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Interview
Questions
Many
of the questions I’ve been asked in interviews are similar to
those asked by young readers (see Readers’
Queries).
However, there are a few whose answers might be of more interest
to older readers or authors-in-waiting. Here are
some of those questions and answers.
When
did you first decide that you wanted to be a writer?
I
was in my late teens, working as a trainee graphic designer and
photographer in London, reading everything I could lay my hands
on, and it gradually came to me that I would like to write as
well as read. In the years that followed, while doing various
kinds of work to pay for the wine, women and bawdy ballads, I
wrote a number of things which, as it turned out, interested no one but me. Between
deciding that I wanted to be a writer and earning enough from
writing to be able to live by it took about forty years.
What
has been the greatest influence on your writing?
People
I’ve known, places I’ve seen, stories I’ve heard. Literary
influences are probably every book I’ve ever enjoyed and many
that I haven’t, whether I can remember them or not. Most
influences become part of you, without your realising it, or
even noticing.
Why
did you choose to write for children and teenagers rather than
adults?
I didn’t choose to write for any particular age-group until I
finally had a book accepted in 1994. That book happened to be a novel
for eight-to-twelves,
When
the Snow Falls. Its publication prompted me to try my hand
at other things for young people, and I’m still at it.
Do
you enjoy writing for the young?
There
are still many books for young people that I look forward to
writing, but every now and then I get a bit exasperated. The
language and material must never be less than appropriate, which means that I can’t always explore an idea or
thought as thoroughly as I might wish, or use terminology that I
would prefer. In addition I’m constantly told by editors that
I can’t say this or that – or use such-and-such a title –
because it’s not suitable for the ‘target age-group’,
might offend parents, or not be stocked by librarians. It can be
very frustrating to be asked to cut or rethink material that
you’ve worked hard to get right as you see it. I’ve just
finished work on an adult novel called Areola
Scratz, in which a great deal happens that could never be
put into a children’s story. It’s rude, unpredictable, flies
off at all sorts of absurd tangents, and I enjoyed it
immensely. However, doubting that its subject-matter and tone
will appeal to today's raft of publishers I might have it
privately printed, for the simple pleasure of seeing a cherished
work in print, even if no one else does.
Which
are harder to write: comic novels or more serious ones?
In some ways the hardest books are the comic ones. The humour
must be maintained throughout, from the moment you start work
every day. Imagine: you’ve just got up, you have a headache or
bad hay-fever, you’ve had a row with your other half, you’re
worried about one of your children, a heavy bill has just
arrived in the post, you don’t know if you’ll be able to pay
next month’s rent, and you have to be FUNNY. When writing a serious novel I can at least be miserable or in a bad
temper while I do it.
Do
you have a favourite of all the books you’ve written?
I’m never completely happy with a published book. A text that
pleases me reasonably well when it’s sent to the printer
invariably seems to lack something when it’s between covers.
That said, I was pleased with the end result of my
autobiographical memoir Milking
the Novelty,
which I worked on over a fourteen year period and printed
privately. It could be that
I have such affection for it because it was something I really
wanted to do; and because I designed the cover, chose the fonts, the paper,
the format, and supervised the printing of the cover. Not a
profitable enterprise – you won’t find it in any shops or
libraries – but a satisfying one.
Is
it still exciting to hold the first printed copy of one of your
books in your hand?
It
isn’t, and for me it never was. I hated the cover of my
first book in hardback and instead of parading it proudly I hid it
away. A year later the paperback
appeared, with a much better cover. Quite often, even today, a
printed cover doesn’t look nearly as good as it did in proof,
but even if it does I open the book nervously, expecting a range
of appalling errors to leap out at me. And they do, almost every time. Once, half
a chapter was mysteriously missing from a hardback edition and
no one noticed until I pointed it out.
What
memories do you have of reading as a child?
The
first book I remember reading, or having read to me, was The
Story of Babar in an enormous format that’s been
replicated in recent years. I was entranced by the adventures of
young Babar and Jean de Brunhoff’s glorious drawings. Later
on, while also enjoying comics, I systematically went through an
old bookcase in one of our bedrooms. All
sorts of wonders were to be found there, including stirring
tales by Rudyard Kipling, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis
Stevenson. And there were fairytales, Viking sagas, books full
of heroes, gods, knights, genies, mystery and magic. Finally, I
was allowed to go to the library across the busy main road on my
own, and there I discovered the stories of E. Nesbit, Anthony
Buckeridge (to whom, many years later, I dedicated The
Killer Underpants),
and C.S. Lewis.
What
were your favourite books as a teenager?
There
were so many. Great works of the imagination and adventures in
parts of the world beyond my experience and knowledge. I’m
glad to say there were no ‘Young Adult’ books then, so I
wasn’t in any way restricted. Some that stand out in my memory
are: The Prisoner of Zenda
and Rupert of Hentzau (Anthony
Hope), King Solomon’s
Mines, Allan Quartermain, She (Henry Rider Haggard), The
Odyssey and The Iliad (Homer),
The Grapes of Wrath and East
of Eden (Steinbeck), The
Time Machine, The Invisible Man, The History of Mr Polly (H.
