Happy New Year! I love New Year. It is like a new beginning, looking forward to the year ahead. And I am lucky enough to have so much to look forward to. This month a short novel I wrote is coming out. The Football Shirt, and I am so looking forward to that. I am launching it in a school in Perth. In March, my new book comes out, the second in the Tyler Lawless series, Secret of the Shadows. I'm hoping to be able to launch that, as I did with Out of The Depths, at the Mitchell Theatre. And I'm already getting so much wonderful feedback about Out of The Depths. Just read a fantastic review on the FantasticReads blogspot. Also in March, or thereabouts, the film of Another Me is going into production. It is going to be called Panda Eyes, and I am so excited about it. Keeping my fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong. I have been so close before. I almost had a television series, you know, way back in the '90s. We Gotta Get Outta This Place was commissioned for five episodes, and they even made a studio pilot before it got the thumbs down. My radio series, My Mammy and Me, was also commissioned for television. Granny Nothing was originally, even before it became a book, commissioned by the BBC as a telvision series. But a change of controller, or producers leaving meant that too came to nothing. Would you believe I was hanging round BBC Television Centre in London with the likes of Steven Moffat? But with Another Me, I think this will happen. So I am going to enjoy the moment. I have met the people in charge of production and they are all so nice, as is the director/scriptwriter, Isobel Coixet She has a great reputation, so many fine actors want to work with her. She wants to make the film as scary as The Ring, so that can't b bad, eh? And when things start happening I am going to start a film blog so you can follow the progress of the movie too. No matter what, I think this team will make a quality film.
I am going to start another blog too. I visit so many schools, do creative writing workshops with them, and am always asked by teachers if I have ever thought of writing a book using the exercises I give to pupils. Of course i have, it's already written. But you have to wait so long for a book to come out, I thought I would rather do it as an exercise by exercise blog, so teachers, pupils, young creative writers can follow the tips too. So look out for that one.
My head is filled with Resolutions, or revolutions as my grandson Robert calls them. Maybe he's right, I want to change things for the better. And I am one of those annoying people who think only you can change things, only you can take responsibility for your life.
So what am I doing this second Sunday of 2012? I am reading through stories which were written because of a wonderful competition I set for Perth Academy last year. I gave them a first line, and the stories they have produced are so imaginative, and such fun to read.
And the first line I gave them : I should have been hailed as a hero for what I did. Instead they all turned against me, and now, I will have my revenge.
There, it's yours. What would you do with that line?
