever we were, the world was ours.

Carl Jung claimed that “the debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable”, and the truth is that without the daydreams that Jamie and I shared then my life would have taken a drastically different path. Each adventure reawakened my own childhood fantasies, taking root in my imagination and evolving until my head was full of stories. I’d always wanted to be a writer, but these ambitions had been put to one side while I focused on what I thought were the grander, more important aspects of living – money, security, employment, education. Now each of these stories was proof that play was more important than pay, and it was the only sign I needed to pack in the job and pick up a pen.

And so the creative union that Jamie and I had forged in our minds blossomed into one that filled countless notebooks with ideas. Each daydreamed story became an adventure on paper that we would return to again and again, almost obsessively. We spent hours together, discussing characters, plots, young heroes and charming villains – translating worlds into words – but it was the years of play which allowed these tales to practically write themselves.

We dreamed of being published, but although we didn’t consciously acknowledge it the real rewards of our creative relationship lay elsewhere. It is true that you can learn more about yourself and your loved ones from an hour of play than a year of conversation, and these imagined games let Jamie and I communicate about the significant things in life without the need to reference them directly. For both of us these games, and the stories they led to, became a way of working through the issues that were bothering us, the things we found difficult. After all, when troubles are reduced to games and words, you have control.

I guess that, most importantly, the time that Jamie and I have spent playing and writing has shown me that the most important relationship you can have with a child is one where creativity and imagination rein, where stories are as important as real life. It’s this freedom which teaches the young how to cope with everything that life throws at them, which proves that anything is possible, and which reminds adults that, in the words of Pablo Neruda, “the man who does not play has lost forever the child who lived in him.”

***

Of course, like all stories, this one has another side to it. Two years after Mum gave birth to Jamie, she had another child. By this stage, Jamie and I were inseparable, and I was delighted at the thought of having a second brother to recruit into our games. But the night Matthew was born we discovered he had Down’s Syndrome.

I know it shouldn’t make any difference – brothers are brothers, after all – yet it does. I remember the first time I met him, now eighteen, holding his hand and trying to will the condition out of him. It’s something I still try to do, even though I know that I’m allowing the disorder to define him. But it’s so difficult not to. Matthew is now nine, and his vocabulary is limited to a few words. And with no language I don’t know how to find my way into the adventures that take place inside his head. I want to create stories with Matthew the same way I do with Jamie, to forge the same spirit of play, but the imaginings of my youngest brother seem to be his alone, a private viewing that has become a barrier between us.

It gives me no small amount of shame to see the differences in the relationships I had with my brothers. I spent so much of my free time with Jamie, but didn’t know how to act around Matthew; I took Jamie on trips every week, but I couldn’t handle Matthew on my own; I wrote stories with Jamie, but I only ever considered writing a book about Matthew, not with him; and while Jamie anchored me, I felt lost with Matthew. It was enough to make me hide the “World’s Greatest Brother” keyring Jamie gave me every time I went round to see Matthew.

But writing books with one brother has also brought me closer to the other. The end result may be all about words, but the process of creation is far more important, and I know now that creative play isn’t limited to vocabulary. I’ve made the mistake of thinking that because Matthew cannot express his stories, he doesn’t have any. But language is a form of knowledge, and according to Einstein knowledge is limited. Imagination, on the other hand, is boundless, eternal, it encircles the world and isn’t restricted by anything, including Down’s Syndrome. I guess in that way, it’s just like brotherhood."

I was at a book launch last week for a great friend of mine, John Osborne, who has just published 'The Newsagent's Window'. It's the story of a year in his life "spent living vicariously through newsagents windows" and it's a fantastic read. While I was there I got talking to another friend, Tim, about working from home, and he mentioned something that I've been meaning to blog about for a while now.

Making lists.

I always found organisation the hardest thing about working from home. I've never been very good at planning my time, and if I have more than one thing to do it can often throw me into a total spin. I panic, I reel, I throw tantrums. Even if I have, say, just two things to do they tend to crash around each other in my mind like two boats on a roiling ocean, caught in the monstrous pull of some vast, hungry Charybdis, spiraling into complete and utter splintery destruction. And if, god forbid, there are more than two things on my daily agenda then I may as well not get out of bed. The moment I try to work out what I'm going to do first those items separate like a flock of startled birds, becoming a storm of flapping wings and pained squawks that sits like an impenetrable white noise over my futile attempt at planning.

