Chris d'Lacey's Blog, page 9

This week's word is: NOTHING

Hello dragon fans. You might be tempted to think that with a header like that there would be no blog post at all this week, but clearly you are wrong (hrrr!). The header refers to the fact that for the last week or so, the author has been wandering around thinking about nothing. I don't mean that no thoughts have entered his head. If you were to put a small telescope to his ear and peer inside you would still see tiny lights blinking on every time he mused about soccer or breakfast or whether to scratch his nose or not. The tumbleweed is still moving. No, what he's been thinking about is the concept of nothing. That's very different. And slightly baffling. Let me explain.  The other night we were watching an interesting TV programme on precisely this subject. The presenter, a very clever professor, held a plastic box in his hands and said, "Imagine you could take everything out of this box, all the air, all the dust, all the light etc. What would you be left with?" The author raised his hand and muttered, "Erm, a vacuum." The professor nodded and said, "Yes, but even in the vacuum tiny particles of matter and anti-matter spontaneously appear and almost instantaneously disappear again." This bizarre idea sent the author's tumbleweed into a real spin. "How can that happen?" he asked. But he didn't address the question to the professor, he addressed it to me. It's all to do, of course, with what humans call 'physics' or that fascinating branch of physics that Arthur Merriman is intrigued by, 'quantum mechanics'. Without going into mind-boggling detail (even a dragon as smart as me can't truly explain the wonders of spontaneous creation) it appears that at the tiniest, tiniest levels of existence (i.e. within atoms) particles don't obey the normal laws of movement. They tend to dash about randomly. Famous scientists like Einstein have studied this for decades and no-one has a real explanation for it. One scientist in particular, a rather brilliant man called Paul Dirac, went as far as to say that quantum mechanics could not properly be described in words but only in physical or visual concepts. Put another way, we may not be able to explain the entire mechanics of creation, but we can certainly recognise or experience its effects. So how does this apply to The Last Dragon Chronicles? Well, it will come as no surprise to you to know that dragons are in tune with the auma of the universe. We understand time and energy and matter – and their relationship to consciousness. We can't explain the laws that govern it (even in dragontongue), we can only be one with its different states of being. And sometimes, in extreme circumstances, we can interact with it... Notice the use of the word 'sometimes' there? Every week, the author receives several messages from fans asking, "What happened at the end of Dark Fire? Where did everyone go? Why did Zookie write 'sometimes'? What does 'sometimes' mean?" (Haven't they realised yet that the author knows nothing???) If you split 'sometimes' into two words 'some times' maybe the concept gets a little easier. In the battle of Scuffenbury Hill, time is suspended and everything focuses on that one point. At first it appears that nothing is happening. But as we've already discovered 'something' is always spontaneously happening out of nothing, and that something, in this instance, is a miniscule leap into another possible timeline, the parallel universe described in FIRE WORLD (only 16 days before it's published in America, btw). Don't worry, we will be coming back to Earth and Scuffenbury, but doing it via another jump in time. For as David becomes more attuned to the dragon auma within him, and Zanna learns how to control the energy of tornaqs (particularly through her increasing compatibility with unicorns) they find they are able to move into the 'future' or the 'past' with ease, and that takes them all the way back to Gawain. The only problem, of course, is that their old adversary Gwilanna is there as well, and a slight step ahead of them… Until next time. Happy reading. Hrrr!

