The
big-ass bumper interview
What is the most
difficult part of your writing process? Your writing Kryptonite?
For me I think it’s getting started, as in actually
writing things down. (which might sound odd coming from a writer, but there’s
usually a lot that leads up to that point where you actually sit down at the
laptop, take a deep breath and type ‘once upon a time…’)
Story ideas tend to germinate in my head, usually
formed around a random image or two which pops in unannounced, and I can take a
couple of weeks rolling them around my head, trying to feel the shape of the
story. I’ll develop characters, discuss backstory with myself, even act out
whole scenes of dialogue in my head while I’m doing the dishes or some other
menial task. All this comes long before putting pen to paper. I usually have
the story pretty much ‘done’ in my head before I force myself to sit down and
stare at every writer’s kryptonite, the blank, expectant page.
Do you have any strange writing habits?
I leave all the vowels until last, then go back and
add them all in. (no, obviously this is a lie.) I’m not sure if it counts as a
habit, maybe more of a ritual, but I get quite intimidated starting something
new, and I never really feel ‘comfortable’ until I’ve got at least fifty pages
down. After that I’m in my stride and fine, but those first few days, I will
usually ‘hide’ the word count so I can’t see how little I’ve written so far and
get disheartened!
What is your least favorite
part of the writing / publishing process? Favorite part?
Least is editing. Hands down. I frickin’ hate
editing. And by that I don’t mean the drafting and checking that I’m not being
repetitive or over-explanatory. That’s obviously an important part of polishing
a rough draft into a finalised story and I quite like that. I mean when I
realise I’ve overwritten, and know that I have to cut ‘X’ amount of words from
somewhere, so end up painfully going through page by page cutting tiny words
here and there like I’m pruning some annoying book bonsai.
My favourite part is definitely that moment just
after release date, when I get my gratis hard copies from the publishers. It’s
the first time you’ve held that book in your hands, in all its finished form,
and to a writer, there’s nothing quite like it. We call them ‘book babies’ for
obvious reasons, but there is a genuine, almost parental pride and satisfaction
of holding it and thinking. ‘I made this, and it’s out in the world now’.
Is there one particular subject
you would never write about as an author? What is it?
Personally, I would struggle to write anything that involved children being
harmed. I’ve read some excellent books, either horrors or thrillers, where
children are abducted by maniacs, or where the author very skilfully raises
questions of domestic violence or abuse, but it’s something that I find so
horrifying that I’d be terribly worried I wouldn’t be able to do it justice, or
that it would be too harrowing to write about.
Children in fantastical peril, now that’s another thing.
In my Changeling series I know I put my young heroes through a lot of trials,
but that’s because kids are much tougher and resilient than we give them credit
for. All the best children’s literature or YA literature shows us this. Look at
Narnia, those kids go through the wringer!
Does a big ego help or hurt
writers?
Oh undoubtedly both. And I’ve never met a writer
who didn’t have both a massive ego, and massive self-doubt too. We’re all
basket-cases that way I think. Some days we think every word we write is solid
gold, and the next day we think that we should just apologise for existing
because we can’t seem to please even ourselves.
There is some ego in writing. I think all writers
are performers, we all want the world to pay attention to what we have to say,
but unlike actors, saying ‘look at me!’ we’re like shy extroverts, saying ‘look
at my characters, not me’. You can get away with a lot talking through other people’s
mouths. I think in a lot of ways, writing is more ego-driven than acting.
Actors only play one part in a story. Writers? We voice every single character,
design the sets, direct the action and create the world. It’s like a genteel
god-complex!
What was an early experience
where you learned that language had power?
I was a weak and rather shy child, not good at
sports or strong or good looking, so a natural target in the hell-hole that was
school. I learned pretty early on that a well-placed sarcastic or witty comment
could end a fight or win an argument more than fists could. I think being
quick-tongued probably saved my skin a lot in school.
How many unpublished/half-finished
books do you have?
Oh tons. Absolutely tons of half-finished / half
drafted stories. It doesn’t mean that they’ll stay that way though. I tend to
come back to things over and over. Some stories can bounce around your head for
years, or pop up in different forms and incarnations, before they find their
real voice. at the moment, beside the two series I have established, I have one
stand-alone novel, another more steampunk series and another fantasy series all
either drafted, noted or half-baked. Their time will come when I get some spare
time!
What else can we expect from
you outside of The Changeling and Phoebe Harkness series?
My next project is a trilogy, with quite an eastern
feel to it, (think Tibet/Japan) monks and magic, airships and parallel worlds.
