Colin Mulhern

NaNoWriMo - or, National Novel Writing Month is described as "A fun, seat of your pants approach to creative writing." The idea is to knock out a novel as fast as possible to avoid getting bogged down in planning and plotting. I've tried this technique a few times but never registered for Nano. Thought I'd give it a go this year as I'm just about to start writing what I hope is an adult thriller. All I have at the moment is a title: Daniel's Daughter, and a one line synopsis. Nothing else.Going to start writing tomorrow. Let's see how far I get.I'll blog updates along the way.

Had a great night on Saturday night at the O2 Academy in Newcastle. 18 different acts performed on two stages - the main O2 stage and the upstairs acoustic room None of the acts took a fee to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust. Most of the photos I took came out a bit poor so I knocked a few video clips together to give a hint of the general atmos. Fantastic. Can't wait till next year. .

I'll make this short because I didn't get very far with this at all. The reason is simple - reading it was just too much hard work. I'm sure there are people out there who love quirky writing peppered with forgotten vocabulary to really add authenticity to the voice of a historical narrator, but I found it tough going. I tried to soldier on, and then hit the phonetic Yorkshire dialect - there was a little touch of this early on, but when the MC went up north it was used continually and the book died right there. The problem I have with written dialects is that the written word is unfamiliar, so you have to slow down your reading in order to sound out the phonemes to decipher the word. As a reader, this shifts my focus from the story to the written word and the illusion of believable fiction is broken. So there's no point reading any further.

I loved The Ice Twins so as soon as I saw the author name, S.K. Tremayne, I had to get this. In short, it looks like Rachel has landed herself a perfect family life, rising up from the underclass of London to the stunning grounds of Carnhallow House in Cornwall. She has a husband rich enough to keep and maintain the house, and she has fallen in love with Jamie, the perfect stepson. But Jamie is still grieving the loss of his mother, and Rachel's arrival at the house seems to have a significant effect on that grief. Jamie becomes convinced that his real mother is alive, is in the house... and that Rachel will be dead by Christmas. Creepy and atmospheric with hints of the paranormal, The Fire Child is a brilliant psychological thriller. The setting is rich and convincing without being overly descriptive - there are lots of snippets of the horrors of mining, slipped in seamlessly into the story so that it never feels like clunky info dumps. All very nice and skillful, but for ...

Thin Air follows the story of five mountain climbers going for the summit of Kangchenjunga, the third highest peak in the Himalayas and considered at the time, the biggest killer of them all. Told from the point of view of a young medic, the group plan to follow the route that ended in disaster in 1907. The book opens with the medic receiving a stark warning from the last surviving member of that expedition. Set in 1935 with a style deliberately dated, Thin Air has a feel that might appeal to fans of H.P. Lovecraft - in fact, it's very reminiscent of At The Mountains of Madness , (written in 1931!) not only in the setting and atmosphere but in the gradual and cumulative climb towards increasing fear. Attention to detail is a major part of the book, from equipment to diet to medical treatments. It helps pace the story and make it feel like a genuine memoir of a 1930's trek. The story itself is gradual in development and the initial moments of unease are just a little too...

One thing I like to read on author blogs is what they are up to and how they write. I've just made a submission, so here's a quick peek behind the curtain. My next Young Adult novel is called The Mayfly but while the publishing cogs are turning I thought I'd set myself a challenge and write something else before The Mayfly comes out. I decided to go for Middle Grade (age 8-12). All I had was a very basic idea but no plot and no outline. On the 3rd July, I started writing. Over the next three days I wrote about 8,000 words of nonsense to get a feel of what I could and couldn't do and began to develop a character I could work with. Once I had a better feel for where this might go, I went back and started again. I didn't have a plot at this stage, but I did have certain markers - a short list of scenes and ideas that I'd been thinking about. The plot developed as I followed the MC along the route.  At the halfway point I mapped out a basic over...

Every Falling Star  is the first novel to bring the reality of North Korea to a Young Adult audience. It's the true story of boy brought up in relative comfort of Pyongyang, the capital city of North Korea, when suddenly, and without explanation, he is thrown into a world of unimaginable poverty. At first, he is told is that his family are going on vacation, only to find that the house they are staying in is basic to the extreme. It soon becomes clear that this isn't a vacation at all and their new life is fraught with danger. All he can work out is that his father, who had an important job in the military, has done something to warrant this punishment on his entire family. At the age of 12, Sungju finds himself alone and has to rely on his wits and the support of a small gang of street kids to survive. He learns to fight and steal while trying to avoid arrest, imprisonment and the fear of execution. Every Falling Star is an incredible tale of hardship, friendship and ...