Babel Clash

Writing a new book can sometimes be such an overwhelming experience that afterwards, once everything’s done and dusted, you go into a kind of fugue state for  while. And then, more often than not, there’s such a lag time between finishing and launch date that when the Big Day finally rolls around it comes as a shock!

Which is where I’m up to, with the release of ‘A Blight of Mages’, the latest book in the Mage series.

Y’know, it even feels strange writing that. ‘The latest book‘. For so many years, as I battled all those writerly demons to get what was originally titled  ’Kingmaker, Kingbreaker’ finished, let alone submitted to a publisher, I did feel like Don Quixote, tilting at the world’s largest windmill. I hoped, I dreamed, yet still doubted that the characters I loved so much, Asher and Gar and Dathne and Darran and yes, even Morg,  would ever see the published light of day.

But, thanks to Harper Collins Voyager, they did. They got two books of their own in the ‘Kingmaker, Kingbreaker’ duology, ‘The Innocent Mage’ and ‘The Awakened Mage’ (or ‘Innocence Lost’ if you live in Australia/New Zealand), and they ended up on the shelves of my homegrown Downunder bookstores. And then, an even bigger miracle, they were picked up by Orbit and published in both the UK and the USA. And from that point I have not looked back. To say I owe the wonderful Stephanie Smith and Tim Holman the world is a vast understatement. Without their steadfast support I don’t know where I’d be now - but certainly not writing this blog post!

Asher and the gang had more adventures in the ‘Fisherman’s Children’ duology,  ’The Prodigal Mage’ and ‘The Reluctant Mage’, which saw the introduction of some unexpected new characters that I grew to love just as much. And then,  after completing those two books, it was time to turn my attention to the Mage story prequel: ‘A Blight of Mages’. It’s the story of the two Doranen mages, Morgan and Barl, who threw the pebbles that started the avalanche, so many years before ‘The Innocent  Mage’.

So here’s what George Lucas could have told me, if ever I’d had the chance to ask: writing a prequel is really, really hard!

Until I tackled Blight, I never fully grasped the impact of narrative tension on the writer. When you’re writing a new book, when you’re capturing the story in the dreaded first draft, you’re on the same voyage of discovery that one day your readers will undertake when they pick up the finished book for the first time. And it’s the allure of the unknown that generates an enormous amount of narrative energy as you’re writing. But with a prequel, much of the ‘the end’ is already known. You’re writing towards  a predetermined destination, which  means the story is no longer about  ’what happens’, but ‘why and how did it happen’. And at the risk of revealing myself to be an utter dweeb, that just didn’t occur to me until I was well into the writing and finding it a huge challenge. I hadn’t grasped how much I, as a writer, relied on that narrative tension of the unknown to power myself through the inevitable setbacks of the first draft process. Ah well. Live and learn.

Which isn’t to say, mind you, that  there’s not a lot of satisfaction in exploring those questions of ‘how’ and ‘why’. There really  is. It’s also hugely entertaining to up-end a few readerly assumptions and expectations, which is what I’ve tried to do in ‘A Blight of Mages’. What happened, and what history thinks happened, can sometimes be two very different things. And I suppose that’s one of the main themes of the book - along with the thorny questions of how much can love justify a person’s actions, and when is love no longer a good enough reason to excuse bad behaviour, and can the desired end truly ever justify the means? More than that, I don’t want to say. No spoilers! Except I will add this: ‘A Blight of Mages’ is a tragedy and a romance and a history and a cautionary tale, all rolled into one.

Blight is the biggest book I’ve written so far. In many ways, it was the most difficult and at the same time, hugely rewarding. If you decide to read it, I hope you enjoy the experience. And while I do hope, one day, to return to that world with its intriguing, exasperating and amusing cast of characters, I’m about to face an even bigger challenge: writing book 1 of  ’The Tarnished Crown Quintet’, a five volume epic fantasy spanning years and countries and many characters. Oh yes - and pirates. Wish me luck!

And as I face this exciting and terrifying new task, I do so knowing that when the first book is published, you won’t be able to find it in a bricks and mortar Borders bookstore.