Mixed metaphors aside, there is a very easy way of dealing with this. So easy, you might think, that it isn't actually worth writing down here. But I think it is. So many of my friends are self-employed, and when I speak to them about this one simple technique for staying in control they usually look at me like I've told them the answer to two plus two. The ones who have never made lists go away laughing, but the next time I see them they treat me like I've given them the secret to never paying taxes again. It's so simple, I think, that people don't think it's worth doing. But it is!

Make a list.

See, simple. So simple that you're probably thinking you don't need to do it. But you do, it's essential. As soon as I got into the habit of making a list – on paper, with a pen – of things I had to do that day I found that I could manage my time. Not only that, but managing time became easy and, dare I say it, fun. Instead of flapping around like a wounded bat, unable to see how I would be able to make it through the day, I discovered that I had a purpose – to cross off as many items on the list as possible. My agenda was no longer an impenetrable vortex of 'to dos' that had no start and no finish, a hurried risotto of ingredients that were so numerous and so mixed that I didn't know where to start. It was a list, a simple, beautiful list with little boxes next to each thing. I could focus, I could see clearly. I would do one thing and cross it off. Then, like a machine, I would move onto the next. And the next. Marking a neat little 'x' became an obsession. I became relentless in my organisation, like some creative writing terminator. I would complete today's itemised mission in an orderly and efficient manner. I was the Arnie of getting things done.

Now I have no doubt that anybody reading this who does work from home will probably already make lists. But even if there is one person who decides to give it a go then this post has been worth it. Try it. It really will change your life.

I've just ticked the 'Post List Blog' item on today's page of the diary, one of seven items. Six have already been checked. Seven glorious x's, one sigh of complete satisfaction, and done.

No, hang on a minute, it's the SUN!!!! It's been so long I barely recognised it. What an amazing few days, though, it felt like summer! I forced myself to put work to one side in order to make the most of this bizarre phenomenon. On Thursday Lynsey, Lucy and I went to Thrigby Hall, which was so cool. It's basically a small zoo, but there is an impressive range of beastly beasties on display. Tigers, alligators, panthers, monkeys, you name it! My favourite had to be the otters, though. They were rolling around in the sunshine and they just looked so cute! Well worth a trip if you've never been before.

Lynsey and I also managed to escape to the beach on Saturday, which was lovely. We drove up to Sheringham and it really did feel like the middle of the summer holidays. I was even tempted to go for a swim... But decided to settle for a beer and an ice cream instead. We finished off the weekend with the first family barbeque of the year. It's always so nice to have the family over for burgers and beer, and even though it was getting a little chilly by the end of the day it was still great fun!

Alas, it's a little cloudy today so I took that as a sign to get back to work. Furnace 4 to edit and Furnace 5 to write, all before the end of May. I'll have to lock myself away in the gloomy confines of my office if I stand any chance of meeting that deadline. Still, at least I caught a glimpse of the sun before I close the door behind me...

Authors have surprisingly little input into the covers for their books. At least that's been my experience. It's one of the things I was actually quite surprised at when my first book was published, especially because at Egg Box we always gave authors a large amount of input into their covers, although the final design was always up to us. I don't necessarily mind too much, I mean I'm not a great designer and if I tried to design my own cover it would probably look daft (I'd probably go for a big picture of my face). But all the same it's nice to have a say. I know quite a few people whose experience of jacket design has gone a little like this:

Publisher: I've attached the cover rough to this email, could you let us know whether you like it?

Author: I've had a look and it's not really the sort of thing I wanted. Could we maybe go for something different?

Publisher: Ah, well I'm afraid it's a bit late in the day for that. This is your cover.

Author: Oh.

I feel I've been pretty lucky with my covers at Faber. I honestly love them, and the cover for Furnace 4 is no different. Although saying that, the first version that my editor Julia sent me wasn't quite as dramatic as I'd have liked, because it featured what looked like a window cleaner... If you look very closely you can see him, cleaning the U of FURNACE:



And in close up:



I wrote back and said that I loved the idea but wasn't too sure about the window cleaner. I mean there is no window cleaner in the book! I was even pondering whether to add a window cleaner to the book just in case it was too late to change the cover. Fortunately, however, there was no need. In the next version of the cover the window cleaner had been removed and replaced by a policeman, which is far more fitting really. It's not that I have anything against window cleaners, of course!

There are some interesting stories about past Furnace covers too (involving gorillas), I'll post them here when I have a chance!

