Jon Mayhew

Mortlock Video:

Author Interview:

When and how did you start writing?

I’ve always written. I can remember the feeling of excitement when the teacher used to give us a free-writing lesson. The blank page rarely threatened me. As a teenager, I used to write terrible pastiches of Sword and Sorcery stories: barbarians and wizards in mythical lands, all the usual stuff. I was also a keen role-playing gamer and developed stories through that.

As teaching took more and more of my time, my writing became instructional - I’d develop schemes of work, write exemplar openings, that kind of thing. Now and then I would start a story but never finish it. Then in March 2006 I had my ‘lucky break’. While training for the London Marathon, half way through a ten-mile run in deep snow, I broke my ankle. Badly. I found myself sitting down for six weeks with a laptop in front of me. I wrote 95,000 words of utter tripe, but it was a start!

Can you remember the first book that made an impact on you?

I remember my father reading me Kipling’s Just So Stories but otherwise I didn’t read much as a young child. The class reading scheme had a negative impact on me. Then at the age of about 11, I had this awakening in which I read anything and everything - Ray Bradbury, Andre Norton, Michael Moorcock, Dickens, Brian Aldiss, Tolkein, Richard Adams. I can sympathize with young lads who aren’t excited by books, but something clicked with me and reading at that age.

Tove Jansson and the MOOMIN books especially grabbed me. I read MOOMINLAND WINTERLAND at night by reflecting the light from the landing off a biscuit tin lid and on to my pillow. I loved the strange creatures Jansson drew, and the satisfying contrasts between peril and domesticity. Cute woodland creatures that talked to me of loneliness and isolation. They are strange books indeed and not served well by the TV representation.

Can you talk us through the writing of your first book? What were the key moments?

My broken ankle was the point at which I realized that bum on seat equals first rule of writing. In November 2007 Alfie Mortlock became a real character in my head while watching my son perform in a school production of Oliver, and I started writing. This coincided with my reading the brilliant NECROPOLIS RAILWAY by Andrew Martin, which is a mystery about the railway line that used to take corpses out to the new municipal graveyards of London.

Cut to May 2007. Deep depression. I found it impossible to generate interest in MORTLOCK and it hit slush piles everywhere. Then I broke my ankle again, running down a Welsh mountain. Lin, my wife, took pity on me and bought me a weekend writing course with Cornerstones [a British literary consultancy]. That weekend the manuscript was basically ripped apart. I scuttled off into a corner, and then came back with a plan to revise it completely.

The next key moment was listening to Sarah’s critique of MORTLOCK and seeing again how it might be taken to another level. She taught me to think beyond the main events of the novel and about where the ‘camera’s eye’ was focused. She also gave me confidence in my ability to improve my writing and to learn.

Was it hard to get an agent? Can you talk us through the process?

I had kept in touch with Helen Corner of Cornerstones. She always said I would get an agent given time and that gothic stories were selling well. I’d had a couple of near misses with publishers so I jumped at the chance when she offered to submit to agents for me.

Again there were plenty of rejections - one agent said that MORTLOCK ‘left her cold’. But then, in the space of 24 hours, I had the luxury of choosing between two. In the end there was no competition. I met the first agent face to face and she was lovely, but Sarah’s experience and knowledge of children’s literature just shone through. The first agent hadn’t read HOLES (my favourite book). Sarah had bid for it when she was Publisher at Macmillan.

I didn’t actually meet Sarah for several months, but she was always on the end of the line and e-mails flickered back and forth across the Atlantic!

Describe your writing day. Where do you write? How do you organise your time? Where do you look for inspiration?

I’m a bit of a guerilla writer! With four children and a day job, I write when I can, where I can. Sometimes I’ll hide in the playhouse at the bottom of the garden. I’ve written on trains, in pubs and coffee houses, in the greenhouse (funnily enough) and in the car. I do have a room with a desk, but sometimes it’s too accessible. Usually I write for a few hours in the evening between eight and twelve, and then at the weekend I’ll take a large chunk of the day if I can. Thursday and Friday are dedicated writing days.

Inspiration comes from music - orchestral stuff, film themes, but music from my teens seems to inspire me. I wonder if it awakes the neural pathways of my youth! I also find running gives me chance to think and imagine.

Can you tell us about your next book?

It’s called The Bonehill Curse and again, it’s a dark, gothic, Victorian supernatural adventure. It’s set in London a little later than Mortlock and The Demon Collector and there are crossover characters. A terrible bully of a girl called Necessity Bonehill comes face to face with an evil genie and has to save the world. Think Arabian Nights through a grimy Victorian lens.

Are there any tips you could give aspiring writers who are looking to get published?

I think to succeed you must be able to accept criticism. It’s no good arguing over every point. I always think if I have to explain something to one of my crit readers, then I’ve failed to communicate.
Being flexible, reasonable and willing to adapt makes you a good prospect, which is music to an editor’s or agent’s ears.

Again, like many things in life, you improve with persistence and practice. Keep writing, keep trying, but don’t bang your head on a brick wall. If it’s not working, try to find out why.

Can you describe three aspects of writing craft that have been most important as you’ve developed as an author?

Learning that the story is not just a series of joined-up events, but that the characters’ development flows through those eve
nts and everything that happens must do so for a reason.

Making each sentence as active as possible, avoiding passive and flat phrasing.

Realizing that chapters should be short and end with a cruel, barbed hook!

Which favourite authors would you invite to a dinner party? What fictional character do you wish you’d invented?

Eoin Colfer - I saw his ‘one author show’ and really enjoyed it. A funny man who writes great books. Philip Ardagh because I suspect he might read this and would definitely be offended at not being invited to an imaginary dinner party. My fellow Greenhouse author Sarwat Chadda because he’s my evil twin (only a bit younger and better looking). I’d also invite Charles Dickens just so he could read A CHRISTMAS CAROL to us.

Fictional character? It’s got to be Elric of Melnibone, an albino with a magic sword that drinks enemy souls. I was hooked on Michael Moorcock’s ETERNAL CHAMPION series as a teenager and Elric is the man.