I've been giving the future a lot of thought over the last few months, as I prepared for the arrival of our baby daughter, Gaia. Writing has been very important to me for a long, long time, but babies have come to mean even more to me. It will sound strange, but as much as I love writing, I love changing nappies and burping babies even more. The more time I can spend around babies, the better. I don't mind the screaming and crying -- it's music to my ears.

Now that Gaia has come, I think it's the perfect time for a career change. So, while I know it's going to disappoint a lot of my fans, I'm going to be stepping back from the life of an author to care for Gaia and open a creche. That will allow me to spend even more time with her, and hopefully with lots of other babies too. It's an odd career move, I know, but in this life you have to chase your dreams, no matter how weird they might be, no matter what people think of you.

So, from today, I am a writer no more, but a child carer. I'll be posting details of the creche here once it's up and running -- maybe some of you living in the Limerick area will be interested in bringing along your own wee ones over the coming years -- I promise I'll take good care of them! I plan to keep this page going, only instead of posts about my books (of which there will be no more) and horrific, freaky stuff, I'll be posting pictures like the one below, of me with Gaia and my other little wards, along with tips about how best to wipe soft little bums, the best angles to use when bottle feeding, and so on.

I know it's going to be different.

I know it's not going to be to every Shanster's liking.

But, hey, it's a brave new world, so why not give it a go and embrace the change along with me? I mean, I've published fifty gory, blood-soaked books. That's more then enough, isn't it? Time to close the cover on this chapter of our lives and move on.

The end.

Oh, except for one last thing...

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APRIL FOOL!!!!!

Heh heh -- sorry folks, but since it's April 1st and I had the baby photo to hand, I just couldn't resist! Of course all of the above post is just a joke, and life will be carrying on as normal here and across all the other Shan and Dash channels. As proof, here's a link to the April issue of the Shanville Monthly, which just went live a few minutes ago. https://www.darrenshan.com/news/shanville-monthly/