This week's word is: PLASTERED

Hello dragon fans.  This week's blog post is dedicated to the author's head - or rather, a small part of his head that is now in a pot in a laboratory somewhere (cue maniacal laughter).  He's been tweeting rather proudly about his 'operation' and a lot of you seem confused about what exactly he's had done.  Regular followers of the Notepad will remember that a few months ago, what he thought was a normal 'spot' on the right side of his temple changed colour.  His doctor advised him to have it removed.  So on Tuesday this week he toddled off to a clinic at the local hospital (with me in his bag, taking notes, as always) to have 'the procedure'.  The surgeon drew a circle round the offending 'spot' and showed it to the author in a hand-held mirror.  "That's what needs to come out," he said.  "We also need to take a little of the area around the outside of the spot, just to be sure we've got it all.  Very straightforward.  You won't feel a thing - not until about three hours afterwards when the anaesthetic's worn off."  At that point, he produced a needle and injected a fluid into the author's head to, erm, numb it (which was a bit of a waste of a good anaesthetic if you want my opinion). Nine minutes later, it was all over.  The spot was chopped out and four neat stitches had been put into the cut to hold it together.  (The author had had a facelift.)  He said, "Are there likely to be any complications?"  The surgeon said, "You're lucky the spot wasn't further along or it might have affected a motor nerve above your eye.  Can you still do a shocked expression?"  The author said he wasn't sure.  "Well, imagine Kylie Minogue has just walked in to nurse you." The author made an expression.  The surgeon said, "That's more like delight than shock.  Can you raise both eyebrows?"  At which point, I jabbed the author's neck with my isoscele.  That raised his eyebrows all right.
So he came home with a big white plaster stuck to his temple.  Some ladies have commented that he looked a little 'macho'.  To us, he just looked like a man with a white post-it note on his head.  We thought you'd like to see what it looked like before the shower washed it away.

He's expected to have a scar, which he's convinced will make him appear more 'manly'.  (I blow a smoke ring in despair.)  When the stitches are out, we'll show it.  Thankfully, none of this has stopped him writing and he's pressing on with THE FIRE ASCENDING.  A big decision was made about the book this week.  It will NOT be in two volumes.  Everything will wind up in this book.  TFA will be the seventh and last.  And for all you fans in America and Canada who've been desperate to read FIRE WORLD, you are now only 23 days from publication.  Until next time.  Happy reading.  Hrrr!

This week's word is: SILHOUETTE

Hello dragon fans.  It's me, Gadzooks.  I'm back.  Did you miss me?  I was indeed having a ponder during the supermoon last week, mainly about the villainess, Gwilanna, who is featuring heavily in THE FIRE ASCENDING at the moment and making a nuisance of herself as usual.  Wow, what a background SHE has.  We can't wait to unleash that one on the world of dragon lore.  Hrrr!  As you may have seen from the author's tweets, it's not just Gwilanna who's made an appearance.  Gawain popped out of his egg a few thousand words ago.  And this week it was the turn of Thoran, the brown bear who becomes the first polar bear, to enter the story.  When you add an eagle called Gideon to this, who was the first ever firebird (you meet them in FIRE WORLD) you can see how important this story is and why so much thought is going into it.  There has been a lot of scribbling on the pad these last weeks.
But for now, I want to leave the book and show you some pictures, beginning with this week's header word.  Not long ago, the author was invited to attend a dinner at a conference in Basingstoke.  During courses, a charming young lady called Alison Russell came round the tables, cutting silhouettes of the guests directly onto black card.  This is the one she did of the author.  As you can see, she has been very kind and not made his nose too big or his hairline too receded and only given him one chin!  Mmm.  Normally, he HATES being photographed in profile.  (It's the nose.)  But he loves this.  'Pure genius,' he called it.  And we agree.  Go and have a look at Alison's lovely website.  www.alison-russell.co.uk


And finally this week, we thought we'd finish by showing you a few dragon pics.  These were sent to the author by some children at a school near Swindon, the last one he visited on his recent tour.  Glade thinks her picture is wonderful.  And we'd like to thank the boy who wrote a note saying the author was, "...so funny. Absolutely historical." I think we'd all agree with that!!  He was practically around at the dawn of dragons.  Till next week.  Happy reading.  Hrrr!  PS. 300 followers now.  Fantastic!

