More Vlogs
- At March 28, 2017
- By Niel
- In Events/News, Talks/Events
0
Here’s two more vlogs from my residency at The Word.
Vlog 2 – developing ideas
Vlog 3 – A busy day!
Writer in Residence at The Word
- At March 23, 2017
- By Niel
- In Events/News, News, Talks/Events
0
I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve been chosen as the first Writer in Residence at The Word, the National Centre for the Written Word.
I’m spending seven days at The Word and I’ll be creating a new short story while I’m there. The dates of my residency are:
Day 1 – Tuesday 21/3
Day 2 – Friday 24/3
Day 3 – Saturday 25/3
Day 4 – Wednesday 5/4
Day 5 – Sunday 9/4
Day 6 – Monday 10/4
Day 7 – Thursday 13/4
My writing will be inspired by the fantastic building and by speaking to the many people who use it – I’m particularly interested in what those people were doing before The Word was built, and what it is they do in the building now it’s here. I’ll be talking to people about their lives – I want to hear their stories.
Here’s my first vlog from Day 1.
If you’re visiting The Word please do say hello!
Recent Events
- At October 10, 2016
- By Niel
- In Events/News, Talks/Events
0
A new term means new school visits. Here’s some pictures from two recent events at King James Academy and Pentland Primary School. Both were great fun, and a chance to meet new readers. Thanks to both schools for arranging a visit.
If you’d like me to visit your school, library, bookshop or literary festival, or for more details about event content, please email
UKYA Extravaganza
- At September 09, 2016
- By Niel
- In Events/News, Talks/Events
0
Are you in Newcastle? Can you get to Newcastle? Maybe you own a helicopter or know how to drive a submarine. Perhaps you know of the secret Tunnel that Goes Wherever You Like (I find this one particularly handy.) If you enjoy books and aren’t put off by meeting actual authors then you should come along to the town where all the castles are still under warranty. Yes, Newcastle-upon-Tyne is home to this year’s UKYA and Children’s Extravaganza, or UKYACX 2016 as hip cats like me call it.
I’m one of many, many, many, many authors who’ll be there on the day. Tickets start at just £3! That like 9p (or something) per author! Amazing value. Don’t believe me? You do the math(s):
It’s like a beauty pageant, but for authors. Come along, say hello, let me know what you think of my swimsuit.
Timesmith Brazil
- At July 14, 2016
- By Niel
- In Events/News, News, Writing
0
My copies of the Brazilian Portuguese translated edition of Timesmith have finally arrived! Called O Artifice Do Tempo the book was released in July last year, so I’ve been waiting with anticipation for my copies to arrive for some time.
Orbiting Buzz
- At June 07, 2016
- By Niel
- In Events/News, Talks/Events
0
I was born in the Lunar Age. By the time I’d made my appearance on the planet we’d already walked on the moon twice. (It would have been three times if not for the near-death accident that aborted Apollo 13’s moon shot.) Even though I was only two years old when the last man walked on the moon my childhood was dominated by imagery of space exploration. This was the silver days of the 1970s, when future moon bases and our expansion to the stars seemed plausible within my lifetime. Against a backdrop of Star Wars, Blake’s 7, Space 1999 and the developing Space Shuttle programme, I daydreamed about being an astronaut, of setting foot on the moon and beyond.
As I left childhood behind it seemed as if those ambitions fell away as well. We lowered our horizons. We stopped dreaming of a life in space. Only in the last few years does it feel like some of that urgency to move beyond the earth has returned to our collective culture. Maybe it’s not too late for it to happen in my lifetime after all.
Looking back, the Apollo missions feel almost dreamlike now, an era of can-do that squatted in the wrong century. There were just 12 men who walked on the moon, seven of them are still alive. So when the opportunity to see Buzz Aldrin came up I jumped at the chance. I saw it mentioned on Twitter; he was doing a talk at a school in Blackburn, one of just a handful of UK dates to promote his new book, No Dream is Too High. I didn’t expect to get a ticket, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they hadn’t yet sold out.
So last week I drove the hundred plus miles to Blackburn to watch the second man on the moon chat about his life and career. Buzz is 86 year’s old, but in remarkable form. He was interviewed by his manager, Christina Korp, who prompted him from time to time to recount particular anecdotes. It was obviously a familiar routine and Christina kept Buzz on course when he threatened to veer into the technicalities of orbital manoeuvres, or the feasibility of a Mars cycler. Their interactions had a warmth and a comedic familiarity not unlike that of a mischievous father and his irritated daughter.
Afterwards I waited in line to get my book signed. We chatted briefly about the event and his book tour, shook hands, and then it was all over. I’d met my first moon-walker. I don’t know if I’ll ever meet another, or if I’ll ever join their number one day, but for a few hours I had those childhood feelings of unbridled optimism once more.
Waterstones Middlesbrough talk
- At April 05, 2016
- By Niel
- In Events/News, Talks/Events
0
Do you live near Middlesbrough in the UK? I’m doing a free event in Waterstones Middlesbrough later this month with fellow author Stephen Aryan. Stephen is the author of the Age of Darkness trilogy. Battlemage, the first book in the series was published in September 2015 by Orbit books in the USA and UK. Book 2, Bloodmage, is due out on April 12th 2016.
The event is going to be a very relaxed discussion on books and getting published, and you can buy a book and get it signed if you like. Here’s the details, please spread the word and call the bookshop to let them know you’re coming along.