This makes me so sad, I can’t begin to tell you.   Way back when, in my previous incarnation as a spec fic and mystery bookshop owner, I travelled to the US to investigate these new ’superstores’ that were springing up. I was astonished. So many books in one place! Wow! Subsequently, every time I visited the US, I’d browse in every  Borders store I came across, from New York City to suburban Chicago and Ohio, astonished all over again by the range of titles available, and always taking advantage of the bargain shelves that gave me so many great research books. And then, as a published author, I’d go in and introduce myself and be utterly overwhelmed by the enthusiastic support of the booksellers … and the sight of my books on those shelves. Borders has always been so very, very good to me. Better than this author from Downunder could ever have imagined.  It breaks my heart to see them go.

So I’m very pleased I have this chance to say so long, and thanks for all the fish. But I know from personal experience: once a bookseller, always a bookseller. No matter the obstacles, stories will find a way to escape into the wild — and those of us who love stories will find a way to spread the word. I wish everyone connected with Borders the best of all possible futures, and I hope to bump into you again some day.

I’ve had such fun nattering on here at Babel Clash. Thanks to everyone who stopped by, and thanks to Morgan for inviting me. As I stagger on my way to finish another book, I’ll leave you with these couple of thoughts …

As a writer, I owe everything to you guys … the readers and the booksellers who take that leap of faith and trust me to tell you a story that doesn’t waste your time and  your money. As a reader, I know how it feels to fall in love with a new world, with its characters, and the adventures they have. As a reader, I also know what it’s like to feel disappointed in a story — and by extension, the teller of that story. And as a writer, it’s a possibility that haunts me every time I sit down in front of my computer.

Of late there’s been a lot of internet kerfuffle about the notion of ‘entitlement’ … readers angry because they don’t have a book they’ve been waiting ages for, or because a book they get hasn’t fulfilled their expectations or told a story they wanted it told. And writers angry because readers are saying hey, wait a minute, when are you going to finish the damn book you promised us, and why did you take the story this way when it would be  better if you’d done this other thing, and angry because readers are telling them how to tell their stories.

I think there are justifiable gripes on both sides. And sometimes I think writers and readers get a little carried away with themselves.

Writers and readers need each other. If you guys don’t buy the stories I tell, then my career as a novelist disappears. And if I don’t keep my promises to you — finish what I start, tell the kind of story I say I’m going to tell, accept that your opinions of my work are valid, even when they sting a bit , then the trust that keeps this relationship alive is going to die.

And when trust dies, so dies everything else.

First and foremost, a storyteller must tell the story that’s true for them, the best way they can. After that, all a storyteller can expect is that the readers will try it and if they like it, keep on reading. A storyteller is under no obligation to tell a story to please anyone but him or herself. And a reader is under no obligation to like a story just because it’s been told.

But if I as a storyteller manage to hit a sweet spot — if what pleases me happens also to please you, the readers, then I am a lucky, lucky, bloody  lucky writer. Right now, I’m that storyteller. Thank you for reading me. Thank you  for trusting me. If at any point I’ve let you down, I’m sorry. It wasn’t on purpose. And my fingers are crossed that I won’t let any of you down again in the future.

Keep on reading, guys. There are so many, many, many wonderful stories out there.

So, as most of you reading Babel Clash probably know by now, I have a new book out this week. It’s The Prodigal Mage, the first part of a two-part sequel to my very first fantasy series, Kingmaker, Kingbreaker. When I first sat down to tackle a fantasy novel, I was both enthusiastic and yet somehow hesitant. I loved the idea of the story and the characters but I didn’t have a lot of confidence in my ability to tell a big story. So the very first draft of that story, which was actually called Kingmaker, Kingbreaker, was a standalone novel. It took me some time and a helpful publisher’s rejection to show me how badly I’d underwritten the story. After a break away from it, to write something else (what eventually became The Accidental Sorcerer, actually) I looked again at KK and realised I could turn it into a two-parter. So I did. I found what was — to me — the most logical breaking point in the story as it stood (ha! A literal cliffhanger!) split it, and focused on expanding and exploring the hints of story I’d been too inexperienced to tell properly the first time around. And those books sold. But even as I looked ahead to other projects, in the back of my mind I was always wondering … hmm, what happened next?

The short answer would be, well, nothing much good. Because hey, this is drama, and you don’t get drama without a lot of things going wrong!!!

I realise I run the risk of sounding self-serving, but if you haven’t read the first 2 books then I think that would be a good idea because Prodigal Mage spoils some huge story events that occur in the previous adventures. But it’s true, you don’t actually have to.