This week's word is: SUPERMOON

Hello dragon fans.  I've given Gadzooks the day off as he's still a little 'moonstruck' this afternoon.  For those of you who don't know, roughly every eighteen years or so the moon's elliptical orbit brings it on its closest path to the Earth.  If you're lucky enough to see it, you might notice that it's bigger and brighter as it passes through the night sky.  Astronomers will tell you that it has no effect on the planet whatsoever.  But dragons, of course, revere the moon as much as they love snow (read ICEFIRE if you want to know why).  Traditionally, the moon is associated with a dragon's birth or a dragon's death.  It's well known that a dying dragon will wait until the moon is at its fullest before shedding its fire tear.  And queen dragons have been known to time their eggs so that their wearlings pop out on a new moon.  (It's thought to give the young ones wisdom.)  Well, I'm happy to report that none of our dragons died last night (though Gruffen fell over on the sofa, asleep, at one point), but there was a lot of muttering about a new 'something' being born.  People keep asking me if THE FIRE ASCENDING really will be the last of the dragon books and I keep saying, "Definitely. YES!"  But the way Gadzooks was pondering this morning makes me wonder if there isn't too much story still left to tell in one book.  Maybe he's thinking of an eighth? Or maybe he's just making up poetry?  Who knows?
One thing I can tell you is that THE FIRE ASCENDING is coming along fine.  A little slower than we'd like, but the story is good.  A lot of you write in asking can I give a summary of it or post a few chapters up on the website.  Sorry, guys, I can't do that.  My publisher won't allow it - not until the book is completed at least.  I can talk about the book and my hopes and aspirations for it, but I can't give too much away.  And really, honestly, you wouldn't thank me if I did.  The true fans want the book in their hands.  They want to read the conclusion in their favourite armchair, not in scraps printed off from the Internet.  Let me say this: TFA has a very historical feel to it.  It goes right the way back to the beginning, to the end of the last dragon colony on Earth.  In the early parts it tells the story of the mysterious character, Agawin, who appeared in FIRE WORLD and his relationship to Guinevere and Gawain and everyone's favourite villainess, Gwilanna (boo!).  It's great stuff.  Puts it all into perspective.  But what about David, Zanna and Zookie?  Oh, don't worry, they will be in it too.  Ultimately, the story will be theirs and theirs alone.  But as the series is called 'The Last Dragon Chronicles' it's only right that we should chronicle something of Gawain's life...yes?
Last week Zookie reported that Val Chivers, the lady who makes the dragons shown on my website, was having problems with her email.  I'm glad to say that's all resolved and you can contact Val again now.  She'd be pleased to hear from you.
One last thing: Facebook.  Lots of you track me down on Facebook and send messages telling me you like the books.  While I'm always happy to hear from fans, I'd prefer it if you wrote to me via my website email, dragonmail1@btinternet.com  I'm not a big user of Facebook so I don't enter into dialogues there.  I will respond to messages on Twitter, but again don't send me too many because regular tweeters will know there's nothing worse than seeing someone flooding the timeline with their own personal messages.
That's it from me.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend.  Zookie will be back next week.  Happy reading.  Hrrr!

This week's word is: CENTURY

Hello dragon fans.  Believe it or not, this is my one hundreth blog post!  I've been scribbling on the notepad every Sunday for two years now.  And great fun it's been, too, keeping you up to date with all the goings on in Wayward Crescent.  It's a pity we don't have something hugely exciting to celebrate our century of messages with, but I guess regular readers will just be pleased to know that the author is about to return to THE FIRE ASCENDING after two weeks away from the keyboard doing school events.  As you know he was in Wales ten days ago.  This week he found himself in Scotland and the city of Glasgow, where he was appearing at the 'Aye Write' book festival.  Here's a picture of the Mitchell Library where the festival was held.  Impressive, isn't it?  Love the green dome.  A few dragons I know would probably like to stroke that! The author spoke in the Robert Burns room.  Burns is Scotland's most famous poet so the author had a lot to live up to.  But the sessions went well and he really enjoyed it.  Now he has no more events until mid-June.  Lots of lovely time to write in.

