Bye Bye Borders
On my way to the airport today, I stopped in at my agent’s, to go for a meeting at Harper Collins with the publishing team of my adult books. At the tube station near my agent’s office, there was a Borders shop which is in the process of closing down. I normally popped in there whenever I went to visit my agent, as I usually get out to his neck of the woods a bit early and have a few minutes to kill. Today will probably be the final time that I get to look around there. I’m not sure if the store’s closure is related to the troubles which Borders have been having recently (they went into administration last week) or if it was scheduled for closure already. Either way, I felt oddly morose wandering around the store, looking at all of the money off signs, books going for sale cheap, and empty shelves where some stock had already sold out.
The thing is, I LOVE books. I don’t think I say it on here that much, as I kind of assume that most people reading this blog feel the same way I do. But, just to be clear, I LOVE books. I don’t read as much as I used to when I was younger, mainly because of the amount of time in a day that I spend writing or editing — I actually probably spend longer in the realm of the literary imaginative zone these days than I did even when I was reading a hundred books a year, but most of that time is now spent on my own books, whittling new stories into shape rather than simply enjoying the hard work of others. (And, no, it’s not something I really regret — it’s more fun being a reader than a writer, but to be able to create the sort of books I used to once only dream of being able to create… well, the trade-off is more than acceptable to me.)
Now, I love other things too — music, comics, movies (especially movies!!), art and so on. But I don’t work in any of those fields, so they don’t matter quite as much to be as books. I’ve seen way more movies than I’ve read books, and have stored away far more knowledge of the history of movies than I have of literature (I’d be a great phone a friend on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire if it was a movie question, but only an average friend if it was a question about books). Yet books remain my greatest love. I love the individuality of the reading experience, the way YOU get to imagine the world all for yourself, the way YOU get to decide how characters look and sound and smell and smile. It always bemuses me when fans complain about actors in a movie not looking like how they pictured them — because every fan pictures them their own way! It’s probably the best thing about reading — no two fans ever read a book exactly the same way, or put it together inside their heads the same way. And that’s so incredibly cool and unique!!! People interpret paintings and movies and computer games in different ways, but they’re all viewing them the same way, receiving and decoding the input the same way. That’s not the case with books — two people will read the exact same chapter, but put the words together in their own, unique, individual fashion. If you could take people’s thoughts and project them onto a screen, a book with a thousand readers would produce a thousand different interpretations.
I used to haunt book stores in my teens and when I was at university. Second hand book stores were my favourites — I’d spend hours trekking around the aisles every week, scouring the titles, looking for gems, sometimes taking a chance on a book I knew nothing about, simply because I liked the cover or title or book blurb or cheap price!! I remember selecting The Demon by Hubert Selby Jr one day because it had a picture of a topless woman on it, and I thought it would be fun to have such an explicity cover for my shelves!! I had no real expectations of the book — in fact, with such a lurid cover, I expected very little of it. To my delight, it blew me away — I’d probably even put it either in my Top 10 books of all time, or pretty damn close. I got that in a store in Limerick which has long since closed down. Most of the stores I used to frequent 15 or 20 years ago have closed, both in London and Limerick. They exist now purely as memories, having long since been replaced by bagel shops or cafes or hairdressing salons — places which are all well and good in the grander scheme of things, but when is the last time a bagel shop ever spun you off wildly into dreamland or made you feel like you’d lost a close friend when you walked by one day to find a CLOSED sign in the window?
I always feel a little pang of loss when the world loses another book shop, especially in this day and age, where it’s harder than ever for stores to survive. I think the internet will take the place of books stores eventually, as younger readers grow up reading from a screen, and form the same sort of attachment to digital books that readers of my generation (and all those who’ve gone before me) have for books in their paper form. Ultimately the words are all that matter — it doesn’t matter if a story is printed in a book, downloaded onto an e-reader, or carved in stone. But you can’t help feeling a close attachment to the form you’ve grown up with, and that’s why I always feel a bit down when one of the stores from my past goes the way of the dinosaurs — it’s like a block has been removed from the wall of my life, and from this point onwards, there will always be a hole whenever I look that way.
