Monday, 26 March 2018

Google Docs Vs Word

I've finally decided to give Google Docs a full trial - not by playing or fiddling and saying, 'Yeah, that's cool,' but by using it for the next few weeks and seeing how it goes.

Why change?

I have looked at Google Docs in the past, but felt it too difficult to give up the more advanced controls of Word - I was formatting ebooks at the time and couldn't be bothered to wrestle with something new. And really, I think that's the hold Word has - it offers soooooo much.

But there's a lot to be said for simplicity, and Chromebooks fascinate me. Their whole charm seems to be one of liberation rather than limitation. But I don't need to buy a Chromebook to see what they are like, do I? I can just use Chrome on my laptop and start using Google Docs now and see how.

So that's what I'm doing. Already, I've found a lot to like but I'm going to hold off putting any details just yet - it could well be the shock of the new. So I'm going to stick with it. I've switched over completely, converting everything I have to Google Doc format. For the next few weeks, perhaps a month, I'm not even going to look at Word. I want to give Google Docs a full test and report on a working trial - although it's very, very tempting to start shouting about the bells and whistles.

I'll get back on this.

Sunday, 11 March 2018

World Book Day 2018

Had a great day on our postponed World Book Day at school last week. We were closed due to the snow on the real World Book Day, but that wasn't going to stop us - besides, if parents have been good enough to pay for costumes or put the effort in to make costumes, then how could we let it go?

It's fabulous to see so many children dressed up as their favourite book characters, and great to hear them talk about books they love. Sharing experiences of favourite books is a big part of the day - after all, there is a point to World Book Day. We have a lot of children with reading ages much lower than their peers, and peer excitement can be a great motivator to make them want to learn, so we make a big deal of giving them time to talk to each other about what it is that makes their favourite book so fantastic.

We invited Class 5 to come down and pair up with our Class 2 kids and read to each other. 

In the afternoon, one of the Year 2 girls read out a book she had written and illustrated all by herself. This inspired everyone to make their own books, so I handed out blank booklets I'd prepared earlier and everyone got to work. 

We finished the day with the last couple of chapters of Buttercup Sunshine. Class 2 are the only class IN THE ENTIRE WORLD to have been an audience for it, and they loved it! I'm pretty chuffed about that - it was a real buzz to read my own story to the kids I work with. Just awesome.   

As you can see below, things got quite animated. Being attacked by a zombie Harry Potter has got to be the highlight of the day. 


That's not my real hair! I'm in disguise.

Being attacked by a zombie Harry Potter

Photos courtesy of the school's Twitter feed.

Colin Mulhern

Thursday, 1 March 2018

Buttercup Sunshine - two book deal with Maverick

Delighted to shout from the rooftops that 
Buttercup Sunshine and the Zombies of DOOOOOM! 
will be released in September by Maverick Childern's Books. 
They snapped it up, two days after submission and offered a two book deal.

I've been dying to reveal this cover. I absolutely love it.



If you've been following the story of Buttercup on this blog, from development to submission, you might know the story behind the book, and what inspired it - which makes me extra proud. Plus, I was given the opportunity to illustrate it. So it's my first book for younger readers and my first illustrated book all in one.

Book 2, Buttercup Sunshine and the House on Hangman's Hill comes out April next year.

BA in Creative Writing - post mortem

Three years ago, I started out on a part-time BA in Creative Writing. This was an accelerated course, meaning a minimum of 37 hours of work ...