One thing we would have liked to show you this week are some illustrations from the Japanese edition of GRUFFEN, one of the Dragons of Wayward Crescent series. The author's Japanese publisher kindly sent over a whole bundle of wonderful drawings.  As soon as we receive clearance to show them, we'll put a few up.  On the subject of Japan, all the dragons were devastated by the news of the terrible earthquake and resulting tsunami in that part of the world.  Our thoughts are with the people of Japan at this dreadful time.  G'reth is leading us in a special meditation.  Please take the time to send them a hrrr.
The author's brother, Marshall, who looks after the icefire website, has told us that some of you are having trouble getting through to Val Chivers, the lady who makes dragons based on us.  We're not quite sure why your emails to Val are bouncing, but Gwendolen is looking into it.  Have patience.  Order will be restored very soon.  On the subject of emails, the author has asked me to thank all of you who've written so encouragingly to him about FIRE WORLD lately.  He is extremely pleased by your responses.  He's collecting them in the hope that we might quote some in a future paperback edition of the book.  A reader described FW as 'mind-blowing' the other day.  Well, we're certainly very proud of it.  Recently, someone in publishing muttered to us that 'dystopian' novels will be this year's 'thing'.  Hello, we've already done one!  A dystopian society is one in which things have gone horribly wrong or are as bad as they can be.  In Fire World, the people of Co:pern:ica appear to have a very cosy existence, but they have paid a huge price for it.  They have lost all their animals and abandoned nature.  Their society, ruled by a few corrupt 'Aunts', is starting to crumble.  Who can save them?  David, of course.  Check the book out.  It's fab.  Not long now until it appears in the USA (May).  It should come out in Australia at the same time.  Let us know what you think when you're read it.  Till next time.  Hrrr!

This week's word is: RHYL

   The way a library should be... Hello dragon fans.  Most of you will know that this has been a very special week in the literary calendar.  It was World Book Day last Thursday and many authors, our hero included, were out and about celebrating the wonder of books.  The author has visited many different places on this day in the past.  This year he found himself on the North Wales coast, in the seaside town of Rhyl.  (A place he used to visit on holiday as a boy.)  Now Rhyl is not generally regarded as a centre of literary excellence in the same way that the city of Oxford might be, for instance, but it has children, and it has readers and it also has a brilliant, newly-refurbished library.  Check out the pictures.  This is the way a library should be.  Comfortable and well-designed, with the books attractively presented.  It was a joy for us to be there.  And we spotted two Welsh dragons at the seafront! Hrrr!

Annoyingly NOT open!It's been a busy week, what with visits to a sales conference in Basingstoke, Shaftesbury School in Dorset and Cheltenham College in, erm, Cheltenham.  All of which were great fun.  But it is very tiring, touring round the country, and the author was glad to be able to put his feet up at home this weekend.  Last night, we watched the coverage of World Book Night on the telly (well done, the BBC).  For those of you who don't know, the idea of World Book Night was that people would give away free copies of a number of pre-selected books to anyone they thought might like to read them.  The idea, of course, was to stimulate reading.  Many of the recipients that we saw filmed were readers already.  But the interesting thing was they were sometimes given books they would not normally have chosen to read.  And this reminded us of a personal and rather appropriate story.  It might surprise you to know that the author wasn't a great reader when he was young.  But at age 14 his head was turned by an influential teacher.  The author had b een sent to his school library to serve a detention (yes, he sometimes got into trouble at school!).  The teacher in charge of detention that day made our hero read for an hour.  But, crucially, he wasn't allowed to read the book of his choice; he had to read the book his teacher chose for him.  That book was PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, by the famous English author Jane Austen. It was a period romance.  Hardly the sort of thing a young boy would go for.  The author not only read it, but liked it.  From that moment on he read lots of books.  Not a huge amount, but enough.  So if you were the lucky recipient of a free book on World Book Night make sure you read it.  It might change your life.  Until next time, happy reading. Hrrr!