Join us for an evening of conversation with local sci-fi/ fantasy authors Stephen Aryan and Niel Bushnell. They’ll be talking and answering questions about their new books and how to get published.
The authors will also be signing copies of their books to anyone who would like to purchase one on the night.
The event is free but you will need a ticket to get in. Tickets can be obtained in store or by calling and speaking to a bookseller.
Further details: 01642 242682
My 2015 – just keep writing
- At December 29, 2015
- By Niel
- In Highlights, Talks/Events, Writing
1
Long time followers/sufferers of this blog (that’s me then!) will know that I’ve been doing an annual summary for the last two years. It’s a chance for me to look back at the passing months and make stuff up (in part) about what I’ve been up to. For completist with too much time on their hands you can read 2014’s post here and 2013’s here.
For the most part 2015 has been good to me. The only dark cloud is that I’ve not had a book out this year. In an ideal world the final book in the Timesmith Chronicles would have hit the shops by now, but this is not an ideal world and the last part of the story is still a way off. So 2015 has been dominated by the graft of being a writer without the glory of publication. I’ve filled my time with writing and editing, and I’m ending the year with two new books completed, albeit one of them just a first draft (currently it’s known as Project Artichoke). So I’m sat on the cliff of 2015 looking out with optimism over the green fields of 2016, keen to get down there and run through those enticing meadows and spoil it with my muddy boots. Sorry, I’ve been drinking a lot of Metaphor Mead over the holidays.
So without further embellishment here’s how 2015 worked out for me:
A new year, all fresh and full of promise! I greet it with a mouth full of chocolate and a heart full of dreams. Oh, and I dig out some old sketches. I don’t draw as much as I used to but I try to keep my hand in. I’m also planning on doing a picturebook when I’ve got the time.
I complete the third draft of my latest project, The Death of Goldilocks. I’ve been working on it for quite some time and it’s evolved a lot since the original idea. I email the third draft to my agent, Juliet Mushens, to see if she can find a home for it. I relax, thinking my work is done. I’m wrong.
A partial eclipse over Britain leads to hysteria as all teenagers get up early and start washing dishes. The unnatural behaviour continues until every bedroom is hoovered and dusted. Parents throughout the land are paralysed with fear at the sight of this horde of polite cleaners. Fortunately I manage to find the reset switch hidden under a giant mountain shaped like a zit and normality returns in time for Pointless. Full story here.
I finally get to see the Amazing Story Steps on a return trip to the District CE Primary School in Newton-le-Willows where I’m Patron of Reading. I had a great time there, and tested out my picturebook project on them. I really must get round to finishing that one of these day.
I caught up with Cameron K McEwan, broadcaster, actor, and author of two books about Doctor Who, both of which are well worth buying. We talked at length about our favourite time-travelling TV show, which was just as well because I was there for the recording of his Doctor Who Podcast.
My short story, Scissors, is published on the National Literacy Trust’s website. Scissors is a creepy story about a boy who finds he’s not alone after a vivid dream. The story is told in ten chapters, each of which is meant to be read out loud to a class of children (9-12 years old) and leave them wanting more! Also this month, after feedback from my agent, I embark on an extensive edit of The Death of Goldilocks, and travel to London to research locations featured in the story.
My second novel, Timesmith, is published in Brazil. It’s always great to see other editions of my books and I love how they’ve adapted the cover art for this edition. (As of December I’m still waiting for my copy to arrive. Ah, well.) My major edit of The Death of Goldilocks nears completion, and it prompts me to return to London again for one last reccy. I spend a lot a time looking suspicious in Hampstead Tube Station, leading to me being put under 24 hour surveillance. They’re watch me now…
I come to the end of draft 4 of The Death of Goldilocks. But it’s not the end, it’s never the end! For starters the title’s going to change, and there’s more work to complete. Editing can be a chore but it always makes my work better, so I know it’ll be worth the effort.
I become a part-time spy. I’m kitted out with an invisible car, an exploding pen and a robotic eyebrow. Being shot at and hanging off planes while they take off is all well and good but the drinking cocktails and meeting exotic women is a bit of drag. After toppling a volatile extreme dictatorship and saving civilisation as we know it I decide to hang up my Licence to Kill and return to writing and drawing for a living. I also blog about the state of the VFX industry and how animation and visual effects are often maligned for all the wrong reasons.
I start a regular(ish) video series called Writing and Stuff. It’s intended to be a forum for my exploits and adventures, covering my writing progress, any events I’ve been to and books I’m reading. By the end of the year I’ve only published two but I’m optimistic I’ll do more in the New Year because it’s been fun to do.
Even thought it’s been published for almost two years it’s exciting to see Sorrowline feature in a Guardian Top 10 list this month. The article is Rhian Ivory’s top 10 books set in the past and the present, and features some excellent titles – go check them out!
Being on the Guardian website is like waiting for a shark. You wait for ages and nothing bites, then suddenly two come along at once and rip your leg off… sort of. After last month’s Top 10 I’m agog to be featured on the Guardian’s website talking to Charlotte and Eva from the Millennium Riot reading group about being a writer, the power of reading, and casting Benedict Cumberbatch as a bad guy. Well, why not?
So, that was my year: me writing and editing. And I really enjoyed it! Where next? Come back next week and I’ll tell you my plans for 2016. Thanks for your support during 2015, and thanks for reading.