Hello to Marite from Mexico, who got in touch this week to ask the following questions:

When you write, you think of incredible worlds?

I write what I love – stories that contain a lot of action and fantastical elements, particularly (heh!) monsters. So: a lot of my job as a writer, I think, is to take those incredible things and make them feel credible – realistic – to the reader. The reader has to believe in what’s happening in a story, or they won’t be taken along for the ride.

Are these worlds part of your imagination or something you see in your day to day life?

It’s a mixture: I think that’s the best way to make something feel real to the reader. Whether it’s a seven-way gladiatorial fight to the death in Hell (in The Black Tattoo), a building-shattering giant monster smackdown (in Tim, Defender of the Earth) or a horrifying secret alien takeover (Crawlers) – as an author, you do your best to make the reader believe that these things are really happening, by using realistic details from life. A lot of it comes from thinking about characters: if the people (or monsters!) these things are happening to feel real, with real feelings, real danger, then there’s a good chance that the reader will believe in the scene.

How do you describe these unimaginable, incredible, crazy worlds?

You imagine them as clearly as you possibly can, and you try to describe what it would be like to be there. It helps to think of the scene from the point of view of a person – that’s how we humans best perceive our world, after all. So: what can your character see from where they’re standing (or running, or flying, whatever!) What can they smell or taste or touch? What are they feeling? As a writer you can’t take pages and pages to describe a scene or world: the reader would get bored. You pick the details that will get the scene across to the reader as quickly and effectively as possible. And then (in my case at least) you get on with the action. ;D

Would you like-expect that the readers who read your book experience this?

I would hope so, yes, definitely. If they’re not picturing what’s happening and feeling what I want them to feel then that means they’re not fully immersed in the story. And that means I haven’t been doing my job properly.

Do you go through an endless chain of emotions during writing and reading?

I haven’t found an end to the chain so far! Communicating and experiencing emotion is one of the most important parts of all human creative endeavour, isn’t it?

Where do you usually read? write?

I do most of my writing where I’m sitting right now typing this: in my bedroom in my flat in north London, England, at a desk made out of two chests of drawers and the planks of a wardrobe that I took to pieces when I first moved here twelve years ago. Reading, however, I do EVERWHERE. I read first thing in the morning while I’m cleaning my teeth. I read last thing at night when I’m about to go to sleep, and in between I read at any chance I get – on trains, on the sofa, standing up, sitting down, wherever.

Thanks and best wishes to Marite and everyone who reads this.

Sam

PS: Here’s a little something I posted to TBM yesterday about one of my favourite authors, Neal Asher.

I have joined a gang.

Over the coming months I’m going to be teaming up with some of the finest writers of thrilling new books for young people around right now.

If you want to meet Alexander Gordon Smith, Jon Mayhew, Alex Bell, Steve Feasey, Alex Milway, Sarwat Chadda (and, er, me) then The Crystal Palace Children’s Book Festival on Sat 23rd October is the place to be. Our Best of Horror workshop will be the Chainsaw Gang’s debut event. Tickets are free but places are limited: if you want to be sure not to miss it click here to book now and book often. ;D

On Fri 29th Oct Gordon, Sarwat, William Hussey and I hit Norwich Millennium Library…

Then on Sunday 31st Oct Bill, Sarwat and I will be at Foyle’s on London’s Charing Cross Road, representing the Chainsaw Gang for the bookshop’s Angels and Demons Halloween Extravaganza.

And this is all just the start. A Chainsaw Gang website and blog tour are in the offing — and shadowy ‘Gang mastermind Sarwat Chadda has all sorts of other tricks up his sleeve.

Getting the chance to combine forces with this posse of awesome authors is a huge thrill. I hope you’re as excited as I am. Hee hee hee HEE!

My brilliant mate Katie, who designs and maintains all my websites, is about to head off on maternity leave. Before she does, she’s just completed a mammoth list of updates. If you check out the sites for The Black Tattoo, Tim, Defender of the Earth and Crawlers you’ll find that all broken links have now gone, the links between the sites and the homepage are much clearer and the Reader Quotes, Q&A, Editions Details, Reader Art and Interviews pages are now fully current with all the latest. In addition, to my particular glee and delight, I can now – at last! – also show you THIS:

And THIS:

Congratulations, arm-waving and awed disgust to Welly Woo, creator of these images and the undisputed winner of Round Ten of the Black Tat No Monsters Were Harmed In The Making Of This Website Competition!