This week's word is: STASIS

Hello dragon fans.  It's like the hour after that heavy Sunday lunch here at the moment.  Everyone just wants to fall asleep.  Hrrrzzzz.  There's very little going on.  So all the dragons have shut down for a while - except Gwillan, of course.  Someone's got to water the plants. To be fair, the author has been very active as he tries to reach the 30,000 word marker on THE FIRE ASCENDING (he's at about 29,000).  He wrote the first 20,000 reasonably quickly and rather foolishly imagined it was going to continue like that.  However, he's been grappling with a bit of "pre-history" over the last couple of weeks.  In the second part of TFA we find ourselves back in time, to when Gawain was a baby dragon and Guinevere was around to catch his fire tear.  Those of you who can cast your minds back to THE FIRE WITHIN and ICEFIRE will remember that Gwilanna, the sibyl, was also around in those days.  So what the author's been wrangling with is the back story, which must marry up with what you know already.  For instance, we know that Gwilanna gets her longevity from possessing one of Gawain's scales.  But there is a bit more to it than that.  And there's a lot more to her, in fact.  In this book, you'll discover how Gwilanna came into existence - and Guinevere too.  It's all good stuff, but it's all a bit tricky.  I keep offering to write some words of inspiration on my pad for him, but he keeps flapping his hands and insisting he can work things out for himself.  Clever author.  Don't worry, if he gets really stuck I'll zap him.
As it's another quiet week, I thought I might use the notepad today to offer you some advice about stories.  The author did a very nice event a couple of weeks ago and many of the children wrote to him afterwards to ask if he could give them some tips about writing.  It turned out that they wanted to enter a National Short Story competition being advertised on the radio here in England by the famous DJ Chris Evans.  They had to write a story in 500 words.  Now, followers of the blog from overseas probably won't be able to enter the competition (we're not entirely sure of the conditions of entry), but you may still find the following info useful.  This is what the author wrote back to the kids (with my help, naturally):
Hi guys.  Here's my advice.  Write a STORY, not a novel.  You can't get Harry Potter into 500 words.  Concentrate on the setup and resolution of ONE incident and try to write well and descriptively about it.  Think simple, not complex.  For that reason I would avoid fantasy and stick to something more human, but keep it fictional.  Keep your characters to a minimum.  No more than three.  Make sure you have some dialogue in there.  Nothing describes a character better than the words that come out of their mouths.  Dialogue will also move your story along quicker.  You need a really strong opening line.  This is one of the hardest things to do in a short story.  Try to think of something that will give the reader an inkling of what the whole story is about.  The best opening line I ever wrote was for an adult short story about a bomb hoax.  It went: "I was standing at a urinal when the sniffer dog walked in."  DON'T steal that.  You'll get into trouble!  But you see what I mean?  The title also needs to tell the reader something about the story.  Finally the ending must be satisfying.  It doesn't necessarily have to be believable, but it has to work within the context of the story.  Good luck.
Not bad, eh?  For him.  Anyway, I feel my eye ridges growing heavy and I can hear him snoring somewhere in the background.  So I'll leave you with this thought: don't forget it's World Book Day this coming Thursday.  Your local library NEEDS your support.  Get in there and get something borrowed.  Till next time.  Happy reading.  Hrrr!

