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.Click to view slideshow.

The next is part of the plan to influence every student in my class to be either a scientist or an artist – to benefit both humans and humanity.It was all about experimentation, hypothesizing, testing, measuring and recording.  What it was mostly about was rolling cars down different tracks, which three year olds lose their brain over.

The next set  is the cockpit, which over again, brains were lost.  The lights were ‘finger lazers’ – stocking stuffers from my mother-in-law, the altimeter and level could be rotated, the steering wheel was rotatable, inclinable and in-and-out-able (there is probably a word for that but I can’t think of it), the radio light could be turned on and off and there was another stick to be moved about.  They had a blast and true to form, destroyed it fairly quickly.  What was most awesome was when some of them started to move the altimeter up or down depending on which way they moved the stick.  “I’m up high Mr Mark, I’m on 7,000!” – Actual quote from Herodotus McSalamandar  (not his actual name).

The final set is the second time I’ve created a ‘burrow complex’.  I spent a lot more time introducing it to the kids this year than last and they are really into it.  In addition to the burrows that have mice, a fox, a porcupine (I lost the bunny) and a wombat, I asked the kids what we found in dirt. ‘Rocks!’ ‘Fossils’ ‘Doggy bones!’ ‘Worms’ ‘Seeds’ were the answers, so we worked together to add them.  Mostly with tape.   Aquarium sand and gravel, beans and painted and unpainted dog bones and chews.  The top box has actual soil and seeds, I’m hoping they will germinate but am aware they probably won’t.  So I’ll germinate some others and transplant them (i.e cheat in the name of education).  Upcoming units are plants, insects, wild animals and other fun things, so we will be adding root systems to the other side, trees and plants on top with various animals living in them, and maybe a greater detail of insect life below the soil on one of the sides.  We already have a worm farm in the class room that they are keen on.  Not sure what else I will be building this year but as long as they keep giving me boxes, I will keep on doing things with them.  I want to build the Hot Air Balloon again and possibly the submarine.  The swimming pool was a messy lot of fun (cardboard and shredded paper).  We shall see…….

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!

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……

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.

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.

So these are a few of the things I have built for my class over the past few months.  There should also be a huge submarine and a hot-air balloon but I can’t seem to find those photos.  The giraffe was nearly seven feet tall – fully painted and decorated by the kids (as was everything).  I design the pieces and tape them together but as much as possible is done by kids.  The cow and giraffe spots are paper the kids cut and then stuck-on with tape.  On the Alphabeticow, the kids had to identify a letter at random, then stamp it and tell me a word which I wrote for them.  It was also milkable with a glove inserted into the udder.  And as always all of these creations were loved by my kids and then given to the Toddler class.  Who destroyed them with astonishing speed and complete lack of precision.

As far as Margarash goes…… there should be an update soon.

Margarash is progressing towards publication. I will be getting the first round of edits tomorrow from my editor/publisher so I’m excited to see those. The story has to be shortened considerably from the colossus that it is at the moment so that will probably be a little hard to see but must be done. When I submitted it I was aware that is was way too long for a kid’s book but was looking for someone who was willing to work with me to make it into something viable and …….Woo!

I found Enchanted Lion!

Huzzah!

I’m also going to be submitting some stories soon. I’ve been writing a whole bunch recently and have two stories which I hope to have published and both of them are about fear …. well, technically they are about a gorilla and monsters with silly names called into existence by a man in a park but fear seems to be the underlying premise. I also have an old nonsense-jabberwockyesque poem that I am reworking into a kid’s book that I picture with crazy collage art and I’ve also written a lift-the-flap book again about monsters. And my new piece that I started this week, more in the Margarash line than the other manuscripts, is also about a monster. Can’t seem to write about much else recently.

Also it’s really awesome to try and write kidslit/picture books while listening to The Stooges. And Tom Waits. And David Bowie. You end up with phrases like ‘he gazed a gazedly stare’ appearing in the midst of a story about rudeness and monsters.

In other news for people who care about my life outside of writing….some time in the next week or so I’m going to put up a bunch more photos of the things I’ve created for/with my students. Giant Ants, a hot air balloon, the usual. And my kids all hand-fed butterflies this week. And learnt the word ‘proletariat’ (also to be used in an upcoming story).

Oh and one more thought for any authors/agents that come across this blog… should I get an agent now? I’ve got my first book on the way without one, but should I get one for the future?

The future where I get to work for a few hours (I work with three year olds and am getting a whole bunch of ideas through our interaction/rambling nonsense – today we ‘flew’ to Buenos Aires in our Hot Air Balloon – pictures coming this week- and saw stars and dinosaurs) and then write and let my beard grow gargantuan, and go truffle hunting with my pig, Bartholomew, while my amazing wife saves the world with water (she works in public health with a water focus, she isn’t from Captain Planet).

That’s a pretty nice future. But in all seriousness do I actually need one?

Contact me through the reply button, or email: markriddle23@hotmail.com.

Oh and I need more Twitter friends @pigeatntortoise

It is official.

My first book, Margarash, will be printed by Enchanted Lion Books in the Fall 2013 season (Aug 2013 to March 2014).

WOO!

I’m somewhat pleased.

That may be a bit of an understatement…..

So the story goes that I sent Margarash off to some publishers and agents that I thought may be interested back in October 2010 and after a few rejection letters I figured I would try again when I got the time. Since then I have approached a few other agents and publishers and been rejected again, once within about six hours. That was a bit depressing. Then a few months ago I got an email from Claudia Bedrick at Enchanted Lion asking if the story was still available. She originally read the story, liked it and put it away, got it out six months later or so, read it again and put it away and then got it out down the track, shared it with a few people and decided to get in touch. Some email correspondence and a phone interview later we have come to an agreement and the book is going ahead!

There’s some work still to do on the manuscript and I don’t know who the illustrator is yet but I will post the information as it comes to hand. The Youtube Video is still up – but I put a couple of notes across it to explain what is going ahead – I would re-edit and re-post but lost the original file in a hard-drive collapse a while back…..

That’s about all there is to report except for a big thank you to Claudia at Enchanted Lion and thank you to everyone who has supported my writing in its myriad forms over the years.

Cheers!

Woo!