The whole story is written in note form, and I already have characters fleshed,
it’s just finding the time to dedicate to it right now.
Other than that, I have a one volume horror/ghost
tale I want to bring to you, which will touch on several generations of
hauntings and is based very much in the real world, and the world of art and
design, and also a series of linked short stories loosely based on classic
fairy-tales, which will hopefully all tie together.
There’s plenty on the way from me outside of the
series you might already know. I’m not going anywhere anytime soon I’m afraid.
What kind of research do you do, and how long do you spend researching before
beginning a book?
It depends what I’m writing, really. for the
Changeling Series, I did (and do) a fair bit of research into some of the more
obscure gods and goddesses from Greek Myth, and also a fair bit of digging up
information on crystals and precious stones. I use quite an amount of Latin in
the books, and it’s important to me that it’s correct, as if readers come
across my characters using the ‘high tongue’ of the Netherworlde and want to go
away and look it up, I like to think it rewards them with a bit more
information, or adds another layer to the narrative.
With the Harkness books, there’s a tremendous
amount of research involved, simply because I’ve chosen to set that world in a
real city. Oxford is so rich in history, architecture and everything else, that
it’s a joy to research, and an absolute goldmine. I deliberately made Phoebe
into a bit of an architecture and history nerd so I could use her to smatter
the books with tidbits of trivia and knowledge here and there. I’ve had some
lovely feedback from readers saying ‘I never knew that about…’ which is always
gratifying. Phoebe is also a scientist. I’m clearly not, but it’s important to
me not to use ‘movie science’ so a lot of research goes into making sure that
the biology, genetics and physics she discusses is correct.
This makes for some odd browser history when I’m
researching the ebola virus, or exactly how bodies decay. But I’ve had reviews
from readers who are scientists themselves saying my math and theory check out,
so phew!
What's the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex?
It’s not that hard really. I have had people
say that Phoebe is so well written, or that it’s hard to believe a man could
get inside a woman’s head convincingly. But really people are all very similar
inside the mind. I don’t ever try to write phoebe as ‘a girl’ I just write her
as a protagonist, her gender is fairly secondary. I think it helps that I’ve
been surrounded by strong and competently kick-ass women my whole life, so I
have good role models for phoebe. The ‘steamier’ scenes can be quite funny to
write, but I think as an author, you have to be able to get inside someone else’s
perspective. I’m fairly sure Thomas Harris isn’t a cannibal, but he wrote a
damn good Hannibal Lecter, and as far as I know, J K Rowling has never been a
teenage boy.
If you could cast the
characters of any of your books for a movie, who would play your
characters?
Ooooh. I have my favourites of course, although
they might not tally with other peoples. Characters in books are so subjective.
For the Changeling series, I would adore having Bill Nighy as my Mr Strife in a
perfect world, and Marion Coutard as Calypso. Hestia would need to be Penelope
Winton or I would throw myself on the floor and have a tantrum.
For the Phoebe series, my first choice for Phoebe
would be Emily Blunt, with Kristin Scott Thomas as Cloves. Everyone else is up
for grabs. I would have died of joy if David Bowie could have played Gio in
book one though!
If you didn't like writing books, what would you do for a living?
Ideally, you mean? If I couldn’t be a writer for some reason, I’d love to
direct. I studied film and media, and it’s something I’d enjoy branching out
into at some point in a distant future. I think directing is something that
writers do on the page quite naturally. It would be interesting to try it for
real in a movie medium.
As a writer, what would you
choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?
Probably a sloth. I’m incredibly lazy and slow to
get going!
What literary character is
most like you?
That’s a difficult one! I’m not sure really, that’s
probably a question other people could answer about me more than I could answer
myself. I’d be tempted to say Dorian Grey, just because I’m probably quite vain
and give the impression of being a charming enough chap, when in reality I have
a portrait in the attic showing my soul as a shrivelled and debauched horror of
a thing!
What authors have inspired
you?
Lots. I studied literature at University, so
obviously some of the classics like Lewis and Tolkien are major influences for
me. Modern writers I adore are Clive Barker and Neil Gaiman. Both have such a
bottomless well of imagination, and a way of making the mundane and everyday
seem and feel fantastical, and the fantastical seem and feel plausible. You get
the impression from both that they never quite grew up or lost that sense of
wonder and fascination with the world and all the magic and mystery it
contains. That’s something very appealing to me that I strive to live up to.
