Tuesday 2 April 2013

The Next Big Thing

I was recently contacted by my old friend the writer and producer Danny Greenstone who introduced me to the idea of a ‘Blog Hop’. This one is called ‘THE NEXT BIG THING’  in which writers are invited to answer ten questions on their work in progress and to tag other writers to get them to do the same.

This blog gets us all connected and known to each other and, hopefully, may even drive new readers to view our stuff which is a jolly good idea, like.

1) What is the title of your new book?
It’s called “The Silly Adventures of Twighead Larson” – it’s a daft book for kids of all ages, from 7 to 775.2.

2) Where did the idea come from for the book?
I’ve always had a mad and childlike imagination and, inspired by some of the silly books for children that are around at the moment, I saw that what I could write might well fit into the current climate of nutty books and that.

3) What genre does your book fall under?
The children’s funny books genre.

4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
It would be a cartoon.  Twighead’s voice would be Harry Hill, I would play Professor Leeeeeee(e) Jacobs and the hideous monster would be played by Brian Sewell.

5) What is a one sentence synopsis of your book?
Follow the adventures of Twighead Larson, the silliest person in the whole of Bingleton-on-Sea as he attempts to catch The Horrible Monster of Upminster (known to his friends as Charles).

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
At the moment I’m blogging the whole book in short snippets and it’s had over a thousand views in a month which I'm pleased about.  I read an abridged version on Resonance FM and I’ve also put it online as a free audiobook:

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
Four weeks.  After a while the thing wrote itself.

8) What other books would you compare yours to?
Well I like authors such as Andy Stanton(Mr Gum), Spike Milligan, John Hegley, Jeremy Strong...mad people, basically.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?.
I just felt I wanted to get what I could do down on paper before it was too late, and that my sense of humour was in tune with what’s going on in children’s books at the moment

10) What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?
Well here’s the first bit...

Chapter  1
Helo.
 Twighead Larson was the...
What do you mean I spelt the first word of the book wrong?  Well you try writing a book then! 
Hello.
Happy now?  OK, let’s begin.
Begin what?  Begin this incredible story of course!  Now please be quiet and let me get started.  Thank you.
By the way I ought to mention straightaway that this book has no mention of monkeys in it.  If you want to read about monkeys, you’d better go elsewhere.  Go and read ‘The Big Book of Monkeys’ by L.J. Chimpton or something. 

Read more of the book on my other blog here...


Next week on THE NEXT BIG THING ...

Alex Barrett is an independent filmmaker, writer, and critic. His films have collectively been selected for over 50 international festivals and garnered eight awards, including 'Best Lo-Budget Film' at the London Short Film Festival and 'Stoli
Emerging Filmmaker Award' at the Babelgum Online Film Festival. His work has been described by the writer and broadcaster Sarfraz Manzoor as 'witty and profound', while Sight & Sound contributor Brad Stevens has called his first feature, LIFE JUST IS, 'one of the most promising debuts in contemporary cinema'. The feature was released in the UK in December 2012, having been nominated for the Michael Powell Award for Best British Film at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in June 2012. http://nightonplanetearth.blogspot.co.uk/  

Billy Watson has put on a one man show at the Edinburgh Festival on four separate years. Sometimes, people even turned up. He currently lives in Antalya in Turkey and is known locally as 'Crazy Scottish Billy'.  His poetry isn't Shakespeare by any stretch of the imagination but you may get a chuckle at the reflections on his real life adventures and maybe resonate with one or two of the ideas in his more serious ones. He likes to blog and interview people for his website which can be found at www.billywatson.tv and you can purchase the ebook at Amazon. 

Joff Thompson is a stand-up comedian, comedy writer, performer and novelist. He is one third of the BBC Radio Oxford sketch show ‘Alien Fudge’ and has recently completed his first novel – Best Years Of Our Lives. Outside of comedy, Joff is also a DJ and teacher. He has met Jim Bowen and once had a piece of software put onto his computer by a relative of Joan Armatrading. http://joffthompson.blogspot.co.uk/

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