If you’re not sure what you’ll get when reading my work, well, it’s not your typical epic fantasy. At least, these books aren’t. The scale’s not huge and sprawling, there aren’t massive battle scenes, no sword fights. Someone recently described my work as  ’Doorstopper Fantasy by way of a buddy movie, with the threads weaving together and getting you good and involved in their lives.‘ And really, that about sums it up. There are huge and epic events unfolding, world-changing events, but they’re told through the prism of a few people’s lives. I’m writing about friendship and sacrifice and betrayal and love and honour and heroism and cowardice and changes of heart. The good guys aren’t perfect and the bad guys aren’t always entirely bad. So if that’s your cup of tea, well, you might enjoy the read!

So here’s a question for you: are writers sane?

The answer? No.

Writing is one of the most insane occupations around. I rank it right up there with acting. And since I’ve done both, I feel confident in that assertion.

So, why is it that writers’ elevators don’t got all the way to the top?

Well, for a start, our job requires us to sit by ourselves for extended periods of time, in isolation, getting up close and personal with people who don’t really exist. It requires us to have deep and meaningful conversations with them. It demands that we get so involved and so attached to these people we made up in the first place that when something awful happens to them we have to get terribly, terribly upset about it. Even though it never actually happened at all. And anyway, we did it to them.

How can any sane person think this is a sane way to live?

Writers – like actors — have a kink in the brain. It’s a kink that means we are at the same time deeply and intimately involved in the process of being human while standing outside that process watching it happen. It means that we can never truly be at one with our own lives because we can’t ever totally lose ourselves in the unconscious moment. A part of us is always conscious, always watching, analysing, pulling the moment apart so we can put it back together again as fiction.

Here’s a case in point: when I was at university, one of my horses had a terrible accident and put a stick through his side. The vet treated him and we hoped he might survive. But the next morning, as he was going down fast, he ended up falling out of the shelter he was in, sliding down a muddy slope and ending up in convulsions on the ground. In my arms. Yes, my horse was convulsing to death pretty much in my lap. I’m sure you can appreciate this wasn’t one of the better mornings of my life.

But – as my horse was dying in my arms – that kink in my brain kicked into action. Wow, it said. I swear, I can still hear it. There should be a camera here filming this because it’s so totally Disney. As in Old Yeller, or Bambi, or something like that.

You see, even in the midst of trauma the writer stands outside the moment with a pen and paper in hand, taking notes.

Another true story, just in case you doubted my claim to insanity: in my last year of university (maybe this is actually about how university is hazardous to your health) I had a car accident. It really truly wasn’t my fault. I came over a slight rise to see a station-wagon in a fast 360 degree spin coming right at me. The roads were greasy and the driver had been speeding. Anyway. I had enough time to say, Oh shit, he’s going to hit me, and pull left, when bang. He hit me. Wow, I thought. That was loud. And then I went flying off the road into the undergrowth, heading straight for a telegraph pole. The undergrowth was significant. And I thought, Wow. This is what it was like when Luke crashed on Dagobah.

Yes, indeed. In what could’ve been my last moments of life, I was thinking about Star Wars. And by the way, if that doesn’t make me a fan then I don’t know what would.

But again, my point is – writers stand outside events even while they’re happening. We are scavengers. Carrion eaters. We pick the bones of the human experience looking for interesting morsels that we can then seed through our fiction to make it more real and believable and affecting.

I helped embalm a dead body once. Up to my elbows in a deceased man’s chest cavity helping to pull out his insides so he could be packed with formaldehyde crystals. Why was I doing it? Because I’d never seen a dead body and I figured I should if I was going to write one into a story. It was very interesting. Also? People who’ve died of lung cancer have lungs that turn kind of green and go all funny looking. So maybe rethink that whole smoking thing, yes?

Writers are blessed – or cursed – with the kind of imagination that turns ‘what if’ into an automatic reflex. A lot of non-writers like to ask where we get our ideas. If you’ve got that writerly kink in the brain, the answer is, Where don’t I get them? A magazine cover, a funny cloud shape in the sky, an overheard snatch of conversation – every single thing we see and hear and feel and touch and taste is a potential catalyst for a story. Nothing is ordinary. Everything has the potential to become huge, sweeping, epic.

And to write it, we have to take ourselves out of mainstream life, out of the social sphere, into a quiet place where the people who come alive in our imaginations are as real – or sometimes more real – to us than the people we bump into in the supermarket. Or next to in bed every morning.

So yeah. It’s my contention that writers aren’t entirely sane. But then I tend to think sanity is a tad over-rated. I love my pretend people. I love watching their lives unfold and go in unexpected directions. And I really love it when a reader contacts me to say how much they love those people too.

