An Evening With Darren Shan!

(AKA How I Held Up The Line [Again] And Got Strangled By The Author... No, Seriously...)

My local independent bookshop, Just Imagine (keep your local independent bookshops alive) set up an event with HarperCollins for "An Evening with Darren Shan" to celebrate the release of Ocean of Blood, the second in The Saga of Larten Crepsley.

After a chilling reading from Lord Loss (one of my faves, FYI!) in where the mircophone choose that moment to turn itself on (and scare everyone witless followed by laughter!), Darren (or should I call him Mr Shan? Not sure.) explained why the Saga of Larten Crepsley was never meant to be a series. He said that in The Saga of Darren Shan, he left Larten Crepsley's history vague and when he was writing the Demonata, he started thinking about his past and wondering what made Larten Crepsley the vampire he was when Darren (and us) first met him in Cirque du Freak. He revealed the title for book three and fourth (& final) titles in the series: Palace of the Damned and Robbers of the Dead (can I say I love his titles?).

After a quick reading from Ocean of Blood (which makes me want to read the book!), Darren answered a few questions from the audience. There ranged from "Why do you kill children off in your books?", "Why is the main character in the Saga of Darren Shan named after you?", "Which is your fave book?", "How long does it take you to write?" (Three to four weeks and about 2 years to edit - INSANE, right? But he does work on several novels at one time. At the present moment, he is on book 8 or 9 in a new series!), "Do you get sick of writing gory scenes?" and "What scares you?" (the answer to that was surprising. He was scared of spiders, hence why he wrote Madame Octa).

After a short reading of his World Book Day novellla Koyasan, everyone lined up to have their books signed. And after having a moment of panicking about me bring a few copies of my books (Three, if I'm honest with you but I only really ), I saw other people with their whole collection of The Saga of Darren Shan, Demonata or his adult novels, I felt less panicky. And what was more brilliant was the group in front of me and the person I went with (aka The Person I'm With) had a photo with Darren Shan. The group had a little boy with a cuddly toy and, in the pic, Darren strangled the cuddly toy. Not idea why, but I found it super cute (see, I have a heart under my cold, blogger skin...)

And then, my turn. As Darren signed the books, he asked if I had a question I wanted to ask him. Now, as I write, I should have asked about how he got his literary agent or his publishing contract, right? Nope. Instead, I asked "Was there any scenes that your editor or publisher thought was too gory and asked for them to be toned down?". He answered with "Yes, in the scene of Lord Loss I read out [end of chapter 1, start of chapter 2]. The parents were switched because the mother was, in the drafts, on the roof. The publisher thought it was too much, so I switched the parents about. So, do what you want to the Dad in writing, but tone down the Mum. Also, the publishers are a tad funny with sex." He explained about ideas he had in Vampire Mountain, one of them being that there was going to be gay vampires (as they are very few female vampires). But, he said "Am choosing my battles carefully..."

Can I say now, if Darren writes a bloody yet sexy sex scene that people will freak out about (like the birth scene in Breaking Dawn or True Blood standards), I would happy buy several copies of that book!

All in all, I had a great night! Darren was brilliant with everyone and that was great! I do hope his hands aren't aching due to all the signing he did!

So, thank you to Darren Shan for coming to Essex. Thank you to Just Imagine to setting up the event! Thank you to Tiffany McCall (Publicity Executive @ HarperCollinsChildren's Books UK with a dangerous sense of humour) who did a tweet that made me burst into fits of laughter (see below)! And thank you to The Person I'm With for coming with me, even though he knew NOTHING about the author. That's twice I did that to you...







SURPRISE! I thought that, as I was going, that I would give you a treat. That's right... I managed to nab myself a signed copy of Ocean of Blood and I have decide to give it away to one lucky winner! Do you want to win the book that left The Book Zone breathless and awaiting his next fix of Darren Shan (review here!)? If you have a UK address that I can send to, then YOU CAN ENTER! All you have to do is fill in the form and GOOD LUCK!