It's been a crazy couple of months, so it's great to be able to have a little time to, as Lucy calls it, chillax. Which I hope is a hybrid of chill and relax, not chilis and laxative. As you can see, I'm currently using my time to think up incredibly funny jokes.

Why has it been so busy? Well, February was almost entirely spent writing. From the 28th of January to the 27th February (my birthday) I locked myself away with my laptop and at the end of the month emerged with the first draft of Furnace 4. It was a crazy, breathless ride and I hope that shows in the book. It is fairly relentless, and gory, but the action scenes are some of my absolute favourites in the series so far – including an insane battle at the end. But of course I can't say any more about that! Julia, my editor at Faber, asked for a couple of minor changes (mainly bits that were too gory) and I've made them, and now the book is with Trevor, the copy editor, who will polish it up. Then it will be on the shelves in October! Here, exclusively, is the cover – it's not the finished version but it's close! What do you think?



I love it!

After one day off I began an Easter tour on 1st March. Now I'd like to blog about this separately, because so much happened, but to give you a summary it involved four weeks, 30 events, 2,000+ kids, 1,000 miles in the car, 11 train journeys, two terrifying flights, a dozen taxis, lots of walking, five hotels, ten full English (and one full Irish) breakfasts! It was all great fun, though. Well, apart from the flights... Thanks to everyone who helped organise this, and everyone who came to listen! I'll blog in more detail soon!

So April has been much less busy, although there has been lots of catching up with things. Lots and lots. But it hasn't all been work. I've ordered a new bathroom, which is awesome as mine is in a terrible (and terrifying) state. You pretty much catch diphtheria every time you brush your teeth. They're coming to install it next month. There have also been a few more birthdays (it's the birthday season in our family), including my littlest bro Matthew. Here he is blowing out the candles on his cake!



The next big birthday is Lucy's later in the month. She's going to Laserquest which is so cool! I can't wait! The weather has been getting a little better so we've been spending a fair bit of time at the park, especially as Lucy has a brand new bike. And we even ventured to the beach this week, although it was freeeeeeezing! We had an awesome game of pirate crazy golf in Yarmouth. Well, awesome except for the fact that Jamie beat me!! Lucy kind of won the day though as she managed to get a hole in one.

Anyway, that's kind of what life has been like so far this year. I'll be throwing myself into Furnace 5 very soon as the deadline for it is the beginning of June. It's going to be really weird writing the final book in Alex's adventure, especially as I don't have a clue what's going to happen to him! Keep your fingers crossed for a happy ending...

I'm also working on an exciting new project, a publishing company called Inkling Studios. It's something I'm setting up with Lynsey and Lucy, and although it's still in its very early days it should hopefully be great fun! I've put the logo below, and I'll tell you more about it soon!



But first, a couple more days of chillaxin'!

Wes, my editor in the US, has sent me some Lockdown feedback from the review journals and I'm happy to say it's all good news! Lockdown has also been named as one of the top ten American Library Association's Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers which is awesome! I've posted the reviews below!


VOYA (Voice of American Youth Association)
Fourteen-year-old Alex gets into trouble—not the kind of trouble that would come back to haunt him but enough to make life interesting. He and his friends beat up kids for money, and have gotten good at pilfering from houses. Alex’s deceitful ways catch up with him when a group of men in black frame him for murder. Alex is tried and convicted within a matter of days and is sent to hell on Earth—or rather below the Earth—Furnace Penitentiary. Kids who are sent to Furnace never come out. The men in black torture the inmates, sometimes taking them in the middle of the night only to have them resurface as monstrous creatures whose sole purpose is to kill. Alex knows he must find a way out of Furnace before the men in black come for him, but no one has ever escaped. Will he be the one to find the way out?

This novel is Smith’s debut in the United States. It is one of those leave-you-on-the-edge-of-your-seat thrill rides that will grab the reader right from the start. Teens will appreciate Smith’s vivid imagery. His writing is extremely fluid, and he makes the reader feel for the characters, especially the young protagonist, Alex. Readers will be cheering him on from start to finish. Look for the sequel, Solitary, forthcoming in 2010. Readers will be anxious to see where Alex’s adventures take him next.—Jonatha Basye.


Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
R [= Recommended]
Grade 9 - 12
After an eruption of gang violence bleeds into Britain's middle- and upper-class neighborhoods, leaving hundreds of innocents dead, authorities decide to build Furnace Penitentiary. Located a mile underground, it's the world's most secure prison, and the final destination for accused youth regardless of their guilt or innocence. Framed for his best friend's murder, fourteen-year-old Alex Sawyer begins his life sentence in Furnace and discovers that the terrifying rumors of its bleakness pale in comparison with the prison's horrific reality. Ruthless guards, hard labor, mutated monsters, and the constant threat of death force Alex to attempt what has never been done before--escape. Not for the faint-hearted, this dramatic British import is both a page- and stomach-turner. Alex's narration depicts with harsh clarity the prison's pitiless brutality, his choice of metaphors becoming increasingly coarse as if it to remind the reader of the true wretchedness of his surroundings. Meanwhile, the pacing is superb, building on the tension as each horror is revealed while saving the ultimate monstrosity for the cliffhanger ending. Granted, Alex himself and the other boys he meets within Furnace are a bit two-dimensional; nonetheless, readers will find themselves rooting for even the most violent of the inmates as they try to make their escape and defeat the Furnace.


ALA's School Library Journal
Gr 7-10–When Alex Sawyer, 15, is sentenced to life in a horrific underground prison for a murder he didn’t commit, his nightmare is only beginning. Ever since the Summer of Slaughter, when gangs such as the Skulls and the Fifty-niners went on a murderous rampage, the government has been throwing away the key on juvenile offenders. “New fish” Alex and cellmate Donovan sleep in pitch-black darkness patrolled by furless dogs with silver eyes and “blacksuits” in gas masks. Unpredictable siren wails keep prisoners in check, forcing them to race back to their cells before the bars close–lockdown–or risk being killed. Alex is also “Skull Fodder,” at the mercy of inmate gang members, and he realizes how similarly he once bullied kids in his own school. Smith builds a convincing atmosphere of fear and oppression until one day Alex catches a waft of fresh air from an off-limits area near his work zone. He becomes obsessed with the idea of escaping, and the mood shifts with the glimmer of hope that there could be a way out. Once a plot is hatched, readers will be turning pages without pause, and the cliff-hanger ending will have them anticipating the next installment. Most appealing is Smith’s flowing writing style, filled with kid-speak, colorful adjectives, and amusing analogies. Fans of James Patterson’s “Maximum Ride” and Darren Shan’s “The Demonata” series (both Little, Brown) will find this satisfying fare.–Vicki Reutter, Cazenovia High School, NY


Realms of Fantasy
Petty thief Alex’s latest heist turns tragic and life-altering when he’s interrupted by a set of mysterious men, who kill his best friend and frame him for the murder. Victim of Britain’s new zero-tolerance policy, he’s sentenced to life in Furnace, a bizarre, inhumane prison located a mile underground. Now he has to contend with vicious youth gangs, horrifying jailors, and the disturbing secrets of the world’s deadliest penitentiary, where death is nowhere near the worst thing that can happen. Alex will escape, or die trying. This nightmarish start to a new series is unrelentingly bleak, uniquely horrifying, and strangely compelling.


Booklist
Positing a near-future backlash against teen crime (and teens in general), Smith sets his series opener in a squalid prison for juvenile offenders built deep underground and patrolled by surgically altered supermen with vicious, skinless dogs. Framed (like a suspicious number of his fellow inmates) for a murder he did not commit, Alex is plunged into a desperate struggle for survival amid constant sirens, lurid lighting, nightmares, gang violence, and terrifying encounters with the prison’s scary guardians. Smith establishes a quick pace with an opening chase described in staccato prose, closes with a convoluted but explosive escape for Alex and a handful of allies, and in between crafts a picture of prison life less raw and hideous than what is found in, for instance, Adam Rapp’s Buffalo Tree (1997), but frightening enough to boost reader interest in sequels.

I've been trying to teach myself Flash for a while now (that's teach myself Flash as in the computer website animation programme, not teaching myself to flash, which would just be wrong) and I thought the best way to get to grips with it was to actually try and build a new website.

I'm happy to report that it is now finished! Well, finished enough to be posted online anyway. There are still a few glitches and typos, but I'm quite pleased with it! I'll be working on it for a while to come, but if anyone gets the chance to have a look then please let me know what you think!

Click here to visit it!

Can I still say that? I know 2010 isn't really new any more... Well happy new year anyway, and I hope it's a fantastic one for all of you! It was one of my many resolutions to blog more frequently, but like every single one of my resolutions (eat better, exercise every day, write something every day, keep the house tidy etc etc etc) I've already broken it. Never mind!

