Respect Mah Authonomy!

Righty-ho then,

I've just joined a rather intriguing author's site run by HarperCollins (http://authonomy.com) where writers can upload their novels and get feedback from other writers (and professional editors, if the books get enough ratings to make it to the much coveted Editor's Desk).

Thanks to this, you can now read two of my novels online.

The first is Grandpa's Teeth - a children's novel which is best summed up in this strap-line:

'Pea Soup Pirates! Man-eating cows! Timmy Grimble must face these hazards and more on his voyage across the Seven Soups to reclaim his Grandpa's Teeth.'

It's only been up a few days, and has already received many favourable comments, including:

'Thank God for books like this one, and for writers who use the English language like it is music.'

and: 'This is a wonderful, delightful children's book. It has to be illustrated!!! The author, David Hailwood, writes some of the most vivid imagery I've ever read. His dialogue and his writing-style are flawless.'

so feel free to check it out yourselves at: http://www.authonomy.com/books/45390/grandpa-s-teeth/read-book/#chapter

The other book, which I've only just put up a few moments ago, is the currently unfinished Sci-Fi comedy novel 'Breaking Even' (in which a man on an overpopulated planet discovers he has a secret buried in his mind that could either save mankind, or destroy it).  It's just the first fifteen chapters, but I will write more once I've finished a few other projects.  Breaking Even can be scrutinized here:

http://www.authonomy.com/books/45452/breaking-even/read-book/#chapter

Bunk Mates The Sitcom

Right, time to start catching up with all the blog updates I've been forgetting about!

The first thing to mention is that thanks to my good friend and writing collaborator Fran Burton (Or F.J.Riley, if you prefer) I've finally got round to converting Bunk Mates into a sit-com. It actually started life as an intended sit-com many years ago, but then went the way of the comic strip (illustrated by Paul Harrison-Davies).

It was nice to get back to my Sit-com writing roots, and thanks to Fran the series has taken a slight detour from the original premise (it's now about a scientist-come-lazy bastard who's sharing a nuclear bunker with his almost ex-wife) which made it work better for screen.

The postman from the original comic strip still makes an appearance though, and it was good to weave him in there.

Anyway, here's hoping we manage to get some positive feedback from the BBC, as the last time I sent them a script they responded a few days later by putting on a documentary titled 'Death Of The Sit-com', which was a bit of an extreme reaction to my work I must admit.