Just a few new things built for my class.  As always they did as much as possible.  This was the other side of the burrow complex we made for the ‘Earth’ unit and this was for the follow-up ‘Plant’ unit.  We talked a lot about trees and their parts – if you want to do a cool science type thing, stick celery (leave the leaves on) in strong food dye.  Tis awesome.  The class helped stick the branches on the tree body and then painted in the root system.  They also made the leaves and stuck them on for the bush.

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We did insects/spiders the last two weeks so this was the giant red-back spider – learn more here.  The class did the painting and stuck the googly eyes on and helped me attach everything together.  They didn’t help with the 10 foot spider web for obvious reasons.  I don’t have any photos without the kids in it, but we made flies out of cups, paper and velcro and threw them into the web.  Which didn’t work until I put packing tape along the string.  Then the kids took a great amount of  pleasure in ensuring their flies got caught and the spider got to eat.   There is also a photo of the 43 paper long caterpillar.  Before it went on the wall we took it for a walk.  I don’t know if you’ve ever seen 19 three year olds walking with a stapled together paper-plate caterpillar but they managed to get about five metres before it came apart.  I was honestly surprised they got it that far.  I love my class.  Their enthusiasm for performance, showing off and intentional/non-intentional wanton destruction is invigorating.  It was less invigorating for the crickets and mealworms I bought for them from the pet store.  Few of them had a happy end, though the class was awesome with the swimming bugs I caught from a pond outside a law firm.

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Book Deal News! Not mine but still exciting!

(By the way, the photos are things of Naracoorte which are of little to no relevance.  I just like these pictures and were all taken within a few kms of my backyard)

My friend, Jaime Loren of  The Lovable Protagonist just announced that she has a three book deal with Month9Books.  Hurrah for her! I don’t really know the details but I do know this has been a good few years in the making: writing/re-writing/editing/querying/twittering and other things that end with ing.

In other good news for other people, my Dad, Mike Riddle of Caught Jester Books  just launched his latest book, ‘The Kanceroo’ at the SA Writer’s Centre. Hurrah for him! (And mum, she does a lot for Caught Jester).  The book supports the Cancer Council of SA, so that’s good as well.

The photo above was lifted from The Naracoorte Herald: http://www.naracoorteherald.com.au/story/1345242/goers-to-launch-book/?cs=2118

In the midst of all this it struck me that the town of Naracoorte, South Australia, has had some literary/creative success recently.  As well as Dad and Jaime, my book is progressing along and another artist, James Fosdike of Visualante.com has work all over the web, world and Adelaide Fringe.

What is interesting, at least to me, is that Jaime and Foz were in the year above me at high school, and Dad taught us all. I don’t think all of us were ever in a class together with Dad, but I did drama with Foz and some science with Jaime? I think. Dad may have even been their homeroom teacher at some point. Tis not a big deal, just interesting and I wonder whether another writer/artist/creative-type will appear from the same crop.

For those who don’t know, Naracoorte is a nice enough little town. It’s of a decent size for South Australia – at about 5000 people it is the 13^th biggest town in the state. And this in a state where the capital, Adelaide has a little over a million people and then the second biggest town is Mount Gambier with about 23,000. And the 4^th, 6^th and 10^th biggest are all practically part of Adelaide and 5, 11 and 12 are all within an hour and a half of Adelaide Oval.

There’s only about 1.6 million people in SA, which is big enough that you could fit a fair swack of Europe in, or about one and a half Texas’s (you know, that big old state that has more people than the entirety of Australia). And its only the fourth biggest state/territory in Australia. The N.T, one of my other homes, is even bigger and only has a population of a bit over 200,000. The basic point is: Australia. It’s big and mostly empty.

For those vaguely interested Naracoorte is worth a visit – there is wine in the Coonawarra, more wine in Padthaway and a little more wine, a lake to swim in, a creek to walk by, art to gander at, the coast is fairly close and there are the World Heritage Listed Caves. Which are stupendous. They also have the Wonambi Fossil Centre, named after the huge prehistoric python that they found there. As the saying goes “Robotic Megafauna is always worth a visit, unless it comes alive and hunts you down, but ours won’t. We Promise”.