So, Christmas was lovely, as always. A nice quiet few days with friends and family! I spent Xmas day round at my mum's. Jamie's at an odd age now (nearly 14) where he kind of still likes the cool things I always used to buy him but also likes things like designer underwear (!!) and aftershave. So his pressies were a bit hit and miss this year – he loved the designer underwear, but the awesome water filtration experiment I got him (which he'd have loved a few years back) became the joke of the day! So it looks like I'll be filtering water all by myself in 2010!! I went to Dad's on Boxing Day with Kate, which was great too as I still don't really see him that much! It was lovely to be by the sea for a couple of days too.

And the biggest news over Christmas is that I finally popped the question to Lyns, and she said yes! :-)

After new year I took the gang down to Centerparcs for a week, which was the only holiday I managed to get last year (even though it was technically this year)! It was a super break. I absolutely love Centerparcs, we've been three times now. The whole forest was powdered with snow and looked gorgeous, and the pool was brilliant as always. We spent the whole week swimming, and racing down the rapids, and lounging outside in the heated salt pool as the snow fell all around us. Spectacular! I could quite easily live down there.

Coming back to work last week was a bit of a shock, and I didn't quite manage to get into the swing of it... But there's so much to do!!!! I'm determined to make 2010 a good year, which is difficult when all I want to do is sleep in till midday and play Civilization and Warcraft... I'm never going to get eight novels finished before December at this rate! So, it's back into a writing routine from tomorrow, starting with Furnace 4. I actually can't wait to get stuck into it!

Anyway, happy new year again, and may it be a very special one for all of you!

1. The name of the Furnace Penitentiary actually comes from a horror book for adults that I wrote when I was 18. Back then it was a prison for the criminally insane where the inmates were being hunted by bloodthirsty angels! The book was never published, and I loved the name Furnace so I stole it!

2. In the original draft of the novel, Alex Sawyer's name was Alex Smith, the same as mine! I wanted the book to feel as real as possible, so I wrote it with my name and even suggested that the author biography went something along the lines of: "Alexander Smith was convicted of a murder he didn't commit and sentenced to life without parole in Furnace Penitentiary. This is his story." The UK publishers didn't like the idea, though, so his surname was changed to Sawyer!

3. Likewise, Zee's name was originally Zed. However, there were too many instances of "Zed Said" and it was starting to sound like a Dr Seuss book, so I changed it to the American pronunciation, Zee!

4. Originally I wanted Furnace to be a modern prison, built above ground. Then, for research, I went to investigate some medieval dungeons in Norwich, where I live. My cheeky little brother locked me in a cell deep underground in the old prison, and as I was panicking in the tiny, pitch black (and probably haunted) space I decided that the prison would be far more terrifying if it was buried beneath the earth.


5. The only characters I had trouble describing when I was writing Lockdown were the Wheezers. I knew what I wanted them to be but I couldn't pin them down on the page. So I made a real-life Wheezer head out of rubber, burning and painting it until it looked right. I bought an old gas mask and stitched it on, then gave it a filthy rain slicker. Once I had done this I knew exactly what these nightmare creatures looked like, and what it was like to have one in your house! I even took it round to Jamie's house and left it outside his room one night to get revenge for him locking me in a cell!

6. In the UK the series is called Furnace, but it was changed in the US to Escape From Furnace. One of the reasons for this is that Wes, my editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pointed out that in the States most people have a furnace in their basement, and that they aren't particularly scary! In the UK hardly anybody has a furnace!

7. As part of researching the book I thought I owed it to myself to find out what it was like to shoot a gun. After all, there are plenty of gunfights in Lockdown and I wanted the story to feel as genuine and realistic as possible. A friend of mine, Adam, invited me to come shooting for rabbits with him one weekend. I told him I didn't want to shoot anything living, so he informed me that the best thing to shoot was actually... a cowpat! We spent the morning out on the fields doing exactly that. When you shoot a cowpat with a shotgun it literally explodes – it's like watching a poo volcano! There was one unfortunate incident when we both shot a giant cowpat at the same time. It rose up, caught the wind, and surged in the direction of Adam's little brother, who was out shooting with us. The poor boy turned around to see a wall of cow dung flying towards him. He didn't have time to dodge. He didn't even have time to close his mouth. It was so disgusting! As well as being hilarious, the experience really helped me describe what it was like to fire a gun.