Both authors strive to show beauty, but they don’t shy from the dark. I try to
do the same.
Obviously you love all your characters, but if you could choose a favorite
character from The Changeling Series and the Phoebe Harkness series that you
write, who would they be?
It is a bit like asking a parent to choose their
favourite child, yes. From Changeling I would say Hestia. She’s not a very
major character, but I like that I get to show her character not through her
words, but her actions, and when I feel like I get it just right, it’s
incredibly satisfying. I like that she isn’t likable, but some of my favourite
moments and scenes are where we glimpse beneath her surface and you get an idea
of the soul of Erlking.
In Phoebe I can’t help but love Cloves. She’s such
fun to write. I honestly don’t know where she comes from half the time, and she
says and does things that I only wish I could. In a kind of parallel with
Hestia I suppose, she’s not really a likable character, she’s abrasive and
rude, but I just love her, and she has her moments. There’s a little Cruella De’vil
in there, a little Anna Wintour, and if I’m honest, quite a bit of me.
Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find?
Yes! Especially in the Changeling series. There are
plenty of red herrings, and lots of misdirection, and I make sure there are ‘Easter
eggs’ peppered throughout that either hint at things to come, or that won’t
seem relevant until several books later. I love the idea that once the series
is finished, people might, on a second read-through of volume one, spot one or
two things in Isle of Winds and say ‘bloody hell! That was staring me in the
face!’
One thing I always planned to explore with
Changeling was the notion of characters not necessarily being who you think
they are, or not ending up where you might assume. I think in book one you
think ‘these are the good guys; these are the bad guys’. In book two, some of
the good guys are not that good, and some of the bad guys are…complicated. By
book three, hopefully, you’re starting to wonder who on earth is standing where
on the game board. I love character progression, and of course I know, even if
no-one else does, who ends up where by the end of the series. Hopefully some of
it will be surprising and keep you guys guessing.
Have you edited out anything from either series that you wish you had kept?
I edited quite a lot out of Changeling volume one,
simply for length, as it was the first in the series, but many of the scenes I
cut, I managed to work back into book two in a different form.
The scene in Drowned Tomb where Jackalope takes
Robin and co to the town of Worrywort, and they barely escape being found out
by Strigoi and his peacekeepers, was originally a scene in book one, shortly
after they left the oracles temple, but before they met Hawthorn. In the
original version, it was Woad who went into the village for supplies, not
Jackalope.
I wanted to introduce Strigoi and the peacekeepers
in book one, as he’s such an important character in the series, but there
simply wasn’t room. I was happy to insert him back into book two instead.
One scene which was cut entirely from book one
involved Robin and Henry discovering the lake at Erlking, and having a creepy
run in with a grimmgull and a Skriker in the bushes, disaster only averted by
the arrival of Mr Drover. It was a good, creepy scene, but in the end I
scrapped it. they don’t now discover the lake until book two.
What's your favorite under-appreciated novel?
Day of the Minotaur, by Burnett-Swann. No-one’s
ever heard of it, but it’s beautifully written, filled with mythology in a way
you wouldn’t expect it to be, and tells a coming of age story of Thea and her
brother Icarus in such a beautifully written way. In a way, I’m glad it’s not
more popular, as I’m quite possessive of it, and I like to think that it’s
‘mine’. I read it as a hormonal young teen, and considering it deals with the
transition into adulthood, it resonated quite powerfully. It’s the most prized
paperback on my shelves.
If you could paint a picture of any scenery you've seen before, what would you
paint?
I saw a fair few amazing sunrises when I cruised
down the Nile. Egypt is a beautiful country. I’d love to paint it. the light
there is astounding. I’d love to go back and visit again one day. Some of my
favourite memories from my time there were cruising between the towns, when you
are out in the wild, with nothing around you but the Nile and wilderness,
sliding by peacefully. It’s a different pace of life, and the people are so
hospitable. I fell in love with the country.
If you could witness any event past, present or future, what would it be?
Oh there are far too many! I’d like to see the
pyramid’s built! I’d like to wander around the library of Alexandria before it
was destroyed. I’d like to see Vesuvius explode, or Augustus become emperor.
I’d like to be there when the first pilgrim boat touched down on America, or be
a guest of the Emperor of China in the forbidden city. Be at the Pole looking
at the borealis with Scott, watch the Sistine chapel be painted or experience
the street parties at the end of the second world war in London. I adore
history, and there is so much I would love to explore if I could time travel.
