Joe Craig's Blog, page 2

Three New Short Story Thrillers for your E-book Device, Kindle, iPad, Phone, Etchasketch or Whatever You Read Stuff On These Days

A few years ago I put out a very short book called Lifters, about a brother-sister pickpocket team who get caught up in a conspiracy of organised crimed, snipers, free-running and betrayal. It was only 3,000 words long (about the length of a chapter in a Jimmy Coates book) and it did better than I ever thought it would, showing that there was more demand than anyone expected for stories that were very short, but had all the action and suspense of a full thriller.

I've written 3 new short thril...

Editing - the Big Questions

I've given a draft of my work-in-progress to a trusted brain to read. This will be the first time anybody but me has read any of this story.

I started planning it more than two years ago. I started writing the first draft on January 7th, 2014. I finished the first draft on November 20th and since then I've done some extensive re-writing, but nowhere near enough to be finished.

There's still several weeks of editing and rewriting to be done, but to carry on productively, I need a trusted br...

Email to Joe Craig. Response from tired Joe Craig avoiding the washing up

Dear Mr Craig,
I teach at a specialist dyslexic school and one of my students loves your books especially the Jimmy Coates series. As part of his homework he had to write five questions to ask you about the book he was reading. He was so excited over this homework that I thought it would be a good idea to write to you. We spent a lesson looking at your website and constructing an email to you.
I typed what L wanted to say. I only hope that you have time to reply to him as this would be so inspi...

Anglesey Adventure - Jimmy Coates in Wales

Turns out I was in two newspapers on Sunday. Not for some kind of scandal (again) but for reasons of adventure.

My missus wrote an excellent piece in the Telegraph about a canoeing trip. I featured as a bit-part in the background, clutching the star of the show, the hound.

Meanwhile, a piece I wrote for the Independent over the Summer popped up in their pages. And it's online too. So you can read all about why I'm 'quivering, podgy superman'.

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/u...-...

Best Non-fiction Books

I am not in line to the throne of the Solomon Islands. Sorry. But between the ages of 13 and 15 I convinced my classmates that I was. (This was, obviously, pre-internet.) It became 'that kooky thing about Joe', alongside my fear of bananas (true) and my ability to hypnotise people (false at the time - I learned later).

So my relationship with the truth is like that between a vulnerable, young hero in a Hitchcock movie and the mysterious stranger who comes to stay, claiming to be an uncle...

Writing Exciting Action Thrillers - tips and discussion from twitter chat

Last night I was 'guest host' of a twitter chat all about writing exciting action thrillers for kids. If you're on twitter, take a look at the hashtag #ukmgchat - there's a fresh discussion every couple of weeks (the last Wednesday of the month and the second Wednesday of the month). The 'mg' stands for 'middle grade', which is the American term for the kind of books I write - anything for ages 8 to 13ish.

If you're not on twitter, here are a few of the main things that came up. It was pretty...

Does Playing Make You More Creative? Not If You're Doing It Wrong...

This afternoon I spoke at a conference run by Unilever and the ESRC called:

"Cardboard boxes, storybooks and games: Imaginative play in middle childhood"

It was only a 15 minute presentation, so I thought I'd type up what I said while it was still fresh in my mind. Here it is:

What a treat and a privilege to be here. It's been a fascinating day so far; thank you for letting me play my part.

I write books mainly for the 8-13 crowd. It means I get to play every day - with ideas, stories, possi...

New Book Proposal

Isn't it time I took suggestions directly from my readers?

This afternoon, on facebook, I was offered some advice that is basically a complete book proposal. I have just deleted all the outlines and sample chapters I was working on, and instead I'm going to send this off.
The suggestion was that I should write:

"...some thing about like a zombie apocalypse and jimmy Coates does stuff"
What more could you want? It's perfect.
Now to get my beating stick so I can beat off those publishers...

Women Getting in the Way or Getting Boys Reading?

Apparently “boys are being deterred from reading because the ‘gatekeepers’ to children’s literature are mostly women.”

At least, that's what a writer called Jonathan Emmett believes. Jonathan Emmett said so in a long piece in the Times all about Jonathan Emmett and what he believes. You can read a summary of what Jonathan Emmett believes here: 
http://publishingperspectives.com/2014/04/are-boys-not-reading-because-of-all-those-women-in-publishing/

I wasn't going to comment on all this,...

Writing a First Draft, Then Rewriting. A Couple of Examples.

Yesterday I blogged about my writing process. I mentioned first drafts:

"First drafts are awful. But that’s the point. Knowing I can write rubbish allows me to write 2,000 words a day. Then I go back over the first draft and make it good."

After I posted that, I had a great question over on twitter (right here) from Joe Holland (or, as he's known on twitter, @GodfreyVanZoom):

"I know all authors say 1st drafts are bad but is that proper bad or like when the class whizz says they failed a te...