John Connolly's Blog, page 5

Starting Again

So, after a break of, oh, about a week (and not even a break as such, since I spent it doing taxes, trying to learn a little Spanish in advance of the Argentinian trip, getting back into the habit of writing these blogs, and preparing an introduction for a special Scorpion Press edition of James Lee Burke's The Glass Rainbow, which caused me a great deal of stress and worry as, well, it's James Lee Burke, and I didn't want to mess it up) I sat down and started work on the next Parker book...

Lost in Translation

I think I've discussed the subject of translation before, but it cropped up again this weekend when a nice journalist from the Sunday Times informed me that I was big in China, or, at least, that The Book of Lost Things was big in China. Apparently, it has sold very well there, just as it sold well in the earlier Taiwanese edition, for which I toured in Taiwan and thus subsequently ended up eating an unidentified rectum, a culinary encounter dealt with elsewhere on this site.
I suspect that ...

What Are You? I'm A Writer . . .

This week I meet with my British publishers to discuss, among other things, Hell's Bells, the sequel to The Gates. It's done and dusted, at least at my end, and has now been read by various people, so the lovely limbo feeling that comes with having delivered a book but not yet having received any feedback on it, whether positive or negative, has now dissipated. The next stage in the process - editing, rewriting, arguing about covers, and discussing the positioning of the book in stores ...

Jumping the Shark

originally published in the Irish Independent

The phrase 'jumping the shark' refers to the point at which a beloved series goes from being, well, beloved to being despised in the way that only people who scowl at puppies are despised.

It comes from an episode of Happy Days (you remember: the 50s, the Fonz, "Aaaaayyyy!", and that bloke who went on to direct bad Dan Brown movies, as if there could ever be any other kind) in which the Fonz dons water skis and jumps over a confined shark.

That was ...

THE WHISPERERS GAME

Some of you social media types may have noticed some odd emails and friend requests from apparently fictional characters (Herod_the_Great, Charles_Parker1, Louis_or_die Ange1_666) arriving in your inboxes lately. It's part of a game relating to the new book that includes additional material--blogs, e-mails--written by me, short films, newspaper articles, all of which give new perspectives on The Whisperers, as well as offering the chance to win a prize. To find out more, make friends with...

Compelling reading

Looks like there's something afoot with this Jimmy Jewel - he's stumbled on something quite big – the mysterious death of an antiques dealer – one Jeremiah Webber.

But it's apparently connected to something bigger... it's amazing how familiar all these characters sound – Jimmy Jewel, Damien Patchett… I hear that somewhere in all this is an even more familiar name; Charles Parker...

Upcoming events!

Monday April 26, 1pm:  Waterstones, CorkMonday April 26, 5pm:  O'Mahony Bookshop, LimerickTuesday April 27, 1pm:  The Ennis Bookshop, Ennis, Co Clare

See you there!John

Posted via email from and another thing...

LATE ADDITION TO TOUR SCHEDULE - GALWAY, IRELAND

John Connolly and Declan Hughes will be reading and speaking at the Cúirt Festival in Galway on Thursday April 22nd, 2010 at 8.30pm at the Town Hall Theatre in place of fellow crime novelist Ian Rankin, who remains stranded in Scotland.

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The Other Stuff II

As I was writing the first part of this post, I was struggling a bit to remember what it was that I'd done last week, hence the urge to write it all down in an effort to understand where the time went. There was probably an element of compulsion about writing it too: it's funny, but there will sometimes come a point in the writing of a book where you've disciplined yourself so much to keep writing, and to produce a certain amount every day, that you want to keep on writing. Eventually, you...

The Other Stuff

 This week was an attempt to focus on writing the sequel to The Gates, given that The Whisperers is released in Ireland at the end of next week, and with that will come publicity, and signing, and all of the duties that are connected to the writing of a book that has been finished, and thus get in the way of the writing of the book that has yet to be completed.  After that will come the UK tour and publicity, and then Australia and New Zealand, and then South Africa (which is, admittedly...