8. When I first pitched the series to my agent I misspelled the name of the book in the email, calling it FUNRACE (I was so excited about the idea I sent it off without checking)! She probably thought the story was about a jolly marathon – until she read the synopsis!

9. I called one of the villains in the book Kevin Arnold without noticing that it was the same name as the kid in The Wonder Years (even though I always used to watch the show). I could have changed it, but thought it would be interesting to have such a horrible character share the name of one of the nicest kids on television!

10. In the trailer for Furnace (which you can see here), the boy burgling the house is my little brother, Jamie, and the Wheezer is actually me!

Yesterday was my last event for a few months and it went brilliantly – a whole day of talks and workshops with Year 8 at Heathersett High School in Norwich. I have to say that the pupils who came to the talk, and especially those who joined in the workshops, were amongst the best that I have ever worked with – so full of amazing, and gory, ideas! Thanks to you all for being so much fun to work with, and to Sara and Lorraine for inviting me in!

It's been a really busy year with events and editing, and of course having the first three books in the Furnace series published. It's been amazing fun, but there hasn't been a huge amount of time to do any writing. I have written two very short books this year, which is great, but nowhere near as many as I wanted to write. And to be honest I think I have become a little lazy in my writing habits. So, in order to inspire myself to start writing seriously again, I have set myself a challenge:

I am going to write eight novels in a year.

Yes, eight novels between now, today, the 1st of December 2009, and the 30th November 2010. Why eight? Well, it was going to be 12, then I thought that would probably kill me. Then I said six, but I didn't think that was challenging enough (I mean it would still be a huge challenge, but I'd probably end up not starting until next summer or something, I needed it to be such a huge task that I'd have to start right away), so then I went to 10, and thought that was too challenging, and finally settled on eight.

Of course I'm not intending to write eight flawless, finished novels in this time (me write a flawless novel, ha!). No, the idea is to write eight first drafts that I can then move on and edit and trim and finish at my own pace. Really what I want to do is write write write and get some ideas down on paper, actually get some manuscripts written. Some of them may be rubbish, but they'll at least be a starting point.

Can I do it? I'm not sure. The most I've ever written in a year was three full-length novels and a screenplay. But I'll have six weeks to finish each book, and I don't think it's ever taken me longer than that to finish the first draft of a novel. Anyway, the fun will be in the trying!

I'm thinking that each book will be around 60,000 words long, on average, which is almost half a million words in total. That breaks down into 1,300 (ish) words every day, which sounds very doable if I don't think about the days that I won't be able to write anything at all. Anyway, the more I think about the numbers the worse this idea sounds, so I'm going to do what I do best and not think about the logistics. I'm just going to start writing!

I'll keep you all updated on the blog!

Wish me luck!

PS. Thanks to my good friend Tim Clare for inspiring me. He set himself a challenge of writing 100 poems in a single day which sounded impossible, but he did it! So I'm following his lead!

Just a quick post: I've been meaning to link to some Lockdown reviews in the States for a while now, and here they are! I'll add more when I find them!

Thanks to everybody for the awesome reviews!!!

:-)

Read them here, here, here, here, here, here and here!

No, I don't mean Mario's nemesis, I mean my car. I'm always astonished how easy it is to become attached to inanimate objects. Even though the logical part of your brain is telling you that a car is a hunk of metal and plastic and other lifeless materials, that it cannot possibly hear what you are saying or feel any semblance of human emotion, you still cannot help but think of it as alive, as a living, breathing, thinking, feeling thing.

Which is why, when you have to give up a car, it can be like losing a best friend, a member of the family.

Bowser has been my faithful Volvo V40 for four years now, it has carried me many thousands of miles and joined me on many an adventure. But sadly the week before last his engine went totally bonkers and he started trying to drive himself. Literally trying to drive himself. He was moving forward even when I didn't have my foot on the accelerator. At first I thought that the many years of wishing my car was alive had paid off and he had actually become a sentient vehicle. However, the people at the garage told me his throttle was shot and that he basically needed a new engine. I felt a bit like how Gepetto would have felt if, after witnessing his puppet come to life, somebody had said "actually, he's not alive at all, sorry about that. By the way, if you ever want to use him again it will cost you £3,000". Gutted.

