Olive has been busy jet-setting across the globe making blockbuster movies, but what do you think her next one should be? Read on to find how you can even win a signed book just by getting creative.

If you’re a budding writer and would love the challenge of creating Olive’s next movie, simply download the poster, print it out, whip out your favourite pencils or textas and, most importantly, get those creative hats on as you dream up Olive’s next blockbuster adventure.

You can add your own title to the poster (I’ve used ‘The best movie ever’ in the example here) and in the space below the movie title you could draw a picture or write the movie synopsis. If you want to include both you can write the synopsis separately.

Break a leg! xx

Win a signed book

Every two months I run a competition to win your choice of a signed Olive Black book. The competition for April is the Design your Olive movie poster competition.

How to enter

• Download the poster and print it out.
• Design your poster adding the movie title in the blank space. You can include a picture or the movie synopsis the the space below the movie title (or write the synopsis separately if you’d like to do both!)
• Take a photo of your poster
• Ask Mum or Dad to either post it online (Instagram, Facebook or Twitter) and include the hashtag #oliveblack or email me your entry.

The competition will be drawn on April 30 and the winner announced in May. Good luck and have fun!

Want more chances to win?

We run competitions throughout the year. To make sure you don’t miss out on the next one, sign up to my eNews (you won’t get bombarded, just one email every month or two with writing news and fun stuff for kids, parents and teachers) and follow me on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.

Need inspiration?

If you’re got writer’s block, try these tips:

• Check out the covers of Olive’s movies so far. She’s been in a time travelling movie, a who-dun-it, one about witches, a dog animation and an Indiana Jones style movie. What could be next?
• What’s your favourite movie? Is it a spy movie? Something about princesses? Is it set in an exotic location? Maybe Olive could star in one of these?
• Try making Idea Squares – it’s a idea generation technique that Olive talks about in The Pyramid Puzzle. She tells her brother Liam about how the writers on set of Halloween Queen used this to come up with ideas for the movie (and in real life, I used to make idea squares when I worked in advertising and was coming up with ad headlines). You can read about it on page 27 – 29 of The Pyramid Puzzle. There’s even a picture of the Idea Squares Olive makes in her notebook for her school project, Egypt Alive.

Fun fact – The Pyramid Puzzle started this way!

I’m very grateful to a girl called Tessa for sparking the idea of The Pyramid Puzzle. I was visiting her school for an author talk and when I signed her books at the end of the session she said ‘I love Olive and I think it’d be awesome if she did a movie in Egypt about mummies one day’. Nine months later – the book came out! And I thanked Tessa in the dedication page at the front of the book.