Darren Shan's Blog, page 177

WHOSE birthday?!?

I chanced upon a couple of odd photos over on Twitter during the week -- birthday drawings of Mr Crepsley! I'm not quite sure if this is a random thing -- if one fan decided to do a fun birthday themed drawing, which was seen by another fan who then did their own version -- or if this is a Shandom thing, i.e. if a group of fans came together and chose a certain date in April as the grumpy vampire's day of birth. If anyone can enlighten me, please do. But regardless of any of that, they're a c...

Midsummer’s review

There was a lovely new reader's review for Midsummer's Bottom (my most recent novel for adult readers, released under the name of Darren Dash) by a fan called Jordan over on the Amazon UK site recently. I don't normally flag up fan reviews, but this was a lengthy one, which must have taken a lot of time and effort to compose, so I felt it was worthy of being highlighted here. Some of the remarks were:   "...it's not like most of the other work Darren Shan/Dash has put out but I'm glad to...

Vlog quest

Vlogger JJ Goodman set himself the task of reviewing all ten books in my Demonata series last month -- he proclaimed March to be Demonata Month! Did he succeed in his goal, or did he come up short at the very end? More importantly, what did he think about the books?!?   To find out the answers to the above questions, visit JJ's YouTube page by clicking on the following link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRd5...   When you're done checking out JJ's reviews, you mi...

What’s in a name?

Last month I went to a joint 50th birthday party for two of my cousins, Davina and Sharon. Whilst there, I was helped out with my dinner by one of our friends, Jimmy Biesty, who clearly didn't trust me to handle any sharp implements! :-)   All three of the above named have featured in my books at some point over the years. I think Davina was briefly mentioned, as one of the glamorous assistants at the Cirque Du Freak. Jimmy has popped up in one of my adult books (I think The Evil And The...

Tattoo Tuesday

I got out of the habit of posting blogs here. I started doing them on Facebook, and over time I kind of forgot about the blog feature on my own website. I was reminded of it yesterday, when I decided to add my April Fool's post here, so I'm going to aim to post here more regularly now on, for those of you who might not be on Facebook. Let's see how far I get with it this time...   Tattoo Tuesday has become a regular feature over on my Facebook page -- it began as a joke, but I got so man...

Au revoir!

I've been giving the future a lot of thought over the last few months, as I prepared for the arrival of our baby daughter, Gaia. Writing has been very important to me for a long, long time, but babies have come to mean even more to me. It will sound strange, but as much as I love writing, I love changing nappies and burping babies even more. The more time I can spend around babies, the better. I don't mind the screaming and crying -- it's music to my ears.   Now that Gaia has come, I thi...

The big Tips-off!

I received a really nice email from a fan today:

 

I just wanted to say "Thanks". I am an aspiring writer, as most of us are, and the Writing Tips portion of your blog really helped me get through my writer's block of my novel. I have had some mediocre success locally with my short stories and tackling a novel seemed out of my reach. I had a thirty page detailed outline, I had written my prologue and the first four chapters. Then I hit a brick wall. I felt uninspired for around...

Movie thoughts

There were lots of posts over on my Twitter account last night, from UK fans who caught the "Cirque Du Freak" movie on ITV2. I know lots of hardcore Shansters hated the film, but I have to be honest -- I liked it. As film adaptations go (and I think a film always needs to be compared with other films, not with books) I think it worked quite well, and although you might not know it by reading boards where most of the users are full-on Shansters, there are actually lots of people out...

Zom-B City Posters

UK fans - my publishers, Simon & Schuster, have created an extremely cool poster for Zom-B City, which is now on selected platforms in train stations all over the country. Check the list below to find out if one of them is appearing at a station near YOU!! All of the posters will be in place until March 24th.

CITY OF LONDON    CANNON STREET STN, PLATFORM 2
CITY OF LONDON    FENCHURCH STREET STN, PLATFORM 1
CITY OF LONDON    LIVERPOOL STREET STN...

My final vampire tour

It's a bit late for a round-up of my Brothers To The Death tour, I know, given that it ended more than a week ago, but better late than never! Since this was my final tour (for the time being) for HarperCollins, and the last time (again, for the time being) that I would be touring with my vampire books, I was keeping my fingers crossed that I would be able to end on a high -- and happily that's how I did! It was a smooth, enjoyable tour. I did more fan events this time than I have done on rec...