Bowser was my second car, after a little red Dihatsu Charade called Clint which I bought from my friend Luke after uni (and yes, that's where Clint in The Inventors got his name from)! I couldn't really justify spending more money to fix him than I paid to buy him in the first place, so I said my sad farewells and traded him in for another car. But that moment when I patted him on the steering wheel for the last time, gently closed his door and said goodbye was heartbreaking!

Anyway, I'm welling up again now, but I just wanted to write a tribute to Bowser, the best car in the world. Thanks for everything. I'll miss you!

And even though my new car is pretty cool, it doesn't have an ejector seat / rockets / wings and a turn-into-a-boat button like Bowser (okay, you can't really see them on this picture, but he did!):

Hello everybody! It's been a good long while since my last entry (which is becoming a rather standard first line in my blogs recently) but I have been on tour again so I do have an excuse! But right now I'm sitting in my new office (the picture above is the view from my window, which isn't great I have to admit but that is a field you can kind of see in the distance) with a bit of spare time so I thought it was a perfect opportunity to catch up!

Why the new office? Well, I usually work from home, which is absolutely perfect most of the time. However, anybody who works from home will be able to tell you that it is often quite difficult to motivate yourself to do any work at all. "Working from home" becomes more like "washing up from home" or "doing laundry from home" or, more usual for me "playing on the X-Box from home". There's just something about getting out of bed and strolling through to the living room that really doesn't feel like work.

So... Tired of not getting much done, I decided to look for an office. And it was good timing, as two great friends of mine, Luke and Nathan, were also looking for a space to work in that was far enough from the telly (or in Luke's case a new baby) to be conducive to a little hard work. Luke discovered an old shoe factory just down the road from us that was offering rooms on the cheap, and after a quick look round we took it! It is a fantastic space, and the building itself is very inspiring (well, for horror stories, that is, as it's full of creepy corridors and shadowy old factory floors). I'll take some more piccies soon and post them here.

I haven't had much of a chance to use the office yet (which Luke affectionally named The Garret), as I've been so busy on tour. But I have been sitting here today and it's been so nice to have a space without any distractions (apart from Facebook, and drawing hilarious but inappropriate gags about Nathan on the new blackboard wall...) and I have actually managed to get loads of stuff done!

Anyway, speaking of the tour, I just want to say a huge thanks to everybody who came to see me talk, and who joined in the workshops, I have had an amazing time! I'll write about it in more detail very soon, but for now let me just give a shout out to all the pupils, teachers and librarians at Edenham School, Oasis Academy, the Archbishop Lanfranc School, the Archbishop Tennison School, Harris Academy and Riddlesdown Collegiate in Croydon, Christ's College in Guildford, Seven Stories in Newcastle, the Durham Festival, the Richmond Festival, Worksop Library (and the school that came to visit) and Buxton Library! I think that's everyone... Two more events to go and then I'm taking some time off to do some writing! It has been an amazing month though!

Right, I'm off to Kung Fu, see you all soon!

Sorry I've been absent for a while, I've been on tour! Yes, a tour, just like the gods of rock – huge triple-decker tour bus with swimming pool and disco, private jets with military escorts, insane riders at venues (I simply must have a bed made from haggis and I must bathe in champagne every evening) and not to mention my entourage of hair designers, make-up artists, fashion experts and foot corn filers.

Well, to be honest not all of that is true. I didn't have a foot corn filer. I have been on tour, though, to promote the release of Furnace 3: Death Sentence. It's all very exciting! I've finished the first leg, and am off on the second tomorrow, so I don't have an awful lot of time to write, but I just wanted to give you a rundown of events so far and say a huge thanks to everyone who came to see me!

First there was the Free Word Festival at the wonderful new Free Word Centre in London. This is an amazing place devoted to literature, literacy and free expression, and well worth checking out! I was just one of a number of things going on that day, including a Shakespeare rap session with Akala and a manga workshop. Thanks to everybody for listening to my talk, and for asking some great questions!

Next I was on the train heading up to Wigtown. Isn't that just the coolest name for a place?! It has nothing to do with wigs, apparently – if anyone does know why it's called Wigtown please do let me know as I forgot to ask! It was a long, long journey up there (my private jet and coach weren't working that day, I think Bono might have borrowed them) but I took my book and the hours just flew by. All nine and a half of them. It would have been nine, but the lovely retired couple who came to collect me at Dumfries Station needed to do their shopping and so I ended up accompanying them on a trip round Tescos! It was dark when I arrived at the hotel, a beautiful place called the Rowallan Guest House, but when I woke up in the morning the views were absolutely stunning! I always forget how beautiful parts of Scotland are, and the west coast is unbeatable.

