ST JOHN'S RC SCHOOL & CHANCES

I do loads of school visits - I couldn't really guess how many different schools I've visited but we're talking hundreds. And some stand out as being exceptionally exciting.

One school like that is St John's Catholic School and Sixth Form Centre in County Durham. I did a school visit there a few years ago as part of the Northern Children's Book Festival and the response from the pupils was really special. They had incredible ideas and dynamism and the questions were fantastic. Actually, one boy asked my favourite question ever:

"How does someone as nice as you write such nasty books?" Love it!

Anyway, as I went back home on the train, I got thinking about how I could respond to their enthusiasm. To cut a long story short, I handed over the promotion of my next book, The Highwayman's Footsteps, to them. They did the most amazing job, involving the English, art and history departments for the whole of Years 7 and 8, and it culminated in a launch in front of 700 pupils, with press and photographers and all sorts of coverage. The project was led by two remarkable pupils, Brogan and George, and Brogan even mentioned it in her personal statement when applying to Oxford University - she got a place, she told me recently!

What has this got to do with Wasted? Well, the connection continued and about a year ago I had a vibrant and excited email from another pupil there, Amy, who had remembered being in Year 7 and in the audience when HF was launched. We got chatting. (You can't not get chatting with Amy...) And I thought, hmmm, it would be wrong to ignore such enthusiasm - what could we do? I asked Amy if she'd like to be my teenage marketing person (along with another vibrant teenager from the other side of the country, Iffath at lovereadingx). Amy is known for her enthusiasm and her reply kind of went off the scale of excitement.

Amy and her friends have been reading and planning and talking and thinking and getting their school involved. I'm going to report on that later - but for now, suffice it to say that I am in awe of them and St John's.

But there are some interesting chance happenings to do with this, and since Wasted is about Chance, I thought you should know them.

The St John's librarian, who has been hugely important in all this, is called Miss Heads. Considering this is about a game with a coin, don't you think that's quite a coincidence?

It gets more spooky.

The pupils and Miss Heads were trying to think of a game involving a coin that they could get the whole school to play, as a way of sparking interest in the book. At this stage, most of them hadn't read it so they were a bit in the dark, but they kept thinking. The night before the copies of the book were due to arrive, Miss Heads's husband went to a fund-raising event of some sort and there they played a game called ... Heads or Tails.

Result! And that is the game they played in assembly for the whole school on Publication Day for Wasted.

Here's the game. You need a room full of people, and one coin.

1. Everyone stands up.
2. On the count of three everyone puts their hands either on their heads or on their hips / buttocks / whatever. 
3. Everyone keeps their hands where they've chosen until the leader tosses the coin and calls out the result.
4. If the coin landed heads up, all those with hands on head remain standing. Everyone else sits down.
5. This is repeated until only one person is left standing. That person wins a copy of the book!

Do you fancy doing this in your school? If so, the school could win a signed copy. All you need to do is get your school librarian or teacher to contact me if your school would like to do this. I have three books to give away as priazes. If more than 3 schools sign up, I will pick 3 at random. The only conditions are: that you agree to spend a few minutes explaining to the assembly / class why you are doing this; that you agree to receive some posters of Wasted and recommend Wasted to readers who you think will like it. The book will be bought and posted at my expense so I hope you don't mind my asking this.

Pass it on!

Meanwhile, if you'd like me to come to talk to your school about Wasted and my other books, the page about my events is here. I love doing events so I'd love to hear from you. I have some vacancies in the autumn and lots of space next year but I do tend to be booked far in advance so don't delay!

WASTED BLOG TOUR - WHERE AM I TODAY?  Over at the remarkable Jesse Owens's blog - Books4Teens - where, by chance, you'll see a picture of me after a school event.

THE LUCK FACTOR

Do you think luck is something you can't control, something that just happens to us?

Apparently not. We affect our own luck, and a great way to understand how is to read psychologist Richard Wiseman's work. His book, The Luck Factor: The Scientific Study of the Lucky Mind, "reveals the four scientific principles of luck - and how you can use them to change your life."

Wiseman conducted research into people who considered themselves very lucky and those who believed they were very unlucky. He wanted to see if it was just luck or if there was something different about their behaviour, anything that could be causing their good or bad luck. Because if we knew what was causing it, perhaps we could change it?

