Author Kate Gordon (Writing Clementine) has tagged me to be part of a character blog hop. That’s where an author writes a blog post about their character and passes the baton to another author. See Kate’s post and meet Clementine here.
I want to introduce you to my character Tom Weekly who has a massive year ahead with his third book of semi-true, weird-funny-gross stories out in March. It’s called My Life & Other Massive Mistakes and features ‘CDS’, a story about a terrible disease suffered by fathers everywhere – Cranky Dad Syndrome. The story was written by Tom Weekly, myself and kids around Australia who helped brainstorm really annoying ways to test their dads for CDS.
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| All illustrations by the magnificent Gus Gordon. |
So, he-e-e-e-e-re’s Tommy.
1/ What is your character’s name?
Tom Weekly
2/ Is your character fictional or historical?
Both. Tom is part me and part illustrator Gus Gordon. The stories are often based on things that happened to me as a kid, but Tom and I have difficulty working out where reality ends and fantasy begins.
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| One morning, Tom wakes to find that everything hovers. Everything. (Pic by Gus Gordon. You can download and print it as a colouring page here.) |
3/ When and where is your story set?
The fictional town of Kings Bay, where many of my stories are set, including the Mac Slater books and part of Two Wolves. Kings Bay is inspired by Byron Bay, the eastern-most point of Australia.
4/ What should we know about Tom?
He’s an everyday school kid doing every day school kid stuff, like helping his pop escape from a nursing home, mining his teeth to make tooth fairy money and using head lice as a biological weapon to shut down his school.
Tom writes down his stories and ideas in order to make sense of the world. In his first two books Tom was forced to eat Vegemite off his sister’s big toe, he had a body part removed to get out of school detention and he was tricked into kissing the dreaded Stella Holling who’s been in love with him since second-grade.
5/ What are Tom’s personal goals?
No matter what happens to him, Tom will not be broken. He’s an optimist, always looks on the bright side, even when normal people would look at the signs and give up. Tom’s personal goals are to survive primary school, defeat his evil-genius sister Tanya and to become wealthy beyond his wildest dreams through one of his harebrained schemes.
6/ What’s the name of the book, and can we read more about it?
My Life & Other Massive Mistakes. Read more here.
7/ When was it published?
1. My Life & Other Stuff I Made Up – May 2011
2. My Life & Other Stuff That Went Wrong – April 2014
3. My Life & Other Massive Mistakes – coming March 2015
4. My Life & … – March 2016
Thanks for blog-hop tagging me, Kate. Happy 2015 to all!
Next up on the blog hop, I’ll tag three authors I think are super-great. Michael Gerard Bauer (Eric Vail series), Oliver Phommavanh (Con-Nerd, Thai-Riffic) and Wendy Orr (Nim series). Check their blogs in the coming week to see if they take up the challenge!
Tristan, that trailer is just ridiculously brilliant. Or brilliantly ridiculous?
I also love your Captcha – I just had to tick that I wasn't a robot instead of deciphering letters that are harder to read than my handwriting. Brilliant again.
Thanks Wendy! An honour to hear from such a pro. And does that mean that blog hop fans can look forward to meeting Nim or one of your other compelling characters in the near future on your blog?
OmGg! I am deeply in love with your books! ❤️❤️❤️ Hopefully you make a new book and hopefully it’s like the others books because that’s what I love about it! 😁
Author
So good to hear! Hope you keep reading them. 😉 I’m working on a couple of new books for the next two years and there’s a new one out, Detention, on 2 July! Happy unicorns to you.
Tristan
Not exactly next week – but I've finally introduced Nim on my blog! Thanks so much for inviting me.
http://www.wendyorrjournal.blogspot.com
Great stuff Wendy. Thanks for taking the time. I'll head over there now.
T
hi Tristan I LOVE YOUR TOM WEEKLY SEIRIES please make another book please and also open up your Email because i want to Email u a really good story i made
Author
Hey Amelia. Thanks! Great to hear. Hope you get to read the new one: My Life & Other Failed Experiments. 😉 You can email me by clicking Contact in the Menu at top of my site. Tristan.
I love your books so much
Author
Thanks! Hope you get to read more of them. ;))