As the sinister masterplan has continued, keeping on top of its online element has been no small task – particularly for The WebSpinx who (lately) has kept it all going through a major house move while bringing up a very young child and expecting another. I think my sites for The Black Tattoo, Tim, Defender of the Earth and Crawlers – plus, of course, my homepage – all look awesome, so I hope you’ll join me in raising a virtual glass in salute to Katie and her hard work.

All Hail the Mighty WebSpinx! Here’s wishing you all the best, my dear. And thank you so much. 😀

Sam

A new Phase Five is underway. I’ll tell you more as soon as I can, but for now suffice it to say that for the whole of last week I spent all my writing time reading fashion magazines for research. For a man who has basically worn variations on the same outfit for the last fifteen years (namely, of course, THE BLACK) it’s been quite an education, I can tell you. ;D

Meanwhile, if you’ve a further ten minutes to spare, may I suggest you click through to Trapped By Monsters for an amazing video by three blokes who’ve built a time machine in their garage.

I’ve been assessing the progress of my Sinister Masterplan to Conquer the Universe.

Phase One: The Black Tattoo. I’m delighted to say that I recently accepted an offer from a company who want to translate and publish the book in Indonesia. I’ve also been receiving some wonderful and heartening messages lately in the Black Tat Guestbook.

Phase Two: Tim, Defender of the Earth. Take a look at this…

This is the German edition of Tim, published just last month – a pleasingly pulpy-looking and pickuppable paperback. I was particularly happy to discover that KER-RASHHH! — the noise the Big Ben tower makes when Tim caber-tosses it into Mallahide’s chest — has been rendered into German by translator Lisa Kuppler as the satisfyingly evocative KRAWUMMM!

Phase Three: Crawlers. I’ve recently signed a deal to have the book translated and published in Hungary. An unabridged UK audio edition is also in the works.

Phase Four – the title of which I’ll announce in due course – is a novella to be published by Barrington Stoke. That’s signed, sealed and delivered, current release date January 2012.

Phase Five… OK, here’s where it gets difficult.

On Aug 6th of last month, after six months of writing, thirty-five thousand words of draft, four hundred pages of notes and a lot of agonizing, I abandoned the project I’d thought was Phase Five. This was not an easy decision to make. Admitting to myself – and my agent and publisher, and now you – that I led myself down a story dead end wasn’t and isn’t easy either. I don’t approve of writers who make too much fuss and drama about the job but I can reaffirm for you now (in case you didn’t know) that failing to write a book can be every bit as exhausting as finishing one can be, with the additional effect of a massive, crushing drain on one’s morale. For the few weeks since, I’ve been taking some time off. I’m feeling better. I’ve now scraped my sorry remaining braincells into a loose, watery bolus and I’m preparing to embark on a completely new story, from scratch.

It’s scary, but exciting too. In an email to me yesterday fellow TBM stalwart Barry Hutchison asked, “Do we have the best job in the world, or what?” He wasn’t going to get any argument from me. So: time for me to straighten my spine, and start all over again…

…into what, it’s too early to say. My pupal case is fully formed and hardening; what’s inside has already lost its old shape and is now splitting and twisting into strange and interesting new ones.

The above pic is from this excellent photo gallery of various creatures viewed through an electron microscope.

Cheerio. See you whenever I emerge.

That’s not a patch of moss, that’s… GAH!

Comments on the Boing Boing post where I saw this video have identified the species as harvestmen. –But, as anyone who’s read Crawlers might wonder, are they something more sinister? 😀

Here’s a link to my latest post to TBM, this week about a writer of some of the finest action fantasy around right now.

Back to the bathysphere!

Sam

Recently on Trapped By Monsters: Are Cows Monsters? The Fighting T. Are Owls Monsters? and Alan Moore’s Top Five Tips for Would-Be Writers.

Right: if you’ll excuse me I’ve got to climb back into my writing bathysphere.

DIVE!

My last school visit of this academic year was yesterday, to Sir William Ramsay School in High Wycombe. What a great one to finish up on! Over three sessions I met one hundred and eighty students from the school’s Year 7. All of them were a pleasure to speak to: attentive, enthusiastic and full of awesome questions. My thanks and best wishes to them, and to everyone else I’ve met at all my school visits this year!

Here’s a Flickr slideshow with some pics from my events:

If anyone reading this would like me to come to their school next academic year, drop me a line via my page on Contact An Author. 😀

No Crawlers News or Favourite Words from me just now: I’m in full deep dive mode on Phase Five of My Sinister Masterplan.

But here’s a TBM post on one of the best things I’ve found out about so far this year. ;D