He shows that lucky people share four principles:

1. they maximize chance opportunities
2. they listen to "gut feelings" 
3. they expect good fortune 
4. they see the bright side of bad luck

And Wiseman isn't the only person who can tell you about luck being in your control. Here's an article referring toThe Book of Luck, by Heather Summers and Anne Watson.

I told you about John Woods, surely one of the luckiest men alive. If Jack, my character in Wasted, had known about John Woods, he'd probably have been obsessed by him. Well, fine, but I can't see that John Woods did anything apart from be lucky. He didn't make choices which in advance he could say were sensible, could he? Just really lucky.

But there are other aspects of our lives where there are clearly things we should do to attract luck. For example, in jobs, careers, relationships, the experiences of meeting people, if you put yourself in the right situations and go into them positively, you give yourself more chances to be lucky. Whereas if you sit at home, too scared or lazy to do anything, you will miss possible encounters or events that could change your life for the better.

So, Richard Wiseman did a number of experiments to discover why some people may affect their luck - for good or bad. And I thought I'd tell you about one of them, which he relates in The Luck Factor.

He found two people, Martin and Brenda. Martin seemed exceptionally lucky and Brenda exceptionally unlucky. Martin talked about all the good things that happened to him and Brenda seemed to talk only about the unlucky things that happened to her. So, Wiseman set up an experiment, without telling either of them what was going on - they just thought they were going to be interviewed about luck.

A TV crew rigged up hidden cameras outside a coffee shop and Martin and Brenda were asked to go there at two specific times and wait in the coffee shop till someone from the "Luck Project" came to meet them. In the coffee shop were four tables, each with a person sitting there who was secretly involved in the experiment. One was a successful businessman and the others were not. All had to behave the same way.

A £5 note was left on the pavement outside.

When Martin arrived, he saw the £5 note and picked it up. He sat next to the businessman, bought him a coffee and introduced himself. Soon they were chatting.

Later, after Martin had gone, another £5 note was placed outside and they waited for Brenda. 

Brenda didn't see the £5 note. In the coffee shop, she did sit next to the businessman, but she didn't say anything.

Later, Wiseman interviewed them about any lucky or unlucky things that had happened that day. Brenda said nothing had happened; Martin talked about the £5 note and the chat with the businessman.

The point, as Wiseman says, is that these two people had exactly the same opportunities for luck that day, but they each behaved differently and so experienced different things.

So, keep your eyes open for £5 notes on the pavement and do take opportunities that arise! You never know what might happen. Martin's life didn't change (or not obviously) after his chat with the businessman, but it might have done. What if he'd been looking for a job? What if the man had been impressd by him and liked him?

Yes, bad and good things happen to us. But we can and do make our own luck.

Good luck!! Or, I should say: grasp those chances that come along, keep your eyes open, be positive and don't let £5 notes pass you by!

BLOG TOUR: WHERE AM I TODAY?  I'm over at the Bookette, with a Home and Away feature. You get to peer inside my home, if you want to. It's a bit messy but I did a bit of tidying before the Bookette came...

PIGEON SURPRISE

SPOT THE PIGEON

A pigeon smashes through a window at one point in WASTED. This actually happened to me while I was writing the book. If it hadn’t, the whole story would have been different. While you're reading the book - if you do! - see if you can predict when it will happen…

I thought you might like to see the picture of my window afterwards. Rather bizarrely, this has happened to me twice, same window, and both times I was in the room.

The time which affected WASTED was interesting: I was sitting in my study, near the window, with my laptop on my lap, trying to think of something that could happen to one of the characters which would make a few minutes' difference to the time when he reached a particular spot. It had to be a completely unconnected, random event. Anyway, as I was trying to think of this, CRASH! A pigeon smashed through the window.

Once I'd finished screaming (and running out of the room), I realised that this was exactly what I needed in my plot, because it would delay him by a couple of minutes, which was all I needed. As you'll see when you get to that point, whether he is there when the pigeon smashes through the window or not makes a life or death difference.

You see, sometimes writers don't need an imagination: sometimes real life is all we need.

Warning: both my editor and agent said that the pigeon incident is one of the shocking moments of the book.

WASTED BLOG TOUR - begins tomorrow, with a visit to Nik Perring's blog. Thanks, Nik! His blog today has lovely pictures of his new book of short stories, Not So Perfect. In view of the fact that my post today has been about pigeons, it's quite interesting that his has a picture of a cat on the cover. Cat among the pigeons, eh? Or something.