Ten-Minute Blog Break - 29th October

Last week, I complained about there being too many good blog posts to choose from, and yet this week there are even more! Now, I'm not going to say you should write bad posts, but you're making my life difficult here, folks ;-)

Dave Cousins is popping up all over the place, thanks to ... erm ... Pop Up. That's the London Pop Up organisation (famous for their festival) who also run a project called Booklinks, which encourages children to study a book in detail and then meet the author. Dave blogs all about it and shares some great film posters that the kids made, promoting their very own production of Dave's 15 Days Without a Head.

Sam Zuppardi's been scrawlcrawling around York Minster this week, and trying to solve the problem of scale. Can you draw a picture that captures the immense majesty of such a building, or is it better to focus on the more intimate details?

Another binary question is vexing Sue Hyams: Setting or Characters – Which Comes First? I'm not spoiling anything by revealing that Sue prioritises setting in her stories, but the comments on her post demonstrate what a range of different approaches we all take.

Certainly the noisiest blog of the week comes from the inimitable George Kirk via The FunEverse. George is exploring rhythm in poetry, and her post is a multimedia extravaganza that takes you right to the beating heart of children's verse.

If you missed Sara O'Connor's SCBWI Middle Grade Masterclass at the weekend, panic not. Lorraine Gregory has a terrifically in-depth post all about it!

Finally, check out John Shelley's blog for a view inside the fascinating production of his latest book, Stone Giant. The book is, in itself, a "making of", as John and writer Jane Sutcliffe recreate the creation of Michelangelo's David, a job that required a huge amount of research and educated guesswork to depict Renaissance Florence as it would have appeared to the artist. Great stuff.

Nick.

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Nick Cross is a children's writer, blogger and all-round techno-ninja. In 2010 he was a winner of Undiscovered Voices with his zombie comedy Back from the Dead.

This week on his blog, Nick is linking into Words & Pictures' Diversity theme, and discussing how a colleague's bravery challenged his preconceptions about transgendered people. Read about A Life in Transition.