So, in short, Bye Bye Borders. You served the world well, and I’ll miss you. Even in death may you be triumphant!!!
Happy Birthday Siobhan!!!
I’ve been in London for the weekend. Came over on Friday with my Mum and aunt Maureen. On Saturday we went to a party for one of my cousins, Siobhan — it was her 40th birthday. Had a fun night chatting with family and friends, including a cousin and his fiancee (Kevin and Aly) who moved out to Australia a couple of years ago and who I hadn’t seen since then. Always nice to catch up at these things — I have a VERY large family of aunts, uncles and cousins, and I don’t get to see many of them except at parties and funerals.
This Sunday I went over to Spitalfields Market with the ladies in the morning — my old stomping ground (I used to rent a flat just off of Brick Lane). Nice to have a look round the old place, though it’s all been modernised and updated since I was last there, so I felt it had lost a bit of its personality and charm. From there we went to Covent Garden and the Seven Dials area. After that we went to see a stage version of The Shawshank Redemption — it was very well adapted and acted, and we all enjoyed it. We rounded off the night by having a tasty Chinese meal with my brother Declan and his wife, Emma. And that’s pretty much that for the weekend — I’m going for a quick meeting with the publishing team for my adult books in the morning, then home.
Ghost mail
I’ve been busy working on the latest edit of what will hopefully be my next adult book after City of the Snakes. I’ve been firing through 60 pages a day, so at this rate I should hopefully wrap up work on it before the end of the week. I think this is probably the most “killer concept” novel I’ve come up with to date! It’s a mix between a ghost story and a thriller, but you’re never quite sure which side of that divide the story is leaning towards, until you come to the last couple of chapters and everything is spread clean before you. It’s kind of like an M Night Shyamalan book full of twists (from back in the day when he made decent movies), only far darker than anything he ever came up with!! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it gets the green light from my publishers. If it does, I’ve got a feeling it might do pretty well for itself…
I’ve also been busy answering lots of fan mail. I fell behind on that front while out on tour and then moving house and then going off on holiday, so I’m trying hard to catch up. I answered 20 letters a couple of nights ago, and another 20 tonight. There’s still quite a large mound to plough through, but I’m getting there!! As always, if you’ve sent a letter to me any time recently, you WILL get a reply, but please be patient and sit tight!!! Also, I’ve got quite a lot of fan art to add to the site. I’m hoping to do this before the end of the year, but we’ll see — it’s very time-consuming, so it depends on whether or not I get a break between books at some point…
The double life of Eoin Colfer!!!
Drove down to Wexford with Bas on Saturday for my final events of 2009. It was a terrible day weatherwise — the worst in some parts of Ireland for hundreds of years!! I was worried that flooding might bar our way, but we kept plodding along and made it in the end. I did an enjoyable signing session at Hughes & Huges for two hours, then had a break, before launching into my event with Eoin Colfer. It was great fun. I started by reading out a scene from one of Eoin’s books — it’s probably the only time I’m ever going to be doing a reading about a farting dwarf!!! Then Eoin read my Lord Loss extract. Then we chatted together for a while, asking each other questions, before taking more questions from the audience of 200 plus. It was a really nice, fun, relaxed event, and the time flew by. At the end we signed books for everyone who had come, and that was that for my 2009 touring schedule — roll on 2010!!!!
Later on Saturday, Bas and I went to see Eoin do an event about his Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy book. We then went to a cabaret after that, which included writers reading out extracts of their work (if I’d known that in advance, I’d have taken something along too). Eoin read out a short story he’d written for adults, for an anthology published a while back, called Dublin Noir. It was one of the filthiest, rudest stories I’ve ever heard — and also one of the funniest!!! I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed an author reading so much!! It definitely wasn’t fit for children, but it was brilliant for everyone else — I think Mr Colfer could go far in the adult world if he has a mind to turn his talents in that dark, disturbingly raucous direction!!!!!!
