1. I'm not always who I say I am.
Sometimes I'm someone else entirely. I've written
several books and rather a lot of stories for adults under
the name Keith Brooke.
Why the pen-name? To keep my adult fiction separate from my
teen and children's fiction. It seemed to make sense at the
time.
It causes endless confusion, with people never knowing what
to call me, and I have to keep reminding myself which name
to answer to. When you meet me, it's easiest to get my attention
by saying, "Oi, you", or throwing something at me.
2. I love music but rarely get time to listen to it.
I find it hard to work with music on, and as
I spend so much time writing that doesn't leave much time
to listen. Which is a shame. Long-time favourites include
the Beatles, John Lennon, Lloyd Cole, Japan, Madness, They
Might Be Giants, Oasis, the Pogues. More recent discoveries
include Clearlake, The Coral, the White Stripes, Ed Harcourt,
Goldfrapp, the Libertines and more, and more, and more. Just
tell me to shut up!
3. I used to play lead guitar in a rock group.
Badly.
4. The novel settings.
...are real places. Except, of course, where
I made things up.
If you look on a map of north-east Essex you'll see a lot
of place names that crop up in Piggies (and in my second
novel). That would be misleading, though. There is a Kirby,
for instance, but it's not the town where Piggies is
set: that's really modelled on Brightlingsea, although I've
moved the streets around, and tidied the sea away altogether.
There's a Weeley Wood, but it's much smaller in our world.
A few miles out of my fictional Kirby, the real East Anglia
starts to reassert itself: Colchester is nearby, although
the school mentioned in Piggies doesn't exist.
I've done similar things with Flesh and Blood: it's
set in the seaside town of Bathside. In reality, Bathside
is the name of part of Harwich, which is the next town to
Dovercourt, which is where I grew up and is really the town
my Bathside is modelled on. If you see what I mean. There
is a Copperas Wood, roughly where the novel claims,
but the village of Crooked Elms is actually a made-up place
somewhere between the real Ramsey and Wrabness. There's a
photographic guide to Flesh
and Blood elsewhere on this site.
Why did I mix reality and fiction like this? I could just
have made all the settings up, but I like the idea that, in
Piggies, Ben's discovery that he's in a Kirby that
isn't-quite-his-own-Kirby is reflected in the book's setting
being not-quite-the-real-world. Also, I've often set horror
stories in a twisted version of the Essex where I grew up
and this is a continuation of that. I'm not sure what that
says about my childhood...
5. I'm colourblind.
When I'm not writing I run a university website.
Everyone who has ever run that website - I'm the third - has
been colourblind. Which may explain the lovely colour schemes
we use. It all looks okay to me.
6. How I write.
I type far faster than I can write longhand,
so I write straight onto a computer. I work on a story for
quite a long time before I'll actually start writing it: thinking
about it, getting to know the characters and settings, researching
any specialist knowledge I might need, and so on.
When I'm ready to start writing, I work quickly: in a full
day I'll aim to write at least 2000 words, and will often
manage far more. I'll keep going every day until I have a
first draft completed. I'll usually put that aside for a few
weeks: when I come back to it I'm not so familiar with the
words and it's easier to spot all the mistakes, the clumsy
writing, the bits that just don't work...
All I have to do then is fix it all. This takes a lot longer
than writing the first draft and usually involves me asking
friends to read it and point out all the bad bits I've missed.
Then my agent and editor will read it and they'll kindly point
out all the bad bits that I and my friends have missed.
It's true what they say: books aren't written, they're rewritten.
7. I keep pet vampires.*
When we moved into this house part of the shed
had previously been used as an aviary. It seemed too good
an opportunity to miss: with a little modification (which
largely consisted of strengthening the perches and moving
them so that they could be hung from rather than perched on),
it became the ideal home for our three vampire bats, Mr Lugosi,
Harker and Flopsy. After four years kept in a cage indoors
they really appreciate the extra space, and they certainly
keep the cats out of the garden!
*Author's note: I have a confession
to make. I don't really keep pet vampire bats... I made it
up in the hope that it would sound interesting. And ever since
I first wrote this page everyone seems to ask me about
my pet vampires! It's not true. Mr L, Harker and Flopsy are,
in fact, fruit bats of the sub-order Megachiroptera.
Sorry. (They do keep the cats out of the garden, though.)
*Author's second note: here's an update
on the bat training.
8. I was a sporting hero at school.
Or rather, I conned my way into the rugby team
for three years.
I learnt how to perfect the timing of a run so that I could
chase after someone, make a spectacular attempt at a flying
tackle, and just miss. It looked good, but ensured
that I didn't get clobbered or trodden into the ground under
a maul. In fact, it looked so good that I hardly missed a
game for the first fifteen in three years!
9. On my desk in front me.
An armadillo with a nodding head. A stack of
printer paper. A Play-doh picture frame (for very small pictures).
Two owls. A spare ink cartridge for my printer. Assorted flat
beads. A rude statuette. A postcard from Puffin. A statue
of an Asian water-carrier (complete with elastic bands hanging
from his out-stretched arms). A CD from a computer magazine.
Notes for my next novel. Pens. A see-through whale. A stretchy
yellow man from Whitby. A small teddy bear. Envelopes. A fish.
A frog. A copy of a book I've just reviewed (Ann Halam's Taylor
Five - very good). A wind-up frog. An oriental statuette.
10. Er...
...that's it.
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