A Week of Events

I knew this week was going to be busy, but a frenetic week that's full of great events is one to treasure.

On Sunday I walked Oscar, my cocker spaniel pup in the local forest for a couple of hours and thought back to the previous Sunday when a man walking his dogs had recognised me from the photo on my Amazon author's page. An author's biggest thrill, especially as the man had read both books in the Temporal Detective Agency.

The Scary Dip Halloween draw run by Gina Dickerson, Catriona King, Sarah England, Shani Struthers and myself came to its halfway point on Sunday and the day's prize was the miniature of my Leap of Faith created by the multi-talented Gina D. A week later and 6 prizes down the line, today's prize is a signed copy of my Trouble With Swords. You can still enter at http://bit.ly/1M2l2Ud.until midnight.

On Monday I signed books on the Red Funnel Isle of Wight Ferry Osprey. Great fun and part of the SO:To Speak (Southampton Festival of Words). This is ther first time Red Funnel has taken part and giving me a free ticket as well as free reign in the South lounge to chat to their passengers was a great risk for them. I think it paid off. It was wonderful when the captain announced that on board there was "the famous author Richard Hardie who will be pleased to sign books... or probably anything you stick in front of him, knowing authors!". No he didn't! A serious thank you to Red Funnel and the captain!

On the way back home I managed to call into the Southampton IMAX cinema and get premier seats for the new James Bond film, Spectre. My wife and I are really looking forward to seeing that.

Wednesday was golf day with my son in the afternoon and preparation for a library talk in the morning.

On Thursday I gave a talk in the morning at my local (and very large) library to 10 to 12 year olds on how to write a book, and in the afternoon on being an author to 12 to 14 year olds. The kids were wonderful and made the talks very interactive and a pleasure to give. One of them, Ben, wrote up an excellent summary on his blog. That's a lad to watch. After each talk I signed books in the main library area for an hour and a half. A great day and my thanks to Radka, the chief librarian for organising everything!

I popped into Southampton Central library this morning and I suppose like all authors I looked for my books. Leap of Faith was on the "Teen" shelf, but there was no sign of Trouble With Swords. Apparantly, they have another copy of Leap of Faith which is out on loan as is Trouble With Swords. Music to my ears!

In between the above, updating posts to A Scary Dip and answering emails, I actually managed to do some writing!

Quite a week.

Blog on, Dudes!