On Sunday, having driven home, Bas and I watched the movie of Twilight. Hurm!!! I have to say, I can’t see what all the fuss was about. Bas assures me that the book was much better, but I thought the film was pretty lame. In fact it seemed almost like a parody to me — I mean, how can you have THAT MUCH dark, brooding stares in a film and expect people to take you seriously?!? Maybe I’m just missing the point, and can’t appreciate its true brilliance because I’m not a teenage girl, but this looks to me like it coasted on the reputation of the books and its audience’s attraction to its lead actor. It might have made a gazillion dollars at the box office, but I’ve a strong hunch that in years to come this won’t be thought of quite as highly — or prove as influential — as the likes of Buffy or The Lost Boys. Blockbusters don’t always have legs, and many fade away from memory with the passage of time, and I’ll be surprised if that isn’t the case here. I hope I’m wrong, because as a horror fan I always want a successful movie or book to bring more fans into my field, to keep it alive and vibrant, but I don’t think that’s going to happen in this instance — I think the fans of the film will move on and lose interest in it as they find new eye-candy to obsess over, and newer generations of fans won’t replace them as, without the hype, there’s not really an awful lot to dig in this film. At least, that’s my opinion — but having said that, on a music front I also would have said pretty much the same thing about Take That ten years ago, and look at how far off the mark I would have been there!!!!!!
Today I started my latest edit on what will hopefully be my next adult book after City of the Snakes. The response from my agent and editor has been very strong, but they asked me to trim it down a bit from its previous draft, to place the focus firmly on the main story thread — there were a few too many asides in earlier drafts. It means cutting out a lot of what actually drew me to the story in the first place (it began life back in the days when I was a committed reader of The Fortean Times, and was inspired by all sorts of weird stories, from Spontaneous Human Combustion to Men In Black to UFOs beaming people up for experiments). But that’s something I’m sure most writers have experienced in their time. The starting point for a book sometimes has little to do with where you ultimately go with the story, and ideas which sparked you off have to be sacrificed to make way for their children. It’s never nice having to cut out chunks which were integral to the story of your creation, but if it has to be done, so be it. In the end, it should always be all about where you end up with a story — not how you got there.
No refund for Sara!!
I received the following email from a lady called Sara this morning, which gave me a great chuckle:
After seeing the movie, The Vampire’s Assistant, I bought your book, read half and have decided to take a few moments to tell you what I thought. I am SHOCKED that such a good movie could come from such a poor manuscript. Are you aware that your main character is extremely unlikable? He is selfish, whiny and mistreats animals. This book is too violent for children or young teens and anyone older will be bored will it’s dull, plodding pace. You’re book is in the trash, Mr. Shan, and I believe you owe me $12.99 as well as a HUGE debt of gratitude to the person who turned your drivel into a passable screen play. What a wearying task that must have been.
Heh heh — now I know how the people at Universal must feel when they get fans of the books complaining to them about the changes made in the movie!!! Oh well — you can’t please everyone. My only regret is that Sara threw the book in the bin — in these days of global warming and emphasis on recycling, that seems highly irresponsible to me!! If I don’t like a book, I give it to someone else, or to a charity shop. Throwing away a book isn’t a blow against an author you don’t like — it’s a blow against the planet!!!!
