Over on An Awfully Big Blog Adventure

Visit ABBA for this week's blog.

Back here next week, and in the meantime, Happy World Book Day!

Cheers, Joan.

The Idea Pot

I'm writing two new stories around some old characters I'm very fond of. The first one also introduces a Princess and a bog full of frogs. The second one was to have added an Indiana Jones-like character who arrives in a big blue zeppelin. And then - and you can trust me on the chronology here, even though I'm professionally addicted to bending truth - I was told about the recently released "The Princess and the Frog" and shown a DVD of "UP" ...

Has my brain been taken over by Disney (horror!) or Pixar (well, if you must) in the night? Or is it just another example of convergent evolution? Two sets of hands reaching into the Idea Pot and pulling out the same thing?

"The Princess and the Frog," I have been assured, is completely different from my first story, which is good because I've just finished writing it. "Up" (I loved it - and I'm so glad I didn't have to watch it in a cinema with a bunch of kids - like Wall-E, so not a children's cartoon!) isn't like the second story either, really. Even so, I think I just might change my adventurer into a woman. On a skateboard.

Or did I just think of that because of having watched the Olympic Snowboard Halfpipe ...

Cheers, Joan.

P.S. Not a lot of warmth has been expressed for the new blog title. I will probably just quietly put it back to Joan Lennon's Blog and pretend nothing ever happened.

Book of the Month!

It may be narcissism of the first order, but you can come across some really surprising things by Googling yourself. |Like, for example, the fact that The Night of the Kelpies (Barrington Stoke) is February's Book of the Month Children's Choice for Books from Scotland. How nice is that! And I didn't know!

Anyway, I'm now busily telling everybody I can think of. Even an ordinary month is not much time to be a Favourite Anything, and February is slimmer than most. Enjoy every minute, say I.

Cheers, Joan.

P.S. So far not a lot of response to the new blog title but what there has been has been under-enthusiastic. I'm going to let it ride a few more weeks, and then we'll see. Don't hold back if you have an opinion!

My Essentially Groovy Nature

I've given my blog a title - I've called it "Not the John Lennon Blog" - because, apparently, just your own name isn't how it's done. It may have only taken me a little over 3 years to learn this, but you need the tortoise to make the hare look good. Is my theory. So now I'm groovy and up to date, and the outside matches the inside.

IF, however, you don't like this new title, please tell me! By comment, email, letter, phone call, or just stick your head out the window and shout. It'd be nice to know!

Other exciting news: The Night of the Kelpies is now out!



Published by Barrington Stoke, it is one of their Reloaded series. To find out more about this excellent publisher for struggling readers, click here. The artwork by Daniel Atanasov is striking - and the story is really scary ...

Even The Mucker's Tale (Catnip Press), coming out next month, has explosions and a secret weapon, so it's all go on the adrenalin front. (I picture it as sort of a weather map - "Currently calm, adrenalin front approaching from the north ...")

Cheers, Joan.