Week Ending 29th April - Shed Damage dominates the week!

The weeks activities were dominated by the unfortunate sequence of events with regards to my writing shack in the garden. I interrupted my Facebook updates with an unimportant "tongue-in-cheek" news bulletin.... "Torquay Shed Roof Survives the Night"; following the meteor strike, the tarpaulin has held well and the water level in the bucket has not increased... we'll keep you posted and stay tuned in to this channel for more Shed updates! The meteor was actually a fallen rock from the cliff that stands imposing at the rear of my property and the poor old shed sits directly beneath it. Any rainy weather tends to disturb the odd stone and down it comes... and this occasion right through the roof. The posting on my profile time line attracted a very humorous response from some of my fellow "dry-sense-of-humoured" FB friends. I find it funny how such unaffected topics such as SHEDS can muster up a furor of interest. Whereas boring stuff like info on my very important book activities doesn't seem to conjure much interest. It's a funny old world.... ramble, ramble! The middle of the week was spent writing... Hurray! Yes writing... something I happen to enjoy and the thing that contributes to my livelihood in a very monstrous way! Another few thousand words found their way into the third Bradley Baker installment and the Pyramids of Blood is coming along just dandy! Really excited about this book and I can't wait for it to be published in September so I can share another adventure with what is now a pretty impressive legion of Bradley Baker fans. More emails to schools and follow up calls for the Torbay Literacy Competition filled the rest of my time. The lack of Waterstones events at the moment has taken the shine off the public awareness campaign for Bradley, but I need the break from the stores to get everything else on course to secure a successful year ahead for the new boy hero. I issued another SHED UPDATE this morning: What's going on with this weather??? First a meteor strike hits Torquay and happens to land directly on my shed roof... Now Hurricane Humpty Dumpty is powering through the bay and has ripped the tarpaulin off! Not impressed... spent half the day battling through the perfect storm to reattach temporary covering. Have you ever tried to form a perfect folded square out of a gigantic piece of tarpaulin that was originally used as a ground sheet for moon base alpha... with the wind howling round your lugs? Brings back memories of certain camping holiday! "Reduce the size of the tarpaulin!" I hear shouts from cyber world... now that would be far too easy :) Too much shed stuff... Promise to change the subject next week. See you then, David

Week Ending 22nd April - School Visit Planning

I managed to achieve my main objective this week and that was to complete the school visit information pack for the up-and-coming Bradley Baker Torbay Literacy Competition in June. Another six schools confirmed their participation in the project... Torre, Ellacombe, Shiphay, Sherwell Valley, Brixham and White Rock. Another week before the deadline for entries and It's looking like the majority of the bay's schools will be taking part. There's some great prizes to be won for both KS1 and KS2 pupils including; Waterstones book vouchers and the chance to have their written work included in the third Bradley Baker book. Speaking of which... I completed another 1500 words (not enough but I have been busy with other bits and bobs) this week and "the Pyramids of Blood" is really starting to take shape with some fantastic new characters being introduced into the latest Bradley Baker adventure... I've broken through the 20'000 word count and I especially like a new school boy character called Jefferson Crabtree that I introduced into the storyline this week. He is from Hudson Valley New York and he will play a very important role in the latest adventure. The third book is still on course for publication in Sept 2012 and I'm really excited about Bradley's latest exploits. With no Waterstones event Saturday, I managed to complete a few jobs around the house (which pleased my wife immensely). I was up on the roof and kicked off some moss (literally)... as Elton John wrote in the the lyrics to Our Song (one of my favourites by he way)... Now I'm waffling! Next week will definately be a writing week... it has to be, I have to get ahead with the next book as I need to complete the draft manuscript by end of June. Not panicking... Yet! I will also have to put some time aside next week to read some competition entries for the charititable organisation vInspired. Local children in Torbay have submitted a 500 word piece entitled "Changing the world for the better". I will be joined by fellow judges Ellen Renner and Myfanwy Cooper. I'm really looking forward to reading the children's written work and it's a great honour to have been invited to judge such an important project. That's all folks. Going to settle down in my comfy chair and watch the F1 Bahrain Grand Prix... and have some me time! Catch you next week, David :)

Week Ending 15th April... What a week!

What a week... most of it spent busy preparing for the Bradley Baker Literacy Competition, which will take place in Torbay during the month of June. Deadline for entries is 27th April so another reminder to all the KS1 & KS2 literacy coordinators in the bay to let me know if you want to take part in this fantastic project.

Received confirmation of my invitation from Waterstones to attend and present at the Wychwood Literature Festival, which is being held at Cheltenham Race Course in June (Wowzers... June is going to be a very busy month)... I'll be presenting my Bradley Baker books inside the Waterstones Marquee on Sat 9th and Sun 10th. Be great to see you there and your support would be most welcome.

Yesterday (14th) I attended Waterstones in the Cribbs Causeway Shopping Mall just off the M5 near Bristol. Another fab book signing event and special thanks to Simon for arranging the event and to Georgie for looking after me on the day. It's always a pleasure to visit the booksellers at Cribbs and Saturday was my third signing event there. Looking forward to the fourth as we get nearer to Christmas. It will also be a great opportunity to introduce the Bradley Baker fans to the third installment of the series... The Pyramids of Blood.

Speaking of which... I also managed to squeeze in some writing ths week. Another 2000 words penned and that takes me upto 18,000 words (only another 82,0000 to go - no pressure).

That's it for this week... more updates on the Torbay Literacy Competition next week and hopefully some good progress on the new book. Till then see ya!

Cardiff was a hit!

Bradley Baker book signing event was a great hit with all the children, parents and grandparents in Waterstones Cardiff. Special thanks to Miv for setting up a cracking spot at the front of the store and for looking after me throughout the day. Many new Welsh followers of the new boy hero left the store coveting their signed copies and many a broad smile across their beaming faces.

Next stop Bristol Cribbs Causeway... this will be my third visit to the Waterstones store, which is located in the main mall just off the M5. Hope to see some of you there on Saturday 14th April... starts at 11am :)