{"id":131,"date":"2010-09-01T17:10:08","date_gmt":"2010-09-01T16:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theycrawl.com\/news\/?p=131"},"modified":"2010-09-01T17:12:16","modified_gmt":"2010-09-01T16:12:16","slug":"the-state-of-the-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.theycrawl.com\/news\/?p=131","title":{"rendered":"The State Of The Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been assessing the progress of my Sinister Masterplan to Conquer the Universe<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Phase One<\/strong>: The Black Tattoo<\/strong><\/a>. I’m delighted to say that I recently accepted an offer from a company who want to translate and publish the book in Indonesia<\/strong>. I’ve also been receiving some wonderful and heartening messages lately in the Black Tat Guestbook<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Phase Two<\/strong>: Tim, Defender of the Earth<\/strong><\/a>. Take a look at this…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This is the German<\/strong> edition of Tim<\/strong>, published just last month – a pleasingly pulpy-looking and pickuppable paperback. I was particularly happy to discover that KER-RASHHH!<\/em><\/strong> — the noise the Big Ben<\/strong> tower makes when Tim caber-tosses it into Mallahide’s chest — has been rendered into German by translator Lisa Kuppler as the satisfyingly evocative KRAWUMMM<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

Phase Three<\/strong>: Crawlers<\/strong><\/a>. I’ve recently signed a deal to have the book translated and published in Hungary<\/strong>. An unabridged UK audio edition<\/strong> is also in the works.<\/p>\n

Phase Four<\/strong> – the title of which I’ll announce in due course – is a novella<\/strong> to be published by Barrington Stoke<\/strong><\/a>. That’s signed, sealed and delivered, current release date January 2012<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Phase Five<\/strong>… OK, here’s where it gets difficult.<\/p>\n

On Aug 6th of last month, after six months of writing, thirty-five thousand words of draft, four hundred pages of notes and a lot of agonizing, I abandoned the project I’d thought was Phase Five<\/strong>. This was not an easy decision to make. Admitting to myself – and my agent and publisher, and now you – that I led myself down a story dead end wasn’t and isn’t easy either. I don’t approve of writers who make too much fuss and drama about the job but I can reaffirm<\/strong><\/a> for you now (in case you didn’t know) that failing to write a book can be every bit as exhausting as finishing one can be, with the additional effect of a massive, crushing drain on one’s morale. For the few weeks since, I’ve been taking some time off. I’m feeling better. I’ve now scraped my sorry remaining braincells into a loose, watery bolus and I’m preparing to embark on a completely new story, from scratch<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It’s scary, but exciting too. In an email to me yesterday fellow TBM stalwart Barry Hutchison<\/strong><\/a> asked, “Do we have the best job in the world, or what?<\/strong>” He wasn’t going to get any argument from me. So: time for me to straighten my spine, and start all over again<\/strong>…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been assessing the progress of my Sinister Masterplan to Conquer the Universe. Phase One: The Black Tattoo. I’m delighted to say that I recently accepted an offer from a company who want to translate and publish the book in Indonesia. I’ve also been receiving some wonderful and heartening messages lately in the Black Tat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theycrawl.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theycrawl.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theycrawl.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theycrawl.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theycrawl.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.theycrawl.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theycrawl.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theycrawl.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theycrawl.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}