In conclusion, congrats again to Jaime, Dad, Foz and anyone else from the hometown that I have forgotten/didn’t know about.

There will be more news.

Soon!

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A few photos I knocked up today for fun.  I’ve heard from Enchanted Lion this week and have been looking at a few illustrators that may be involved down the line.  Obviously nothing official as of yet.

I now have an additional seven pieces that I think are ready to be submitted out and about, including what is probably the most polished/tight story that I have ever written.  So that’s exciting.  Hopefully more next week……

Not a lot to report but I did receive a very positive email from Enchanted Lion today.  I hope to be able to share some more news in the near future.   Still writing, editing, creating and enjoying the new ideas bubbling around in my brain.  By the time Margarash does see the light there will be a (already) huge pile of manuscripts ready to be rolled out…….

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A few more things built with cardboard for the kids. The pride of place has to be ‘Bogar’ the brachiosaurus – ten feet six inches long and 80 inches tall. Unlike all the other things that were completely painted, the class put a handprint and their name on him as he was huge. Of all the things I’ve built he was most definitely their favourite. They got quite upset when I took his head off and turned his body into a puppet theatre. I don’t put photos of my class up using the things we build together, but I wish I could show how much fun they get out of them.

We’ve been doing a winter theme so I knocked up some quick skis and a dog sled for them one morning last week. The giant ant, the hot air balloon and its accoutrement were actually from last year but I thought I had lost the photos.

The tree and bush showed roots on one side and burrows on the other side for a rabbit, wombat, mice and a worm. This one was honestly a little big and involved for the kids to really get I think.

Finally there is one of the butterflies that we caught outside and then kept alive for a while – they even fed off of everyone’s fingers.

Hope to make an announcement about Margarash soon but have written a couple of new stories since the last update – these two are a little simpler than the last few I’ve written but it’s safe to say that they still fit in the general Mark Riddle world view and silliness. I’ve also been challenged to write a popular novel about a utopian society. Every time I think I have an idea, something pops into my brain to dystopianize it. But we will see.

The shine is off the new year a little but its not dull enough yet to make this post completely dated.  Margarash continues to make slow, patient progress which is awesome.   It has given me a huge creative boost over the past year  – when I am not working on Margarash, I’m coming up with new ideas and getting them up to submission standard.  I’ve got two longish kid’s books and a board book ready to go and one of each that are getting close.

Kind of.

Editing is slow.  Luckily my Dad, over at Caught Jester Books (for those who know him, Mike Riddle is on Twitter.   Which, I think many people would agree,  is surprising.  So am I by the way.) is giving me a hand on that score.   Caught Jester continue to turn up at local festivals/fairs/markets in South Australia so try and catch them if you can – my students love Simon Said.  They’ve destroyed it in all honesty but its been read a lot.

So basic plans this year are to try and keep the momentum going and have a big stack of completed manuscripts to roll out.  I have a long list of story ideas that are bubbling and boiling around in my brain, waiting to reach the point where they burst out of my skull and throw themselves with reckless abandon at the page.  Or screen.

I’m also planning on pulling this website to pieces and doing a rebuild, or at least an update with some new pictures and a bit of a clean-up on some of the additional pages.

Those above were the basic plans – here is the dream for 2013 and beyond:

Enough books on the way so that I can cut back to working part-time, which in turn lets me focus on more writing, going to the gym, reading, spending time with my X-Box, writing, hanging out with my amazing wife, drinking coffee in cafes, writing, bettering my cookery, reading, volunteering at the Bird Center and writing.  I would like to keep working with kids but in this lovely dream my beard is gargantuan so I would need to find somewhere OK with a teacher who can hide a badger on his neck.

We can but hope.

And read and write.