Tuesday 30 July 2013

Competition!!

Well, yep, I think the title pretty much says it all. Competition time!

How do you fancy opening Arthur Ness and the Secret of Waterwhistle Part 2 in a few months' time and reading your very own story inside? Well, grab your pencils because that's what's on offer!

I want you to write a short story and send it in - my favourite one will be printed in the back of 'The Secret of Waterwhistle Part 2' which is due out in time for Christmas 2013.

The story can be about anything in the Arilon world - you can set it on any Island that has been in the story so far or you can create your own, as-yet unseen Island. Will it be set on Graft, Labyrinth or Bamboo's Island? Or perhaps somewhere else - maybe, an island where everyone constantly tells lies, or a place where time is traded like money.

Who will your main character be? What will they be after? Will they be helping someone? Running from something? Trying to rescue somebody? Or perhaps they will be in need of rescue themselves...

Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting some articles on creative writing to help you come up with some ideas and guide you on how to put your story together. But as from right now - as they say on X-Factor - the phone lines are OPEN! (Well, not phone lines... you know what I mean...).

The closing date is 31st October 2013. After this date, I can't accept anymore stories, so get writing! Keep your eyes out for the creative writing articles to give you some tips - the first one will be appearing soon.

I'm looking forward to reading about your adventures in Arilon!

Keep scribbling

Wilf

Sunday 21 July 2013

Lowdham Festival Wordsearch Winners

Just a quick post to congratulate the winners of the Arthur Ness wordsearch competition that took place at the Lowdham Book Festival a few weeks ago. Everyone who completed the fiendishly difficult wordsearch had their name put into a hat (well, Morrisons carrier bag) and the lucky three who were picked out at random were;

  • Tom Hunter
  • Jacob Curley
  • Annalise Machin
Each of them has won a signed copy of Arthur Ness and the Secret of Waterwhistle which those nice men and women at the Royal Mail hand-delivered to their respective houses. Well done guys!

Everyone else will get (or has already got) a text thanking them for their participation and (more importantly) giving them  a discount on the purchase of the book from the Bookcase in Lowdham before August 31st.

Don't forget, you can pop in to the Bookcase (they're very nice people!) to get a copy or order it via 88tales.com (£5.99) or you can download the e-book version for Kindle or any device with the Kindle Reader App installed (£1.99).

Congratulations and Thanks again to all who took part!

Wednesday 3 July 2013

Lowdham Book Festival 2013

Hello. It's the Cat here. I just found out that there was a book festival in Lowdham, Nottinghamshire last weekend - and that I wasn't invited. I can't tell you the words I had to have with young Wilf on this one. Lowdham is just a stone's throw away from Waterwhistle (or, you know, what's left of it). Plus, I do like book festivals. I can read better than most cats. And to be fair, I'm actually the main character in one of the books Wilf was selling so you would have thought I'd be the guest of honour and get loads of adulation and fish. Adulation and fish are my two favourite things.

ANYway, after telling Wilf in no uncertain terms how annoyed I was, he did ask me to take some small part in proceedings by coming on here and thanking everyone who came along on the day and chatted to him. Also, if you did the fiendishly difficult wordsearch, well done! I'd like to take credit for that - but it was actually Wilf's friend, Ian, who concocted that little gem. If I'd done it, it would have been even more fiendish. Doubly fiendish. Trebly, even. Maybe even fourbly. The levels of fiendishness would have been so high, they would have needed to double the size of the festival, just to fit all the fiendishness in. It would have been a fiendish overload. We would have used up all the world's supply of fiendish, just on this one wordsearch.

I think you get the idea. It would have been quite tricky.

Anyway, thanks again (even though I wasn't there....) and check back soon for a brilliant competition for all you budding writers out there. Fancy the chance to get a short story you've written printed in 'The Secret of Waterwhistle Part 2' when it comes out later this year? Then don't go far.

Until next time. Keep an eye out for Yarnbulls!


C