At last, the moment Paul Jennings and I have been working towards for 19 months has arrived. Deadly! is finished! The t's are all crossed, the i's dotted, the spelling's been addjust, ajust, corrected and the sixth and final volume is at the printer, ready to front up in the shops at the beginning of March.

I've been looking forward to this for months, but now it's here I've hardly had a moment to appreciate it. Things have been pretty hectic round my way over the last few weeks. We've just moved house, my father has just had heart surgery, and no sooner was all that under control than I had a chronic attack of writer's back and had to spend three days lying down and not moving. The first 24 hours on somebody else's floor.

But the most exciting thing of all for me is that I've started a new book. It's a story that started off being about a boy who helps his parents run a small country motel, but it's evolved, as books usually do, into a story about a boy who lives on a remote island where his parents run a small and fairly posh guest house where kids aren't allowed. His problem is that he's the only kid for about two hundred kilometres in all directions, or thinks he is.

I have to get it finished soon because it's coming out in July, so I won't rabbit on much more here... Just two things. One, the free book offer is still going and you can find out about it by clicking here. Two, I know lots of you are back at school and starting to do assignments. If you're doing one on me, don't forget to check Morris A to Z in the Scrapbook and run an eye over the Frequently Asked Questions, which I'll be adding to through the year. Three (I was never any good at maths), I'll be at the Somerset Celebration Of Literature in Queensland on March 8 and 9, and the Canberra Word Festival on 17 and 18 March.

Until next month, oo-roo and happy reading,

11 February 2001