TALK: Philip Reeve

#ukmgchat #books #writers

Philip Reeve is the Carnegie winning author behind the Mortal Engines series, Larklight and Goblins. He spoke to StoryWorld about his new book and his writing.

Hi Philip! Tell me about Goblin Quest!

Goblin Quest is the third of my books about the Goblins of Clovenstone. They're sort of affectionate parodies of Tolkein and that type of story, in which the goblins get to be the good guys for a change. I don't read fantasy these days, but I loved it as a child, so it's a chance to revisit lots of ideas I enjoyed then and had more or less forgotten. I was only planning one book, but somehow I've ended up with three. This latest one is about a quest to raise the lost kingdom of the elves from beneath the sea - which turns out to be not such a good idea after all.

The Goblins are great creations, but a bit cheeky. Did you know they keep hijacking your blog?

Yes, but that's fine. I can never think of anything to blog about these days, so it's quite useful to have a back-up team, even if they can't spell. Or type.

(Oi! WeE Hurd tHatT, ReeEve!)

You live on Dartmoor. How do you feel the landscape and history of the place affect your writing?

I've loved Dartmoor since I was a child, which is why I live here. There seem to be two strands to my work; one is science-fiction-ish, and tends to be inspired by cities and urban environments, and the other more fantasy/historical, and that second strand definitely draws on the landscape of Dartmoor in all sorts of ways. I'd like to do a book that's specifically set here one day.

When you write a book, do you plan the story, or fly by the seat of your pants?

Always by the seat of my pants. I like to just start writing and see where it goes, so I always end up with huge rewrites and multiple different versions. It's a bit like doing a drawing; you keep rubbing out a line and laying it in again in a slightly different way until (hopefully) you get it right.

Do you like writing? Seems a silly question, but many writers say they find the process painful...

I like it when it's going well. When it isn't it's 'orrible, and it never really feels like a real job; I always secretly feel I'm skiving and ought to be out digging a ditch or driving a bus or something. I don't think it's a very healthy life, mentally or physically. Sometimes I think I'm tired of it, and that the book I'm working on will be my last, but so far something has always happened to get me writing again. I was on the brink of giving up a couple of years back, but then I met the illustrator Sarah McIntyre and we decided we should create some stories together, and that has set me off down a whole new path.

Are you writing anything at the moment?

I'm finishing a very sci-fi novel which will be coming out next year, and thinking about the fourth Reeve and McIntyre book.

You've been quite prolific: winning awards, creating whole new worlds in fiction, Hollywood movies etc. Is there still a story or project you long to do? Maybe in another medium, like screenplays, comics, video games?

Well although I've sold a lot of my books to Hollywood, no actual movies have been made yet, so it would be nice to see that happen with one of them, at least. And I'd love to have done screenplays, or TV, or write for the stage. I sort of imagined that if you published books that would give you a way into these other media, but it doesn't seem to work like that!

What one piece of advice would you give to emerging writers?

Keep writing, I suppose, which sounds obvious, but it's really the only way. Write something every day!