Sanity? Pffft. Who needs it?

If you could play in any franchise, is there a dream project lurking out there for you?  Craving a shot at Halo, Warcraft or Hello Kitty?

And if I say I don’t know Hello Kitty, will you smack me? *g*  Actually, I don’t do computer games or anything like them. I suspect they are far too much of a time sink, because I can get caught up in that kind of thing so easily. I have a brain like  grasshopper, it leaps all over the place. Metaphorically speaking.

Right now I have to say that I don’t have a hankering for any other franchises. There are many stories by other people I’m loving to pieces but the urge to start writing in those backyards hasn’t stirred.  At the moment I’m pretty much swallowed alive by my own stories. I’m just finishing the 2rd Rogue Agent novel, and then it’s time to tackle the sequel to Prodigal Mage. That’s kicking over quietly on the backburner, and I’m really  looking forward to telling it.

I want to see what writers do next with Star Trek.  The film raised the bar and reset the mythology.  So what happens next in the books?  How do you take that new spirit of adventure and mystery and inject it into the novels?

I can’t tell you how impressed I was with the reboot of the Trek. I think it was a stroke of genius. They’ve not laid a finger on the original series, they’ve not changed that timeline or affected its canon at all — and I have to tell you, I’m a huge stickler for continuity and honoring what came before. And yet they’ve managed to still give us Trek. I’m so looking forward to the next films Abrams and co.  do - and I have to say, I’d be surprised if they authorised any tie in novels to that brand new world, at least for a while. The primary story is always the most important, and the primary storytellers need to have their say long before anyone like me comes along and starts tinkering with it.

Also, District 9 looks fantastic!  That looks like a story perfect for spin-off novels.  Of course, I say that because the trailers are brilliant.  I haven’t seen the film yet.  Is anybody else lining up to see this one on day 1?

I know very little about District 9, I have to confess.  I read someone trashing it as a racist film, but since it’s not been released yet — has it? —  and I haven’t seen it I don’t know how valid that is. I’ll go have a look at the trailers, though — thanks for the link!

It’s a very odd business, tie ins. It’s been around a long time. I remember reading a High Chapparal novel when I was in school. I used to love that show! And there was a Voyager to the Bottom of the Sea one, and novelisations of Trek, and Planet of the Apes (tv series) and The Professionals. I guess it all boils down to what’s caught the public’s imagination, and the stories readers are hungry for. They really slot into that feeling of oh no, I want to know what happened next! that I think a lot of us get when we reach the end of a great story.

The thing about writing tie-in fiction, for me, is how easy it is. Like I said in my answers to Morgan, I’ve already fallen in love with that world and those characters. They are real people to me (okay, remember now how I said I was nuts?) so that when I’m writing a Star Wars novel or a Stargate novel I feel like I’m just eavesdropping on their lives and recording what’s happening. It took me a long time to have the same kind of faith in my own characters and worlds that I feel for those invented by other great writers. And the first character I really fell for like that, the one I created who absolutely took on a life of his own, is Asher.  Even while I was flailing around all over the place in the early drafts, too inexperienced to really have any kind of clue as to what the hell I was doing, not quite getting a handle on the other characters, Asher was always there. Fully-formed, three-dimensional, and smacking me over the head to get the story told already.

The reason I think writers and actors share a kink in the brain is because when we’re writing a story, it’s like we’re actually putting on a one-person show. When I write a novel I become all of the people in the story. Like an actor I try to get inside their skins, their minds, and create their lives the way they’re living and feeling and thinking them. It’s easier to do with tie-in work because the external example is there to study and absorb. When you’re the one creating the performance, it’s a bit more intimidating.

I was pretty nervous about returning to Asher and his world. Since writing the first two Kingmaker, Kingbreaker books I’ve written another seven novels, with a really wide variety of characters and settings. When it came to time to start work on The Prodigal Mage I started to panic, thinking that I wouldn’t get the voices back, I wouldn’t get them back, Asher and Dathne and Pellen and Darran. But it was so amazingly weird. I sat down, I started writing, Asher opened his mouth and it was on for young and old. He was back, bigger and bolder and brasher than ever. And it felt like I’d caught up with an old friend, after a long time away. A bit older, a bit wiser, but still Asher.

I wonder if that’s how Johnny Depp’s going to feel when he goes back to Captain Jack Sparrow?