G. Wells), The Day of the
Triffids and The
Midwich Cuckoos (John Wyndham), The
Death of Grass (John Christopher), The
Outsider, The Plague, Exile and the Kingdom (Albert Camus), Brave
New World and The
Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell (Aldous Huxley), 1984
(George Orwell), and many more, including anything by P.G.
Wodehouse.
Do
you still read a great deal?
After a lifetime of never
going anywhere without a paperback novel or story collection in
my pocket, in recent years I’ve developed a kind of reader’s
block for fiction. I occasionally make the effort, but not
always successfully, preferring biographies and
autobiographies, popular science, histories, and so on. My
most satisfying reading of late has been Suetonius’s The
Twelve Caesars and the Folio Society’s Lives
of the Later Caesars. Much too big to put in my pocket, but enthralling, and
often horrifying.
What
is the most interesting thing (good or bad) that you’ve heard
about any of your books?
The
location for my trilogy for older readers, The
Aldous Lexicon
(The Withern Rise Trilogy
in America) is the large riverside house in which I was born.
When I was very small the river burst its banks and the garden
and ground floor of the house were flooded. This watery domain
is the setting for Small
Eternities, the second volume of the trilogy. When my New
York editor read it he phoned to say that the whole time he was
reading it he felt like he was sitting in a boat. I love that!
What
is your earliest childhood memory?
When
I was little I had a bedroom overlooking the river. One Sunday
morning I looked out of my window and saw a punt drifting by
with no one in it. I wondered about that for a very long time.
That memory is described in the prelude to Small
Eternities.
Your
stories have a very strong sense of place, how do you make your
settings so vibrant?
‘Place’
is very important to me. For instance, the house mentioned above
still stands, though it hasn’t been in my family’s hands
since the late 1940s. During the three years I was working on
The Aldous Lexicon I went there often and recorded my responses to it
from
the outside (I don’t know the current owners). I also took a
great many pictures of the house and its environs in the three seasons
covered by the books. Spreading the prints across my desk during
the writing helped me keep in touch with the reality of
the place. I keep written description to a minimum in my novels, believing that a sentence
or two put together in just the
right way can convey a greater sense of place than a wordy
paragraph in which no detail escapes expression. I cut and cut
and cut my text until I think I’ve said what I want to say in
the briefest possible way.
Many
of your characters have unusual names. How do you come up with
them?
Names
sometimes come quickly, sometimes after a lot of try-outs when
the choices never feel quite right. You write about a character
you’ve called Philip, say, just to give him a handle, but
after several chapters you’re still a bit uneasy about it.
Then the name Sebastian comes up, and you just know
that this is the right one for him. After that, he’s
‘alive’. So it was with Naia and Alaric Underwood in The
Aldous Lexicon. They both started out with different names,
which went through several changes, until I arrived at these.
Once I’d got them, I felt comfortable with the characters, as
if I’d finally uncovered their true identities. The names of
characters in novels often seem to me either dull, too obvious,
or as if the writer is trying too hard. Some readers will
inevitably feel that the names Naia and Alaric are the result of
me attempting to impress, but they are names of people I’ve
known, albeit briefly: names that seemed a little out of the
ordinary yet not too outlandish. As for the surname Underwood,
you could say that it was borrowed from Leon Underwood, a
painter and sculptor whose life and work interests me. But
there’s something about the quality of the name that appeals
too. An earthy sound, a ‘foresty’ sound, which suggests
great age, darkness, intrigue. And Aldous? Aldous Huxley,
of course.
What
do you think is the biggest mistake new authors make?
Believing
that publishers are going to welcome them with open arms. The
reverse is usually the case. Editors groan about the number of
manuscripts that land on their desks from aspirational
strangers, and read very few all the way through. Certainly, one
of the worst decisions I
ever made was to be a writer. I’ve sat at a desk for decades.
What sort of life is that? If I could go back in time I would
visit myself at the age of eighteen and say, ‘Whatever you do,
kid, don’t buy that ******* typewriter. It will take you over
thirty years to find a publisher, and your first book will sell
badly and be out of print in two years.’
If
you hadn’t become an author, what do you think you would be
today?
Who knows? If I'd been sensible I would have remained a photographer instead of giving it
up in my early twenties to concentrate on writing, but I had no
idea it would take so long to make my way with any written work. One of my
most satisfying pursuits in my early thirties - one that
I'm currently enjoying all over again - was writing songs. If I'd
discovered this facility a dozen or so years earlier, when I was
a photographer in London, with easy access to musicians and
record companies, things might have turned out rather
differently. But timing was never my strong point.
Is
there anything you’d like your readers to know about you that
isn’t generally known?
Yes.
That I am a giant of a man, stunningly handsome, with glorious
flowing locks, irresistible to women.
For further background, see my
Biography
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