Another year has gone by very quickly - but before I tell you a little about what I hope to achieve Mouse-ily during 2011 I'd like to review main highlights of The Mouse of Commons in 2010. 2010 was the 10th anniversary of the creation of Gladstone McWhiskers - in 2000 I wrote all of MOUSE OF COMMONS - MOUSE OF LORDS and a rough draft of the first 9 and a half chapters of MOUSE IN A BOTTLE. Although the book wasn't officially available until 2006, I still think of 2000 as the year all things Mousey began. In the end I perhaps didn't celebrate the anniversary in quite as big a way as I'd have liked to - the book launch that I held in July was originally going to be a bigger party in the Mouse's honour - but it was simply too hot that day to do too much.
That said we did achieve a couple of key successes - one of them that seemed especially timely to the early days of the series, but first...
POSTCARDS FROM MCWHISKERS
2010 was the year that I put the finishing touches to the POSTCARDS FROM MCWHISKERS, a compilation of all the stories I originally posted on this blog between 2007 and 2008, along with a couple of Christmas stories and messages. This collection has a special affection for me as the three main stories were written on 3 lovely holidays that I had; one to Barcelona for my birthday in November 2007, one to Majorca in December 2007 and then another in October 2008 to a number of different locations in the Barcelona area. As well as the stories themselves there are a lot of photos from those trips that originally appeared in colour on the blog - so this is more than just an exciting collection of Mouse stories to me; it also brings back happy holiday memories! It was one of those books that I had brewing in the background and which only got the chance to be properly completed after GOSSIP FROM THE CHEESE COUNTER was completed in 2009. That said it took longer than expected to get all the proofing down and the photos laid out in the best way possible. Anyway! It's all done now and can be bought from the following links:
Paperback edition: £9.99
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/postcards-from-mcwhiskers/12463756
Hardback edition: 15.99
http://www.lulu.com/content/hardcover-book/postcards-from-mcwhiskers/9123871
VEGAS 2010
In December 2010 I was lucky enough to return to Las Vegas almost 10 years to the week that I made my first visit there in 2000. During my first trip I had quite a lot of free time and began work on the first 10 chapters of MOUSE IN A BOTTLE. I started a new job shortly afterwards and ended up moving onto a different project: MYSTIC BISCUITS during 2001 and so it wasn't until 2006, when I started using http://www.lulu.com/ that I returned to publish MOUSE OF COMMONS - MOUSE OF LORDS and then a little later the same year decided that I wanted to dig out the untyped first draft of MOUSE IN A BOTTLE and to finish the two and half chapters that I hadn't finished back in 2000. I made a second visit to Vegas in November 2003 for my birthday; but at the time had no inkling that I'd be returning to Gladstone's stories. Whilst in Vegas on this third visit I took the finished version of the book out with me for a photo shoot and recorded a short piece during one of my SHY YETI ON LOCATION series, the second part of A YETI BACK IN HOLLYWOOD where I talk about the book.
The link to this video on Youtube and Vimeo is:
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF4OlsOeqTY
Vimeo: http://www.vimeo.com/18238790
COMING IN 2011...
So what does 2011 hold in store? Well, to a certain extent that's a theoretical question - because I can never quite tell how long it's going to take to proofread a book and although I have a lot of books that are *almost* complete; there is still the proofreading to be done for even the nearest completed tome. As I've mentioned before I have about 2-3 books of short stories on the back-burner; but they need typing and proofing - so the most likely candidate for completion this year is definitely...
GLADSTONE MCWHISKERS AND THE COUNTER-CLOCKWISE CONUNDRUM...
This is the first novel that I have written about Gladstone and his team since I published GLADSTONE MCWHISKERS THROWS IT ALL AWAY in 2008, although from my point of view I never actually stopped. I began working on THE COUNTER-CLOCKWISE CONUNDRUM during 2007 and have been writing in fits and starts ever since. At any rate it is almost complete - I was hoping to finished the 12th and final Chapter over Christmas (I wrote Chapters 10 to 12-ish during 2010); but I didn't quite get there. At time of writing this post I am on the last scene with probably no more than a page or two to complete. Well, other than the proofreading; but hopefully I'll get that done reasonably quickly and the book will be ready by the autumn. We'll see. It's quite a big book, however - including a new short story, some Auntie Astrid agony aunt collumns and the usual batch of photos to illustrate the story. More on this project as I progress!
That's about it for now; thank you for you continued support! More soon!
Paul xx
Labels: "MOUSE OF COMMONS", "SHY YETI", LAS VEGAS, LOS ANGELES, Paul Chandler, UNITED STATES
posted by Paul Chandler @ 10:37 AM
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