At the end of the day it’s all about falling in love, I think. Whether it’s my world or a world I’m playing in that someone else dreamed up, if I’m in love with it and the people who live there, it’ll definitely come alive.

So  Morgan’s asked a bunch of questions, and they’re great questions, so I’ll answer them as a  post.

I imagine that writing a tie-in novel is a little bit like driving someone else’s car.  You’ve been given the keys, but you know that you’re going to have to give them back.  How do you make the tie-in novel feel like your own?

Well, I don’t know how other media writers feel, but when I start writing the story can’t be anything but my own. The fact that I didn’t create the world or the characters in it doesn’t seem to make any difference. I think that might be because I only go after media tie-in work connected to worlds and characters that I’m already in love with. There has to be a pre-existing relationship between me and the characters. I doubt that I could write a novel about a franchise (ick, hate that word, but it’s the only one that fits) that hadn’t already engaged my emotions. I mean, I watched Atlantis and I enjoyed Atlantis but I never clicked emotionally with Atlantis the way I clicked with Stargate, so I could never write an Atlantis novel. At least, not one where I felt I was being honest and truthful to the characters and their lives. Likewise there are many tv dramas that I enjoy but can’t imagine writing fiction based on them because they don’t have the dangling threads which snag my attention. The stories I write that are based in worlds I didn’t create come about because I feel there’s some kind of ‘unfinished business’ to do with the characters that hasn’t been explored yet. So I play with that.

When signed on for a tie-in novel, do you get a peek behind the curtain into the larger plans for the brand?  Assuming that the Star Wars narrative is going in a fixed direction, how much information are you given to make sure that your story keeps the narrative on track?

I think that very much depends on the franchise you’re working in. For example, because my Star Wars novels are set in the Clone Wars cartoon era I was sent the first season of scripts to read, so I could see where the story was heading and also use some of the cartoon work as a springboard for my own. So my first Star Wars novel, Wild Space, intersects with a couple of Anakin-centred episodes of the first season, and the next two — a two-parter story! — feature a returning character from the cartoons. On the other hand, with Stargate, I’m not aware that there was any conversation like that between the writers and the showrunners. Of course, Stargate’s not in production now so the writers have a freer hand, and 2 books were set back in earlier seasons so the direction thing wasn’t an issue.

Cool questions, Morgan! If anyone’s got any more, I’m happy to blather on!

So there’s a certain amount of kerfuffle goes in speculative fiction circles about the place of media tie-in novels. Quite a lot of folk, it would seem, think that place is the nearest rubbish bin — or trash can, if you will. Quite a lot of those folk are writers. For whatever reasons, they don’t like it that media tie-in works sell a lot of copies. They don’t like that media-related works take up a fair chunk of shelf space in a bookshop. And they complain that these works are crap, that they’re second-rate, that only original fiction contains any merit.

And then — often in the next breath — many of these same people will wax rhapsodical about the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica, or Dollhouse, or reminisce with tears in their eyes about Buffy, or lament the premature death of Firefly — apparently and conveniently forgetting that the vast bulk of episodes for these tv dramas are not written by the show’s creator. They are written by scriptwriters who are playing in somebody else’s sandpit, writing in worlds they didn’t create.  A bit, you know, like media-tie in writers. And yet while scriptwriters vie for a Hugo, media tie-in writers vie not to be tarred and feathered and run out of the genre on a rail because they dare to write fiction based on somebody else’s original idea.

Hypocrisy, let me show you it.

I write original fiction. I also write media tie-in fiction. In fact, when I finish this column, I go back to my next Star Wars novel. I’ve also written Stargate novels. Why? Because I love those stories, I love those characters, and playing in those worlds for a while is some of the greatest, most rewarding fun I’ve ever had as a writer. For me, writing a tie-in novel is a chance to share some of my thoughts and feelings about those worlds with folk who love it as much as I do. It’s an act of communion with the fans, of which I am one.

Are all media-tie in novels brilliantly written? No. Are all original novels brilliantly written? No. Is a media tie-in novel by definition devoid of literary merit? Hell, no. Is an original novel automatically imbued with literary merit by virtue of being original? Hell, no again.

For me, writing is about sharing a story with an audience. It’s about making people laugh and cry and stamp their feet and stop and think. It’s about engaging them, having a conversation with them, taking them on an adventure. And I don’t think it matters two hoots whether I created the world, or whether I’m using somebody else’s world as a springboard. For me, all that it matters is that I tell the best story I can, the best way I can, and touch as many people as I can with a genuine emotion.

