Colin Mulhern

I took a long break from writing at the start of the year. The second Buttercup book had been put back to September, there were no plans for books 3 & 4 and my other attempts at breaking into the children's market had fallen short of the mark. But one unexpected thing that came as a result of writing Buttercup was it rekindled my love of classic horror. Horror is the one genre that has always been with me. As a kid, I loved horror movies. I'll never forget the impact Salem's Lot had on me, or the first time I saw An American Werewolf in London. For books, it started when I spotted the Eleventh Pan Book of Horror Stories in a newsagent on my way to school. I managed to get the rest from jumble sales. In my teens, I moved onto James Herbert, Stephen King and HP Lovecraft. My very first attempt at a full length novel was a terrible attempt to do Cthulhu-inspired horror. And right now, my favourite author by far is Adam Nevill. He's just incredible.

Buttercup Sunshine and the House on Hangman's Hill has a finalised cover.  Due out September, so not too long to wait.

I've had fun playing with authortube vids and uploading a couple to YouTube, but I was amazed at just how long the whole thing took. 1. Recording First of all is the recording itself - actually, there is a more important stage before that, but you don't realise that until you've tried recording and utterly messed it up. Then you realise that stage one is actually... 1. Thinking of what you want to say. I spent soooooo long on this bit, usually because I'd go off at tangents and end up way off topic. I tend to ramble - which is why blogging suits me because I can backtrack and edit as much as I like. Once I thought I knew what I want to say, then it's time to record. 2. Recording (again) Talking to a camera is tough. I record sound separately so I'm constantly starting and stopping both, then realising that I've forgotten what I meant to say and have to start again. Yes, I can edit and chop, but doing it every sentence is a pain and doesn't look ...

Streaks I'm cutting my current writing streak short. Two reasons - firstly, it's getting way too complicated. As I said at the beginning, I've taken an old script and tried to breathe some new life into it. The book is a puzzle/treasure hunt kind of thing, and I focused so much on the puzzles and solutions that I never stopped to wonder what the antagonist's motive was, and in trying to address that, it's become a monster. The second is that it's beginning to drift away from what I want to write right now - comedy horror. This had both initially, but in trying to deal with the first problem, the central theme of the story became so much darker, which made the comic relief moments more of a distraction than a natural part of the story. Is it time wasted? Of course not. Every sentence written makes you a better writer, and regular writing streaks increase stamina. It's all about keeping the machine ticking over. Deadlines Buttercup #2 edits are underwa...

And best of all, they are from the target audience. Thanks to my sister-in-law Michelle for bringing these across. Colin Mulhern. Buttercup Sunshine.

Instead of buying Christmas cards this year, we bought a couple of memorial trees for Matthew (my son who died due to his cerebral palsy) and Paul (my brother-in-law, who died of a brain tumour). These were planted in a new woodland somewhere in Durham. Yesterday we had a drive up. You don't get to find your actual tree, you just know that you are helping with a bit of conservation. Plus, it's a nice place to go for a walk. So, for no other reason than the memory of a canny day walking around newly planted woodland in Durham, here are a few photographs. Nice place for Poppy to explore Red hot down here. Wish I'd brought me towel and a cossie. Poppy found a way down to cool off. Climbing up a steep hill and see a Wicker Man Not scary at all. 

I'm quite happy with my first week. I ended up writing 11,000 words in 7 days. Now on first sight, that sounds pretty fantastic. Going at the rate, I could complete a Middle Grade novel in three weeks, or an adult novel in seven. But consider that when I first started playing with writing sprints, I was hitting around 3,000 words a day. If I'd continued like that I should be closer to 21,000 words per week. That would mean a Middle Grade novel in ten days or an adult novel in three and a half weeks. Of course, there's a little more to a novel than writing fast. Part of successful writing sprints is knowing what you are going to write before you get going, which means a lot of planning and pre-writing. So you have to add that into the mix - does that count as writing every day? If it does, I'm laughing, because I jot down ideas and scenes all the time. It doesn't result in word counts, and sometimes it's just doodles on paper, but it is development and creati...