I’m waiting for a new writing project to kick off, so I have some time to kill, and I want to talk about something that I think a lot of professional creative people will recognize, though each person might experience it differently. It’s the development of a state of mind that helps us deal with the essentially uncertain nature…
Where do I even start with this? I’ve never been particularly worried that the world will be wiped out by the singularity, that Skynet and the Terminators will come for us in an onslaught of self-replicating, intelligent machines or Blade Runner’s more-human-than-humans. I’m more interested in how technology influences our lives in subtle ways now, who has control over…
There always seems to be some controversy in the world of literature about the latest celebrity who’s decided to have a go at writing a book, or indeed an entire series, for children. It’s a trend that’s increasingly dominating the industry and is having an undeniable impact on those of us who do this for a living. I’ve never…
Ah, the things we do for love! I’ve seen a lot of different elements of this discussed on social media, but I thought it was time to write a proper breakdown of what you should expect if you decide to go full-time as a self-employed artist. This is aimed particularly at those of you in Ireland, and specifically writers,…
This is a painting I did last year, commissioned by my brother Marek and a few of his gamer mates, in honour of the longest RPG campaign they ever ran. I’ve done a few paintings for them over the years, and they’re always fun, giving me the chance to stretch myself in ways that I don’t often get on…
People who take an interest in children’s books and comics learn to recognise individual illustrators by their distinct styles, but not many outside of the trade itself realise that illustrators can and do often work in more than one style. Nor do they understand how an illustrator chooses the styles they use most often – and how those choices…
Pictures are the language you learned without realising it. From before you were born, they have been influencing, informing and enriching your life. They were the illustrations in the books about babies your parents read with nervous anticipation as they waited for you to emerge from the womb. They were the health promotion posters on the walls of the…
If you spent much time in the world of publishing, you might at some point start to wonder if the people who work in children’s publishing had an inferiority complex. Or if they didn’t, they must surely be on their way to developing one. The main reason for this, in my opinion, is the perception that writing for children…
This wasn’t the picture I was going to put up. To mark the publication day for ‘Rat Runners’, I was going to post the cover again, but I’ve done that a few times so I’m going to give it a rest for the moment. Instead, I’m putting up this. When I finish the manuscript for a novel, I draw…
This is a post about the small ‘icon’ illustrations I’ve done for the heads of the chapters in my latest book, ‘Rat Runners’. I do pics like this for all my novels – or at least the novels I haven’t been commissioned to do by somebody. Partly because I want the inside of the book to look distinctive as…