The rest of it is all bullshit and snobbery.

So here’s my first post to Babel Clash, and my thanks go to Morgan from Borders and Alex from Orbit for throwing me in the deep — I mean, kindly inviting me to join in the fun. Also, while I’m thanking people, I’d like to thank Borders customers who have so generously bought my books!

And to kick off my tenure here at the Clash, I have some thoughts on that perennial question: Are writers sane?

And my answer is: No.

Writing is one of the most insane occupations around. I rank it right up there with acting. And since I’ve done both, I feel confident in that assertion.

So, why is it that writers’ elevators don’t got all the way to the top?

Well, for a start, our job requires us to sit by ourselves for extended periods of time, in isolation, getting up close and personal with people who don’t really exist. It requires us to have deep and meaningful conversations with them. It demands that we get so involved and so attached to these people we made up in the first place that when something awful happens to them we have to get terribly, terribly upset about it. Even though it never actually happened at all. And anyway, we did it to them.

How can any sane person think this is a sane way to live?

Writers – like actors — have a kink in the brain. It’s a kink that means we are at the same time deeply and intimately involved in the process of being human while standing outside that process watching it happen. It means that we can never truly be at one with our own lives because we can’t ever totally lose ourselves in the unconscious moment. A part of us is always conscious, always watching, analysing, pulling the moment apart so we can put it back together again as fiction.

Here’s a case in point: when I was at university, one of my horses had a terrible accident and put a stick through his side. The vet treated him and we hoped he might survive. But the next morning, as he was going down fast, he ended up falling out of the shelter he was in, sliding down a muddy slope and ending up in convulsions on the ground. In my arms. Yes, my horse was convulsing to death pretty much in my lap. I’m sure you can appreciate this wasn’t one of the better mornings of my life.

But – as my horse was dying in my arms – that kink in my brain kicked into action. Wow, it said. I swear, I can still hear it. There should be a camera here filming this because it’s so totally Disney. As in Old Yeller, or Bambi, or something like that.

You see, even in the midst of trauma the writer stands outside the moment with a pen and paper in hand, taking notes.

Another true story, just in case you doubted my claim to insanity: in my last year of university (maybe this is actually about how university is hazardous to your health) I had a car accident. It really truly wasn’t my fault. I came over a slight rise to see a station-wagon in a fast 360 degree spin coming right at me. The roads were greasy and the driver had been speeding. Anyway. I had enough time to say, Oh shit, he’s going to hit me, and pull left, when bang. He hit me. Wow, I thought. That was loud. And then I went flying off the road into the undergrowth, heading straight for a telegraph pole. The undergrowth was significant. And I thought, Wow. This is what it was like when Luke crashed on Dagobah.

Yes, indeed. In what could’ve been my last moments of life, I was thinking about Star Wars. And by the way, if that doesn’t make me a fan then I don’t know what would.

But again, my point is – writers stand outside events even while they’re happening. We are scavengers. Carrion eaters. We pick the bones of the human experience looking for interesting morsels that we can then seed through our fiction to make it more real and believable and affecting.

I helped embalm a dead body once. Up to my elbows in a deceased man’s chest cavity helping to pull out his insides so he could be packed with formaldehyde crystals. Why was I doing it? Because I’d never seen a dead body and I figured I should if I was going to write one into a story. It was very interesting. Also? People who’ve died of lung cancer have lungs that turn kind of green and go all funny looking. So maybe rethink that whole smoking thing, yes?

Writers are blessed – or cursed – with the kind of imagination that turns ‘what if’ into an automatic reflex. A lot of non-writers like to ask where we get our ideas. If you’ve got that writerly kink in the brain, the answer is, Where don’t I get them? A magazine cover, a funny cloud shape in the sky, an overheard snatch of conversation – every single thing we see and hear and feel and touch and taste is a potential catalyst for a story. Nothing is ordinary. Everything has the potential to become huge, sweeping, epic.

And to write it, we have to take ourselves out of mainstream life, out of the social sphere, into a quiet place where the people who come alive in our imaginations are as real – or sometimes more real – to us than the people we bump into in the supermarket. Or next to in bed every morning.

So yeah. It’s my contention that writers aren’t entirely sane. But then I tend to think sanity is a tad over-rated. I love my pretend people. I love watching their lives unfold and go in unexpected directions. And I really love it when a reader contacts me to say how much they love those people too.

Sanity? Pffft. Who needs it?