Closing Date will be Sunday 15th May 2011 at 6pm GMT. Again, GOOD LUCK!!!

Meeting Becca Fitzpatrick (aka ARRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!)

As some of you know, I was going/gone to a book signing of the lovely author, Becca Fitzpatrick this Sunday just gone at Bluewater.

So, after having no idea how/what to write for this, am going to do this… AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

… and breathe!

I swear I don’t go all gooey and “OMG!” over famous people. But I did on Sunday.

After some mad rushing to the shop and then back into the shop to buy myself copies of Becca’s books (I left my copies at home. ROOKIE MISTAKE!!!), I stood in line (which was long!) with a friend of mine, laughing at the randomness of Twitter. Mostly the hashtag of #MoviesInMyPants (which was basically adding the words “In My Pants” to the end of film titles. We came up with “Raging Bull In My Pants”, “Gone With The Wind In My Pants”, “12 Angry Men In My Pants” and many, MANY others!)

Almost, I met some Twitter-Friends. Laura (aka @sisterspooky) and very briefly Leanne & Rebecca (aka @leanne_luce & @conesound). They were a tad ahead of us in a line and Laura hunted me down and we met. We hugged. We compared our bright yellow shoes (she has bright yellow boots and I was wearing Hufflepuff converses!).

More waiting… and me looking up and down the line to see no guy holding the books in his hands. A tiny fear confirmed (to be the only guy in the line), I waited my turn, wondering why most blokes were there? Driver? Partner? Driver? Emotional blackmail? All of the above (I have used them. But shh! No one needs to know that!)

And then we were allowed to enter Waterstones! Over an hour wait and we’re nearly there…!

As I joined the line in the bookshop, Laura, Leanne and Rebecca appeared, having their books signed and they were giddy! “Oh, she is expecting you!” Laura says, smiling. “And she wants to see your converses!”

I was being expected… oh heck!

You see, Becca is on twitter (here she is!) and seeing as I am a bit of a twitter addict, I tweet her and she tweets back (I love authors that do that. Respond to their fans/readers). So, to fact that she knew I was there and in line was… er… a strange experience.

And then I turned round and saw the shirtless model with his six (possible eight) pack and his stuckon black wings and everyone in front and behind me melting to the floor. I think me and my mate did also.

I wish I was in the meeting when that was decided. I have this image of Becca going to the UK publisher, “Listen. I am going to do these many dates, meeting readers and, you know, I need something to keep me going when I had a bad night’s sleep or when I need a pick me up. How about a shirtless young hottie who we can say is ‘Patch’. What do you think?” (to who ever thought of getting this model/Patch, I am pretty sure nearly everyone who went to all Becca’s book signing is EXTREMELY grateful!)

And then, I saw and then met Becca.

Earlier on in this blog, I said how I don’t go all gooey and “OMG!” over famous people. Well, I got very star-stricken. And you know when you get to meet someone famous or someone you respect and admire, you seem to lose any normal sense? Well, my brain did that.

While I said “Hello,” and Becca said, “I was told by Laura to show me your shoes” (of which I was teased over because I put my shoe on the table! Smooth, much?), my brain was thinking, “I love her hair!” (I so want to time travel and shake myself because of this thought!).

It was short, brief and awesome! We said “Hi” to each other, she signed my book, chatted briefly about Laura (hear that, SisterSpooky?) and then had a quick photo. :D

And then, we hugged.

Am trying OH-SO-VERY-HARD not to go all fanboy and squee very loudly! But I got so flipping giddy about that for the rest of the day! (And now reading that back, I sound like a mad stalker! I’m not, Becca! PROMISE!)

But it was cool. So cool!

So, to Becca, thanks for coming to the UK and thank you for bearing with someone as excitable as myself. Can’t wait for Tempest and as for Crescendo’s ending… WHAT THE FRIDGING HELL?!



And just to prove how brilliant Laura's and my boots/Converse were...