The New Blog is Here! Don't Miss Out - Read It Right This Second . . .

Before and after pics from the Irish Book Awards!

It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, and I’m feeling good . . .

I’ve been reading a couple of other writers’ blogs recently and I came to the conclusion that:

a/ some people put a whole heap more effort than others into blogging

b/ some blogs are boring

c/ no-one (me included) wants to hear about what writers had for breakfast – unless they ate something mad like ostrich eggs

and c/ my own blog is starting to get very *yawn and stretch* BORING indeed!

So I asked my teen son, Sam, is my blog boring. He said ‘Yes, Mum, snoozeville.’ (And he’d only read 3 lines)

So I asked one of my teen editors who was far more polite.

‘Well . . .’ she stalled. ‘I wouldn’t say boring exactly. I’d say informative.’

Informative – not good. School is informative. The Irish Times is informative. Emails from the bank are informative. But blogs should be fun, right? You’re tuning in to be entertained, not put to sleep.

Maybe you’ve had a rotten day in school, your mum’s nagging you about homework again, and you just want something funny to read.

So there’s going to be a change around her, my friends. Starting now, I’m going to say exactly what I like, when I like and no-one can do a thing about it.

Maw-ha-ha-ha! (Evil laugh)

You will learn the secret weird and wonderful workings of my very odd mind. I mean really, who spends hours thinking about school lock downs and how cool a story that would make?

Who spends hours discussing Wimpy Kid books with a gang of third classers just for the hell of it?

I tell you, I’m so far off normal sometimes, I scare myself.

Must be all the cool children’s books I’ve read – they’re seeping into my brain and turning it into a huge glowing ball of strange ideas and concepts.

Every day I wake up thinking something like – what if there was this surfing dog, now that’s interesting. No, no, surfing hamster. No, no, a boarding school for children of spies . . . and on it goes, all day, every day . . .

But that is how all books start . . . the big WHAT IF.

And I know a whole heap of you like writing too, so in this blog I’ll try to demystify (good word, huh!) the whole writing process – and tell you how a book is written from start to finish.

- OK, honest question to teen editor number one, is this blog boring?

- No way! But I hope you don’t mind me saying this – are you OK? You sound, well, different.

- Different in a good way, or in a bad way?

- In a good way I guess.

- Most excellent, my work here is done.


Till next week, Amy Greensters. Friday is blog day so check back every Friday from now on for your weekly blog fix.

Be warned, if you like this post and leave comments it will only encourage me! The more comments, the more blogs . . . it’s in your hands, folks!

Toodle pips as Clover would say.


Sarah XXX