After a delicious and healthy fry-up with haggis for breakfast I ventured off to get the bus – I mean my private helicopter – to Wigtown. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and after I checked in with the lovely festival organisers I decided to go and have a wander. I had a couple of hours until my event and the countryside was beckoning me! I headed off for the harbour, and arrived after ten minutes of the freshest air you could imagine (I looked like a man about to try and blow up a hundred balloons). I arrived at the harbour, however, just as the heavens opened. And I mean a monsoon! I was only in my T-shirt (well, I had trousers and stuff on as well, I just mean I wasn't wearing a coat) and I legged it back towards town. Half way there I spotted a signpost for a path and gambled on it being a shortcut... It wasn't (of course), and I ended up taking a very muddy, very wet, very windy detour around the entire town. By the time I got back I was drenched and looked like a mud monster. But it had stopped raining so I walked up to the Windy Hill (yes, it is actually called that) and stood there in the gale-force wind until I was reasonably dry.

Here I am on Windy Hill!



By that time it was almost four, so after a quick spot of lunch in the writer's retreat I headed over to the children's tent. Because of the weather there weren't as many people there as there could have been, but everyone who did come was absolutely fantastic! Smaller audiences often work better because everybody gets a chance to talk, and these guys were so full of great ideas – especially when we started coming up with ideas for horror stories! Thanks so much to you all for braving the weather, and I owe a special thanks to Greg for his wonderful introduction! It was a really great event, and I hope I'll be back again next year!

Afterwards, still a little damp, I popped back to the retreat for a cup of tea and ended up chatting to the wonderful Charlie James, author of Fish and Dino Egg. We even came up with a fantastic Wigtown Scooby Doo episode together! After that I made my way back to the lodge and thought about crashing out for a while before heading off to the festival ceilidh (weirdest spelling ever). I especially wanted to go because fellow Faber author Philip Ardagh might have been there. However, after a hot bath and some chocolate the thought of venturing back out in the dark was too much and I ended up watching X-Factor, playing Civ then going to bed! The next day involved more haggis for breakfast, then a long, long trip back to Norwich (but no trip round Tescos this time)!

Thanks to everyone at Wigtown for being so great! And for anyone who has never been, it really is worth it, especially if you like books. It's Scotland's book town and there are about 15 book shops there, maybe more! Heaven!

After a long snooze I was back on the road (well, the railway tracks) the following day, this time heading in the other direction. I was going down to Kent, to the Petts Wood Library. I got there two minutes after I was supposed to start, and launched myself straight in to my talk. The library was packed, which was wonderful, and it was a younger crowd than the ones I've been talking to recently which was such a nice change! They all laughed their socks off as I talked about building crazy inventions, making rocket boots out of fireworks and shooting cowpats with shotguns, and once again there were some brilliant ideas for stories! Most of them bought books afterwards as well, although sadly there were no copies of The Inventors there because I think it's out of print. ARGH! I'll find out and let you all know! But thanks to you all for making it a fantastic event, and a special thanks too to Jenny for organising it all! I had a great time!

The next event was an extra special one because it took place in another of my old schools! This time my old infant school, Bignold, in Norwich. It was so weird going back there after twenty-five years. Yes, you heard right, a quarter of century! But the weird thing was it smelled exactly the same. In fact that's one of the few things I can remember about Bignold, the smell. It's not a bad smell, just a school smell, but it takes you right back to your early days! I also vaguely remember playing kissy-cat in the playground when I was at Bignold (er, when I was a kid, that was, not when I visited the other day!!) but other than that I don't remember much at all!

I was giving a talk to years 4, 5 and 6 so the hall was absolutely packed. But they were an amazing audience, one of the best I've ever spoken to, and at times they were laughing so hard I thought the windows were going to explode! Thanks to you all for coming up with some great scary ideas and for being such stars! This will definitely go down as one of the best events I've ever done! Thanks to you all, and also to Rachel and Lisa for organising it! I'll definitely be back in soon to do some workshops!

Tomorrow I'm off to London for a week of school events, which I'm really looking forward to! If I'm coming to visit your school then get thinking about scary stories now!

I'll try and blog again as soon as humanly possible. And once again a massive thanks to everyone who came to see me!