This week's word is: SWEETS

Hello, dragon fans. First a quick update: all of you with eBook readers will be pleased to hear that the chronicles are available for download at last. We seem to have been waiting ages for them, but you can now get the first five novels from a variety of places online, such as Waterstones, WH Smith and Amazon. Fire World will be available later in the year. A bit of eastern joy for the author this week when a letter dropped through the door informing us that the chronicles, all six of them (so far), are going to be published in Turkey. Hrrr! It's commonplace for humans to use the phrase 'Turkish Delight' when referring to good news about this country, but the other dragons in the den are concerned that the publisher might start sending us lots of the sweets which go by that name if we do (ahem) – in much the same way that fans of The Beatles sent them truck loads of jelly babies when they confessed to liking those sweets back in the sixties. Mrs Author has just said that she's been trying for years to track down a violet-flavoured variety that someone allegedly brought back from a holiday in Turkey. She thinks she must have been imagining it and the violet flavour doesn't really exist, unless our Turkish publisher knows otherwise… As it's been a quiet week in Wayward Crescent, let me tell you a little story about sweets. Once, during a question and answer session, someone asked the author if he thought he had anything in common with the much-loved writer Roald Dahl. He initially replied, "We're both tall, suffer from a bad back and are occasionally bad-tempered" which was not really in the spirit of the question. So I poked him with my isoscele and wrote 'SWEETS' on my pad. "Oh, yes," the author said, "and we both liked sweets." This began a long talk about 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory', the sweet names Roald Dahl had invented and what the author's favourite sweets were. Needless to say, we couldn't shut him up after that. It transpired that he liked LOTS of sweets, including fruit gums, liquorice torpedos and fruit & nut chocolate, but his favourites were something called Sports Mixtures. Anyone who doesn't live in England will probably be wondering what these things are. I will explain. Sports Mixtures are like wine gums (chewy, gelatinous things – very bad for your teeth) but made in sporting shapes, e.g. Tennis rackets, soccer boots or cricket bats. I know. Bizarre, isn't it? Our hero ate hundreds of them when he was a boy and still eats them now. (Mrs Author is shaking her head in despair.) Anyway, he told the audience a nice anecdote about a sweet shop he used to visit on his way to school in the mornings. Every day he would go into this shop and buy four Sports Mixtures for the price of one old British penny. You have to think back to the days before the internet and mobile phones for this. It was a looong time ago. This practice went on for many months: visit the shop, hand over a penny, obtain four sweets. Then one day a sign went up on the shop to say it was being sold. The author was devastated. His beloved sweet supply. Cut off. On the day the shop shut down, he was terribly deflated but went in to buy his four Sports Mixtures as usual. He said, "Would it be all right if I had four black ones today?" (The black ones were liquorice-flavoured and his favourites.) The shop owner shook his head. He said, "I'm not going to sell you four Sports Mixtures today." The author's face dropped. No Sports Mixtures? Today, of all days? Then the shopkeeper did something very kind. He reached under the counter, brought out the box in which he kept the Sports Mixtures and handed what was left in the box to the author (about 70 sweets in total). You can imagine how goggle-eyed the author was. As he turned to the door with his haul the shopkeeper said, "Oi, aren't you forgetting something?" He held out his hand. "I still want your penny." The author gratefully handed it over. The shopkeeper put it into a charity box. "We'll let the dogs' home have that one," he said. And that was that. The author went on his way. But the important thing for all you writers to note is this: he said to the audience listening to the story, "That will end up in a book one day..." Or on a dragon's blog! Till next time. Happy reading. Hrrr!

This week's word is: ETHEREAL

There was  a slightly subdued atmosphere at Wayward Crescent earlier this week when the author received news that his eldest sister had been taken seriously ill. We won't rattle any scales with the details, but she is okay now and out of hospital. We sent flowers to her bedside, of course - well, one of Gretel's potions, via the time-travelling, shape-shifting dragon, Groyne (plus a special healing crystal from Gollygosh's toolbox). Both were well-received.  Needless to say, we are keeping a good watch over her and making the author write plenty to take his mind off it. He's well into part two of THE FIRE ASCENDING now, which is subtitled The Flight of Gideon. Hrrr!
What really lifted the author's spirits this week (apart from me jabbing him with my isoscele if he got too melancholy) was a brilliant review of FIRE WORLD. Here's the link to it:
http://bit.ly/fd0Blg
The piece was written by a young man called Rhys who is a huge reader of YA fiction and writes many reviews on his Thirst for Fiction website (the link will take you to it). It's probably safe to say that Rhys is a bit of a fan of the Chronicles, but that has never stopped him giving his honest opinion of a book, and nor should it. I don't want to tell you too much about the review; we'd rather you read it. But he did use one exceptionally good word to describe the whole book, which had the author muttering 'Why didn't I think of that?'. The word, of course, is our header this week: ETHEREAL. Translated literally, 'ethereal' would mean 'heavenly' or 'spirit-like'. Now we dragons would hardly describe ourselves as 'heavenly' – except Gretel, of course, if she's reading this! But the word seems entirely appropriate for the nature of the book. Someone else described it as 'out there'. And it is. If we've said it once, we've said it a Lucy Pennykettle number of times: FIRE WORLD is different. The author also liked Rhys' neat description of imagineering as 'mental engineering'. For those of you who haven't read the book yet, in Co:pern:ica, where the story is set, the characters are able to 'imagineer'. What this means is they can materialise objects just by thinking about them. Think how much fun you could have with that?  A lot, yes.  But it comes with a price. First of all, it takes a lot of 'auma' to imagineer powerfully and that 'auma' has to come from somewhere else in the universe. We won't say where it comes from in Co:pern:ica because that would spoil the story for you. Also, the more you imagineer, the less capable of it you become. So wise people only imagineer what they really need. Also, the people of Co:pern:ica are only allowed to imagineer within the limits of something called 'The Grand Design'. But what if you could imagineer beyond The Grand Design? That would make you pretty powerful, wouldn't it. But would it also make you dangerous? Say your name was Gwilanna, for instance, and you had that ability. Or David… Mmmm.
Anyway, a big HRRR to Rhys and his lovely website. Apart from the feedback we receive in fan mail, that is the first review we've seen of the book. If they are all like that, this is going to be a very special year. Happy reading. Hrrr!