Another person who liked the film, while not seeming to be overly enamoured with my books, was the writer Orson Scott Card. I must admit that I haven’t read any of Card’s work (at least not that I can recall) but obviously I’m very familiar with his name, having seen his books in stores all over the place — he’s one of those writers I keep meaning to check out, but haven’t quite got round to yet. He posted a highly favourable review of the film — you can check it out by CLICKING HERE. I don’t think the film’s potential financial tally will be quite as disastrous as Mr Card assumes — the film has been doing well outside the USA, and is still to open in more than 50 countries worldwide, so it could well hit big in some of the major overseas markets (e.g. Japan). But even if it doesn’t, it will be interesting, as he notes, to track its movements when it comes out on DVD. Though the film has divided people, there seems to be a lot of folks out there who really like it. They don’t seem to have been able to convince huge numbers of their friends to go see it at the cinema (perhaps because they were all going to Paranormal Activity, or saving themselves for New Moon), but maybe word of mouth will continue to spread and more people will give it a chance on DVD and Blu-Ray. I know the film-makers shot a lot more material than they used in the final cut, including lots of scenes of the circus freaks, so if they put together a varied, exciting package on DVD, that might add to the movie’s appeal.
I read an article about American Werewolf in London in Rue Morgue recently, and hard as it might be to believe today, that film received lots of terrible reviews when it first came out, and didn’t do particularly well at the box office. But it found a fan base and its legend grew over the years, and today it’s still going strong. There’s no denying that Cirque’s performance at the American box office was disappointing, but I’d be a lot more depressed and worried if it had done quite well on a wave of hype but wasn’t drawing good, positive reaction like Orson Scott Card’s. Really good films are those which make an impression on people and stand the test of time, and I think Cirque might well end up doing that yet.
Done chopping
Finished my final edit of The Thin Executioner today. I hadn’t expected to finish until at least Friday when I started, but I roared through the latter half of the book yesterday and today, the story dragging me along and refusing to let me stop — always a good sign!!! As I’ve said before, this is my personal favourite out of all of the books I have so far written. It’s also my longest Darren Shan book date, which should please those of you who complain about my books being too short!!! We’re not talking an absolute monster here (although the first draft would have been if I hadn’t trimmed it down over the editing process!), slightly over 400 pages in the UK edition. But that’s still quite a bit longer than most of my other books. To be honest, I never worry about length. A story should be as long or as short as it needs to be — I don’t think a writer should ever take the number of words into consideration, though I know many do. If a story only needs 100 pages, don’t pad it out to make people think they’re getting value for money. If it needs 1000, don’t trim it down because you think that’s going to be uncommercial. Always go with what you feel works best for the story.
I’m sad to be putting this book behind me. I started work on it early in 2002, so it’s been almost 8 years in the making. (I didn’t want to release it until I’d finished The Demonata.) This seems to be a year of spring cleaning for me as far as my books go — I’ve wrapped up work on The Demonata, The City and now this. We’re almost at the start of a new decade, and I’ll be kicking it off with an almost clean slate of stories — although, having said that, it’s been almost 3 years since I wrote the first Mr Crepsley book, and over a year and a half since I started work on what will hopefully be my next series after those 4 books. (And no, sorry, I still can’t say anything about it — hopefully I’ll be able to clue in you at some point in 2010, if all goes well with the next couple of books.) Nevertheless, I’ve put some big chunks of the last 10 writing years of my life behind me in 2009, and now it’s time to move forward onto new material, which is both exciting and scary at the same time — exciting because I’m facing new challenges, scary because there’s no guarantee that my future books will work as well or be as popular as what I’ve done in the past. But hey, when it comes to my work, I’m a sappy old optimist — I always think that I’m going to move on to something even bigger and better than what I’ve done before!!! I like to think that The Saga and The Demonata were fun learning steps on the way to something even more amazing, and that what I do next will blow away everyone’s memories of those. In reality that probably won’t be the case, but you can’t march through life thinking that way — you’ve got to always believe in your potential. If you start thinking about reality too much, it’ll sink its hooks into you, and you’re doomed!!! Writers are dreamers. If you want to be successful in this game, you’ve got to constantly let yourself dream…
Thierry Henry — le cheat
Just finished watching the Ireland v France World Cup play-off match. We lost the first leg 1-0 at home on Saturday, but played brilliantly tonight, took a 1-0 lead, and held onto it admirably. The game was heading towards a penalty shoot-out when Thierry Henry blatantly cheated — from a free kick into the Irish box, he handled the ball not once, but twice, then played it across for another French player to score. As a Tottenham Hotspur fan, I could never like Henry, because he played for our arch-rivals Arsenal. But I always respected him — he was a great player in his prime, the epitome of skill and calm on the ball. But tonight he became a lowly, heartless cheat, someone who will do anything to win, who has no pride or dignity or honesty.
