Russia, Harry Potter, and me.

Just back from Simon Mayo's FiveLive radio show where I talked a bit about Harry Potter and what he means to me. Also there was Julia Eccleshare from the Guardian and Boyd Hilton from Heat.
The converstaion was interesting but, with time being short, didn't really get into any nitty-gritty stuff. So I'll do that here.
1. How great a hero is Harry Potter in the pantheon of children's characters? Okay, he has to be near the top, but I do prefer Bilbo Baggins. Scout from To Kill a Mocking Bird is also one of the best, though there's some debate if it's a kid's book or not (I think it is).
Harry's the perfect fairy tale character. All children (and many adults too) have the fantasy they're secretly princes and princesses, destinied for greatness. Their imaginations free them from their daily existence and the special destiny is a powerful fairy tale archetype, Cinderella. Rags to riches. That sort of thing. Harry starts off frail, weak, forced to do all the cooking and cleaning for his step-family, dresses in rags. Cinderella through and through. But it's the power of the Invite (Hogwarts or the Ball) that start his journey out of the Ordinary and into the Special World. Rowlings has been accused of being derivative, but I think every writer or creator is derivative. True orginals are extraordinarily rare and I can't think of one particularly, maybe Piccasso? Biblo's small, frail, pout upon and (unlike Harry) gets dragged into an adventure way bigger than him. His archetype is the Quest story, rather than rages to riches. Also, he has a clearer character growth and the setting is seamless, while Rowlings' style, especailly in Philosopher's Stone, is VERY Roald Dahl (though in a good way, but acts as a slight distraction since the Dahlesque flurishes are pretty strong). Scout's the truest children's character out of them all, because she is utterly ordinary and perfectly written. Lee totally gets back into what being eight was and felt like, probably better than any other writer.
Russia- I'm off tomorrow and will report back. Have a long list of places to visit. Very excited with this.
Short Stories in the Templar World- This is a project I've been working on. Now Devil's Kiss is out it feels a long wait until The Dark Goddess. So I'm preparing a series of short stories dealing with the Tempalrs, past and present, than will fill in events I refer to in DK, and include hints to what's coming up in book 2. The first one's almost done and is called THE BODMIN ACCORD. It's about the deal the Templars ahve with the local werewolves. Since Book 2 is wall to wall carpets of the hairy blighters It'll clue you in to the sort of people Billi will be dealing with in The Dark Goddess. Pretty dangerous people.
It'll go up in a week or two.

FAQ and NOT FAQ

This is going to appear on my website shortly (no, not the photo, very nice that it is) but a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page. However, some are very common and I'll just go through the motions on those, but some may not be, and those will be the interesting ones...

So, rather than me just list out what I'm usually asked (and have probably answered somewhere already) I would like you to send me YOUR QUESTIONS. I'll see if I can intergrate them seemlessly into my FAQ page. To get the ball rolling I'll start with a few that have come up in the last few months:

1. Angelina Jolie or Megan Fox? Well, it'll have to be our Angie. C'mon, just look at her, for heavens sake! It did cross my mind that if I put myself up for adoption there would be a small chance that I might get picked and be calling her 'Mama'. The rest of this answer's not suitable for children but, let's put it this way, I know which side of the bottle v. breast-feeding arguement I'd come down on.

2. Angelina Joile or Christian Bale? Christian, for reasons too confusing to explain. But being Batman certainly helps.

3. What's the hairiest part of your body? My back. Then my chest, then my ears.

4. Favourite author? Okay, right now (and has been for the last few years) Philip Reeve and his Mortal Engines series. OMG, they are BRILLIANT. However, it was reading Northern Lights that made me want to be a writer.

5. Favourite book? Book of Lost Things by John Connolly. I have a signed card from him above the pc. The prefect dark fairy tale and a major inspiration to The Dark Goddess.

6. Did you always want to be a writer? No, I wanted to be a ninja. Actually, I STILL want to be a ninja. Given the choice, I think it's the profession most people would pick.

7. I'm looking at applying low-carbon technology to my existing house. What would you recommend? Solar hot water panels are probably the most straightforward to retro-fit. The payback on photovoltaics is horrendous so probably not best suited for domestic jobs. Some boiler manufacturers do dual coil boilers, which will save you space, but they are expensive. Do make sure you have them on roughly south-facing roofs!

Okay, now you take it away...

Er...this might be a terrible mistake.

I don't know about you but when I went to see Casino Royale a few years ago a BIG cheer went up (and not a few wolf-whistles) when Daniel Craig emerged out of the Carribean sea. And that was just from us blokes.
I tried to keep that picture in mind today as I shuffled around the park, sweating and feeling a bit unwell. No pain no gain sort of thing.
I'm a naturally lazy person. That's why I'm a writer instead of, well, something else. However, as I suffered my latest annual waist enlargement I decided to do something about it. I don't think I'll be getting the Daniel Craig response when I surface at my local lido but hopefully me diving in won't be a seismic event. Which is good. I certainly feel different after a few weeks of exercise. Light-headed, for example.

Are you not entertained?

Violence. Don't we love it? It's come up with my school visits where I've got the students to deciode how they want to conclude a scene from the book. Heads have been chopped off, rocket launchers involved, flesh-eating bugs and a whole lot in between.
Okay, Devil's Kiss is an adventure story so there's going to be fights and the hint of violence throughout. But very early on I decided that I wasn't going to be half-hearted about it, and the action wasn't playtime.
Depending on the genre, the violence can stray between realistic and fantastical. Bond blows people away with merry abandon and there's no payback. Then there's books dealing with the social and personal cost of using weapons. Everything from the child soldiers to the stabbings in the cities. There's a responsibilty to show the dark consequences of the use of weapons. But...
There's a thrill in reading it, in seeing it. It's our taste of gladiatorial combat that's not really diminished, not really. We want that life/death struggle played out before us so we can be reminded of the most fundamental drama of existence -- SURVIVAL.
Drama. Conflict. These are the things our stories are made of. Again and again it goes back to why the greatest story to survive from the ages is a war story, The Iliad (Yeah, you knew I was going to bring that up again). The struggle of nations played out by individuals.
I want to have a story that has lots of life and death struggle, after all it's about the Knights Templar. But the violence is brutal and every death costs the killer too. Only psychopaths brush away murder. Everyone else pays.
The question that came up most from the visits is "Why is it called DEVIL'S KISS"?
It's about making deals. With the Devil, with your allies, but most of all with yourself. We all have the capability to become something extraordinary, but what is the cost? Can we live with ourselves if we blinding chase our dreams, forgetting our dreams may be the nightmares to others? How many friends and family have people lost because they chased that promotion or next big deal, so stayed after hours, forgot their kids' birthdays or wedding anniversaries?
The Devil will give you whatever you want. But he will want something in return. Just remember that when someone promises to make all your dreams come true.