This week's word is: ACTION!

Hello dragon fans. First, I need to put your minds at rest. You may have seen some tweets from the author last week bemoaning the fact that he has to have head surgery… Some fans have speculated that this might be because his planet-sized imagination has grown too big for his skull. Mmm. Nice theory, but totally wrong. It made us all laugh at any rate. What it's all about is a mole. Not the furry little creatures that dig underground, the little brown spots humans get on their skin. It all began like this. One morning, about three weeks ago, the author was trying to examine (in the mirror) what he'd always assumed was a spot on his temple. "Do you think this has changed colour?" he asked. (As if I'd know!) I flew over and prodded it with my isoscele. "Ow!" he went, which drew Mrs Author's attention. Yes, it had changed colour, she claimed. And so he was sent to the hospital for a check up.
The doctor, a woman, who seemed a little unsettled with three dragons in her office, examined the mole with a lens and a proddy thing. Mmm, she went. We all raised our eye ridges. "It's very small," said the doctor, "about 3mm across." Gretel said, "That'll be his brain, then." The doctor scowled and said, "It needs removing." At which point Gruffen offered to burn the thing off. The doctor scowled at that as well. "It needs to be cut out, with a scalpel," she said. "A scalpel?" gulped the author. "Don't worry," she said, "we'll anaesthetise your head, first." "No need to," I said, "it's been numb for years!" Anyway, the upshot is that in a few weeks' time our hero will be whatever 3mm of mole weighs lighter. Maybe it will kick-start his diet again? Hrrr!
 Anyone in the UK reading the blog is probably aware that the British Government is trying to make cuts in spending, and one of its targets is libraries. Over the past week or so there has been a great deal of protest – and rightly so. We've written on the blog before that it's nonsensical not to have free access to literature. Reading is the essence of a developing education. Rest assured, the author will be doing whatever he can to support the campaign to keep libraries open. What's particularly interesting for us is that FIRE WORLD, rather spookily, deals with the topic to some extent. FW wasn't planned as an intentional protest about the future of book lending, but parts of it did come out like that. We won't be giving anything away if we say that David is sent to a 'librarium' in the early part of the story. The librarium is a museum for books, a great collection of literature preserved because … well, you decide. There's a chilling section where we see two characters trying to draw the auma out of the building and put it into a small electronic pad. Digital publishing, anyone…? Is that the future of libraries? Millions of words condensed onto microchips? Where would be the joy in that?
Finally, this week, the dragons were very excited to meet the actress Jessica Hynes. You may remember that the author's good friend, Rod Duncan, is making a zombie movie! Well, Jessica Hynes is starring in it. Now, you might not be familiar with this talented lady, but she has been in a lot of films and TV productions, including the dragons' favourite, Dr Who (she played a nurse, and the doctor's 'love' interest). The reason we all queued up to see her (well, most of us were too star struck to come out, actually) is because the author has often thought that Ms Hynes would make a very good Elizabeth Pennykettle if a movie of the books is EVER made (wake up, Hollywood!) Why Jessica? Well, because she's quirky, like Liz, and the author rather boldly told her so when he met her on Friday. Better still, he signed a copy of THE FIRE WITHIN for her. So a little movie seed has been gently planted. Let's hope it grows. Until next time, happy reading. SAVE OUR LIBRARIES. Hrrr!