Nobody should condone what Thierry Henry did tonight. I don’t care if you’re French — you should still slam him for this, not sit back and chuckle at your lucky escape. There should be no room for cheats like this in football. We don’t support cheats in other areas of our life, so why should football be any different? Robbie Keane is my favourite player for Ireland and Spurs, and has been for several years. If he had done tonight what Thierry Henry did, I wouldn’t be sitting here smirking, thinking “Nice one, Robbie! You made a fool of the ref and the French!!” I would be appalled and sickened that one of my heroes could have stooped so low. Not that I ever think he would — like any true hero, Robbie Keane is made of finer stuff than that. Thierry Henry clearly isn’t.
If my path ever crosses with Henry’s, I will calmly walk up to him, stare straight into his face and tell him he is a cheat, and I hope anyone else who crosses paths with him in the future does likewise. He should not go a single day of the rest of his life without being reminded of being the cheater that he is. I’m not a man of violence, but I AM a man who believes in showing open contempt for those who treat their fellow humans contemptuously. Thierry Henry acted shamefully and cowardly tonight, and deserves nothing more than open scorn from anyone he meets from this day forward.
I got the sun in the morning
My newest, favouritest song, from the musical, Annie Get Your Gun. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KPhwmDKq9A
The best policy
Went to see a new version of Annie Get Your Gun on Friday at the Young Vic, starring Jane Horrocks. Could have maybe done with a bit of trimming, but it was lots of fun overall, with a very catchy score, including a little gem I hadn’t heard before, “I’ve got the sun in the morning and the moon at night.” I’ll go try and find it on MySpace after I finish typing up this entry, and add it to my MySpace home page if I can.
Spent most of Saturday with my uncle Derek. Had a meal in L’Atelier Joel Robuchon, which was very nice, is a bit over-priced. Then went to a few pubs, before watching the Ireland v France game on TV. We had meant to watch it in a pub called O’Neill’s, but there was a massic queue outside when we arrived, so we had to quickly wander around to try and find another pub which was showing it. We finally found the game showing on a screen in a Walkabout pub, and had to watch without commentary, but that was better than nothing at all. We lost 1-0, which was depressing. It’s a two-legged affair, so our World Cup dreams aren’t dead and buried yet, but the second leg is in Paris, so it’s going to be very difficult to turn the tables on the French and qualify for the biggest tournament in football. But we live in hope, so roll on Wednesday, and I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed!!!!
Flew home on Sunday and got back to work on Monday, firing into my final ever edit of The Thin Executioner. I sat down at my computer before 09.30 today, and didn’t finish until just after 20.35. “Wow!!” I hear you gasp. “An 11 hour day — impressive!!!” Well… yes, in one way it was an 11 hour day, but not really. I had lots of other things to attend to over the course of the day — phone calls to make, an interview for the RTE Morning Ireland radio show which is due to be broadcast on Friday, etc. In the end I did pretty much a full day’s work, but no more than I would have done in 5 or 6 hours most other days. I think it’s always important to be honest with yourself when you’re a writer. It’s easy to make your days seem fuller than they are — you can sit at a table, twiddling your thumbs, pushing papers around, not actually working… then step away from it 8 or 10 or 12 hours later and pat yourself on the back for a job well done. But inside you know when you’ve had a lazy day, and the only person you’re trying to fool is yourself. That’s why I prefer to work to a page count rather than work for a set number of hours every day. When I’m doing a first draft, I aim for 10 pages, five days a week. If I meet that target, I know I’ve done a good week’s work. If I don’t, it’s clear to see, and I can’t make any excuses to myself. Things aren’t quite as simple as that when I’m editing, as each edit takes a different amount of time, depending on what stage the book is at. But by the time of the last edit, I should be getting through anything between 80 and 100 pages a day — and today I did 90, so that was fine.
