As most of you HOPEFULLY know by now, I'm working on a picture book called The Terrified Troll, due for release next year. The artist, Eva Byrne, and I have launched a fundraiser to raise the money that we need to produce a numbered, limited edition printing of the book, before we hopefully go on to have it published in a more widely available format.

The key perk in the fundraiser is a copy of the book (which you will have to pre-order, as the print run will be based on the orders we get). But we've put together a number of other cool perks too, one of which is a HANDWRITTEN COPY of the poem that I originally wrote when playing around with ideas for what would become the picture book.

In a nutshell, my son Dante used to love chewing on stones when he was little, which inspired me to write the line, "My son is a troll, he loves eating stones." That eventually became the poem that you can see in the attached picture, when I then worked up into a script for Eva to turn into a picture book.

The original poem was very messily scribbled (I write fast and usually have terrible handwriting!) but I've made much more of an effort with the new version. I've gone slowly, using a special pen, on parchment paper, and Eva has drawn a sketch of the troll to add a touch of visual flair. We've both also signed it, and I must say, I think it looks pretty fabulous!!

We will only be producing TEN of these, and we're making them to order. Half of them have already been sold, even though until now we weren't able to show anyone what the finished product was actually going to look like. Now that I'm able to share one of the finished pages, I suspect the rest of them will sell out pretty swiftly, so if you'd like to get hold of a copy, I'd advise you to act sooner rather than later. I've never offered anything like this before, and doubt I'll do it again, so I can pretty much guarantee that no one else in the world other the ten buyers of my troll poem is going to have a handwritten Darren Shan poem hanging proudly on their wall...

If you'd like to find out how to buy a copy of the poem, and to check out the other perks, visit the Indiegogo fundraising page that we've set up for the campaign by clicking here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-bring-our-troll-to-life/x/35435619#/