Darren Shan's Blog, page 183

Another brutal beastie in the bag!

I spent the last couple of weeks working on the first draft of Book 9 of my new series. For those who haven't clocked mention of it in my previous blogs, this is the series I am hoping to release once I have finished publishing "The Saga of Larten Crepsley". I've been beavering away at it for the past three years. It's been shrouded in secrecy so far, the main reason being that I haven't wanted to talk about it until I knew for sure that I'd be able to make it work. That's not unusual for me,...

My BIG eNews!!

I can finally reveal the BIG news announcement which I hinted at last week, And it is this... I have agreed a deal with HarperCollins to release ALL of my children's books as ebooks in the UK and Ireland with immediate effect!! All of The Saga Of Darren Shan, The Demonata, The Thin Executioner and Birth Of A Killer should be going on sale today (if all goes smoothly on the technical front!). Going forward, the rest of The Saga Of Larten Crepsley will be released in eBook format on the same da...

Short but sweet - and sometimes sickly!

My short holiday in Thailand is almost at its end. I came with my friend Kenny (Pablo from the Message Board) to celebrate his 40th birthday. Because of other commitments, we could only come for 5 days -- and I was sick for most of the first 2 of those!!! But I've had a good time since I recovered, taking it easy, hanging out by the pool in the day, having a meal and a few drinks at night. I read the third Stieg Larsson book, which I greatly enjoyed -- I thought it was the best of the trilogy...

Power of Persuasion

I'm in Thailand on a short holiday, so I know I shouldn't really be blogging, but I got a terrible attack of the vomits last night, so I've spent most of today in my room, taking it easy. My loss is your gain!! Anyway, rather than blog at length about the joys of throwing up all night long, here's an email which came through from a fan called Lori.   My English teacher just gave me the topic for our research paper this year: Write about a book that has literary merit, and tell why it is consi...

Welcome back, stranger!

It's been a busy old week-and-a-bit for me! I finished the first draft of the new book (see older entires for more info about that), then did an edit of what will hopefully be my next book for adults, then did my final full edit of Palace of the Damned (the third Mr Crepsley book), then edited the proofs for the manga adaptation of Killers of the Dawn. I've also been answering a lot of fan mail -- I'd fallen behind on that, because I was on tour in November, then dealing with the move back in...

And almost at the end!

Work has proceeded nicely on the new book. (Just to remind everyone, it's book 8 of a new series which will hopefully see print at some point in the future after I'm finished the Mr Crepsley books.) I'm almost at the end now, in fact. As I've noted before, these are short books, about 30,000 words each. To give you an idea of the length, that's about 5,000 words less than Vampire Mountain, which clocked in just over the 35,000 word mark. So each one will be a bit slimmer than that. Because th...

Another busy start

I started the first draft of book 8 of the new series on Tuesday, having plotted it out on Monday. As before, I can't say anything about the series yet, since it's all top secret at the moment, but I'm bashing away nicely through it so far. Lots of action, bloodshed and death, you'll be pleased to hear!!!!   I received the following email from Ayuko in Japan recently, asking a couple of  questiona about the Mr Crepsley books:   I got your new book Darren Shan, Birth of a Killer which is in En...

A busy week… mostly!!!

I've been busy editing for most of the week since my last blog, various books of my new series. I'm pleased with how it's holding together. I just have to figure out now how to take it all forward!! I've known for a long time how the series will end -- I just can't figure out all the things that need to happen in order to get me there! But in my experience, when in doubt, write!! In cases like this you're better off firing ahead than sitting around banging your head against a wall. I find tha...

Blinding you with science!

I received an email from KayLi in Malaysia today which made me smile:   I wanted to thank you for your books because not only do they have inspiring events and everything that make you think, the Demonata series actually helped me a bit in my science. We're learning about the heart, and it was easy to remember what veins and arteries were thanks to your Demonata book. I think of Artery when they mention that arteries carry blood away from the heart, so i picture Artery biting someone and that...

Full steam ahead!

It's been a busy old week for me on the writing front, which has been nice after so long away from my PC! First priority has been editing the books that I've already written in what will hopefully be my next long series. I've actually written first draft of 7 books already (!!!!) as long-term readers of my blog will know from preivous entries. I'm halfway through editing the fourth -- the books are quite short, as I've said before, each a bit shorter than any of the "Vampire Mountain" trilogy...