If you’re starting out as a writer — or even when you get established, as very few writers can write as swiftly as I can — you can set yourself a far lower target than 10 pages a day of new material. In fact, the target you set is fairly immaterial — it can be as little as half a page three nights a week, or one page every Saturday and Sunday — even less if you feel that’s too much. What matters most is meeting that target. Every time you do that, you’ve notched up a little victory, and all the little victories add up over time. The more you stick to your schedule, the more you’ll probably find yourself capable of doing, and it’s likely that you’ll automatically adjust your target upwards, maybe half a page five nights a week, or two pages every Saturday and Sunday. That might happen swiftly, or it might happen slowly — again, that’s not important. Meeting your target, getting the practise in, and being honest with yourself… that’s what matter most. Especially that last bit. Because honesty is… well, read the title of this blog for the rest!!!!!!
Forgotten Carpenter
Did a great schools event in Swindon today — 600 kids from 11 different schools in a state-of-the-art theatre — good times!!! It was my last event in the UK this year, so I was pleased to end on a high. Trotted out my Cirque Du Freak scene one last time — and all the actors were excellent, which made it a pleasure rather than a chore!! And with the help of not one, but two microphones, I gave Lord Loss an even creepier voice than usual when I came to do my LL scene!!! I was signing for three and a half hours afterwards, so I came away drained, but it was a GOOD kind of drained!!! Many thanks to everyone involved who helped make it such a sweet, special day for me.
Went to see the new Alan Bennett play last night, The Habit of Art, at the National. It was a hit and miss affair — excellent when it was good, but there were lengthy patches where it dragged. All in all, a good night out, but nowhere near as on-the-money as his last play, the wonderful History Boys. Then again, it probably wasn’t ever going to be — just a pity that it couldn’t sustain the parts that worked, as it might have edged close if it had. One of the most enjoyable parts of the show for me was that one of the actors was playing the part of the writer, Humphrey Carpenter. (The play focuses on real-life people, such as W H Auden and Benjamin Britten.) Carpenter wrote biographies of both Auden and Britten, hence his role in the play. I haven’t read those biographies, and wouldn’t have known him if it was only for that. But Carpenter also used to write children’s books, and several years ago we took part in a panel event together, along with Vivien French. I didn’t know him before that, and hadn’t read his books, so I had no idea that he was as important a figure as he must have been (in comparison, I can’t see myself popping up as a character in any plays in the near or distant future!!!). But he was a nice guy and we had a little chat beforehand. Unfortunately, as those who know me are all too aware, it usually takes me several chats with a person before they make a real impression on me — my brain takes longer than most people’s to adjust and store info about those that I meet. I think it’s because I meet so many people in the course of my work — it just isn’t possible to remember them all, so I file them away in a short-term part of my brain, then delete the info. It’s only if I meet someone a number of times that they imprint themselves in my long-term files.
On that day in Edinburgh, however, even the area of my brain that stores things in the short-term was on the fritz, and I forgot the names of both Humphrey and Vivien while doing our event together on-stage!!!! Vivien just laughed, but I think Humphrey was quite disgruntled about it, as he had every right to be — “Who the hell is this johnny-come-lately who can’t even be bothered to remember my name for an hour?!?” I’d hoped to explain it to him at a later date and have a laugh about it with him, and apologise for being so scatterbrained. Sadly, Humphrey died shortly afterwards, so that can never be.
At least, if his spirit’s looking on, he can hopefully take some comfort in the fact that his is probably the one name I never will forget from that day on — I suspect, even if I one day lose my marbles completely and forget my own name along with everyone else’s, that Humphrey Carpenter’s will still come readily to my tongue!!!!
🙂
Darren Shan's Blog 