Colin Mulhern

I love this book. Love it. It's short, simple and funny. Kid wants a dog - kid finds a dog and keeps it secret. I work with reluctant readers, so something accessible, entertaining and short enough to get through in a couple of sessions is a great find, but I also liked it for what it is - just a great little story. The illustrations are deceptively simple, just stick figures and line work, but they work. What's more, it gives another great message to kids because they are easy enough to copy, showing that you don't need to be a brilliant artist to tell a fantastic story. Brilliant. I'd give it six stars if I could!.

Quite odd that at the start of the year I decided to quit writing, and at the end I find myself in a stronger position than ever - certainly a situation I never would have imagined back in March. Personal stuff. There was a good deal of personal difficulty at the start of the year. My brother-in-law and friend for almost twenty years had been diagnosed with a brain tumour in August of 2016. He went through treatment and seemed to be doing very well, but as we moved into 2017 it was clear things weren't going well. At the same time, we were approaching March, which would mark the second anniversary of Matthew's death. On that particular day, and that particular time, I know where I should be, but that was also the date of a consultation for my brother-in-law. We thought it was just going to be a question of getting his pain under control, but ended up driving through to a palliative care hospice in Sunderland where he died a couple of weeks later. What shocked everyone was ...

Quick Buttercup update. Two weeks back, I met Steve from Maverick. Before he became a publisher, he used to have his own photography business, so he wanted to do some promo shots. We spent a stunning, but cold, Sunday morning flying around North East landmarks including The Angel of the North, some strange statues in South Shields, Stadium of Light and Penshaw Monument. The best shots are going to be used for press releases early next year, but this one makes me smile. When we went to the Angel, it was early so there weren't many people about. The same in South Shields. There were a few learner drivers in the car park of the Stadium of Light, but by the time we took this one, at Penshaw, there were people walking past giving us some strange looks while I staggered down the slope, zombie style. All part of the fun of being an author-superstar. On the illustration side, things are going well. The drawings are taking much longer than I thought. I draw directly onto a compute...

The book is written, I've done the pitch, made a sale and got a top agent to negotiate the contact. Now it's time for the real fun to begin. It's editing time! Working with an editor is very much like being back at school. You've done your best piece of work ever - and it must be good if you've got an agent and a publisher, right? Right, but that doesn't mean it's perfect. It's the editor's job to take a good script and make it even better.  Here's a screen shot of a page somewhere near the end of Buttercup. There are two colours of comment box because I've got two editors working on this.  No one writes a perfect script. Even Stephen King says that every writer needs and editor. That's simply because it's often impossible to see your own mistakes. Not just typos but continuity errors - someone out of breath in one scene, fine in the next. Wearing a yellow scarf on one page, a purple hat in the next. Also, because you...

I love hearing how other writers get things moving. While sitting here, reading a post on Facebook, I could look out and see my wheelie bin standing in the street. It's bin day so there's a few lined up next to the road. The windows are wide open and the translucent roller-blind with the butterflies, that is usually there as a thin, white barrier is up, because I've been washing our fabric sofas and the whole place stinks of washing up powder. The result is a perfect view of my wheelie bin. And although I know what is in there is really an old brown towel all wrinkled up from being stuffed in the top, from here it looks just like three fat human fingers poking out the top. Can't shake he need to go and double check.

I'm illustrating Buttercup Sunshine and the Deadly Undead Zombies of Dooooom! I'm very happy about this, but also a bit nervous. I had to pitch a load of doodles then rework Buttercup herself until I got something the editor thinks is heading in the right direction. The contract is still being finalised, so I can't say anything official just yet, but I have bought a new graphics tablet to illustrate directly onto my laptop. So just for fun, here's one of my early fine-liner sketches redrawn and coloured.

Originally, Buttercup Sunshine was just going to be a stand alone story in a series set in the same little town. I had an idea that something had happened to cause a degree of calamity to the town and thought it would be great to show that through different events. What I didn't expect was for Buttercup herself to become the star of the series. The publishing deal isn't signed as yet - contract negotiations take time, so while things got underway, I began thinking of what to write next. I had bounced a few ideas about, but they just didn't have the same edge. So, just for fun, I started a story with Buttercup walking back to town, having escaped from events that ended the first story. And the words began to flow. Around this time, Agent F asked if I had any ideas, or if possible, a detailed synopsis for a second book. Perfect timing - things were going well with Buttercup #2. A week later, I sent the full script. And then I sat waiting. Like I said, negotiating contra...