It would always be the past for me though. There isn’t a future to play in
until we make it. (which in itself is an exciting thought)
If you could be any fictional character, who would you choose?
I would quite happily be Bilbo Baggins. It’s quite
difficult choosing a fictional character, as they invariably get placed in
discomfort or peril, but for the chance to roam Middle-earth, and to go on an
excellent adventure, as well as having Bag-end to live in, I’d risk it. a
friend of mine has a theory that, if heaven exists, it’s different for all of
us, and it’s your perfect place.
If that’s true, then when I die, I am sure to wake
up in the shire, living in Hobbiton with a well-stocked pantry and a sleepy,
bee-filled garden. I’m a simple creature.
Which celebrity do people say you resemble? (Lately I've been getting
Jennifer Lawrence - not hating ;))
I have no idea. I’m not very good with celebrities.
I used to get ‘Russell Brand’ quite a lot when I had long hair. I think I have
the same laugh as Jimmy Carr, but I’m not sure I really look like anyone but
me. I used to look a bit like Victor from Tim Burtons ‘The Corpse Bride’ when I
was clean-shaven. Stop motion animation is not a bad thing to be compared to.
What would you name the autobiography of your life?
Hmmm. Probably ‘not to be taken seriously’ I’m not
a fan of auto-biogs. I find it irritating when people (especially in the music
industry) release them when they’re about 25. Wait until you’re 90, and you
have a decent life story to tell!
What songs are included on the soundtrack to your life?
Bowie, of course. ‘Heroes’ is my anthem. Play it
when I’m dead. Repeatedly. Classical, Williams’ The Lark Ascending is a
favourite of mine. I’m a big fan of the Cure ‘Close to me’ is a beautiful song,
and ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’ by Crowded House for some reason makes my heart
hurt something fierce. There would have to be some Placebo in there somewhere.
‘Every you, every me’ is a song that vibrates in me on a molecular level.
Placebo is the soundtrack of my teenage years, and I think whatever music we
loved in those years is always the music that defines us. We could be 80 and
hear that music and it just drags your soul back through time immediately to
who you were and how you felt at that tumultuous and powerful time of your
life.
What did you do growing up that got you into trouble?
I’m certainly not telling you that. But plenty.
Luckily I was (and am) a sly and clever sod, and I very rarely got myself in a
jam I wasn’t able to get myself out of. I have spent the night at a police
station before now, and thanks to co-conspirators, I got away. I also may (this
is all speculative of course) have set someone on fire before now, and poisoned
someone – not to death – with mercury.
I was young, I didn’t like to be crossed. I like to
think I’ve mellowed with age.
What's the best/worst gift you've ever given/received?
The best gifts I ever received were both homemade.
One was from a seven-year-old and was a drawing of a family, to cheer me up.
The other was a handmade clock with gargoyles on it made from clay that my
other half created, based on a book series I was working on at the time. A tremendous
amount of thought and love went into both.
The worst gift? Is there such a thing? I guess
maybe I got a gift card or two in my time, but I quite like those. I’m
incredibly easy to please! Someone did once send me oversized and very frilly
underwear through the post, which was horrible, but they were a penfriend of
many years, and it was supposed to be horrible, so in its way, it was epic.
What do you miss most about being a kid?
Feeling safe. Utterly safe, and knowing someone is always
there to make sure everything is okay. You never get that feeling back as an
adult, and if you have kids, by the gods it is your duty to make them feel that
safety for as long as you can.
What is something you learned in the last week?
I learned this week that some of my friends are
better friends than I thought they were, and that I’m bloody lucky to have
them. (and these are friends I’ve never physically met) I’ve learned the
importance of a decent support network of good, honest humans. There are about
six or seven of you in my instafam. My Coven, my Tea-pals, my Anime-buds. You
know who you are: you never bullcrap me, you tell me when I’m being an arse,
and you keep me sane.
What's one piece of advice you have received that has always resonated with
you?
In life,
or in writing?
In
writing, I’ve always liked: ‘first drafts don’t have to be good…they just have
to be written’
In life,
I love the saying that ‘other people’s opinions of you are none of your
business’
Basically,
you can’t affect what people think of you, nor should you care. Don’t devote
your time to trying to please others, or to be what others think you should be.
Don’t court approval. Follow your own path and your tribe will come to you. You
will never make the whole world love you, or your work, and you shouldn’t want
to try. Just be honest. It’s something that I’ve found comes easier as you get
older, but there’s something wonderfully freeing about not caring or worrying
about what other people think.
