I’m just going to pretend these are the questions someone might ask me if I was very famous and sitting on a chat show. Okay, at the moment I’m making them all up because I like making things up. The answers, however, are completely true. But if you’ve got any questions you’d like to ask me that are better than the ones I’ve asked myself, please contact me. Your question might appear here in the future.
Are you like any of your characters?
I’ve decided I’m a little bit like all of them. If you took three different colours of play dough to represent the three main characters of Dan, Becket and Adam and squished them together and rolled them into one then I think you’d find me. Unlike Dan I can’t play guitar or skateboard but like him I know what it feels like to have hopes and dreams. If he was here he’d spell out ‘YOU’RE NOTHING LIKE ME’ in alphabet potato shapes but deep down I think he’d know we’re similar. Unlike Adam I’m not going to run around in my pants like a superhero but like him I know that love doesn’t come at a price, love accepts you for who you are and not who you think you should be. And unlike Becket I can’t tell you everything about diseases but like him I know what it feels like to wish for things to come true, even things you think impossible. Life is a journey and I think Becket and I would be happy to take that journey together. Okay, we might need to bring the snail along too. I’d be fine with that.
Tell me some things you really like.
I like lists for starters: books, reading, writing, the sea, the word velvet, London, NYC, notebooks, new pens, roses, real fires, falling snow, Christmas, signed books, glitter, fairy lights, day dreaming, seeing two magpies, Scooby Doo, tap dancing, robins, dolls’ houses, chips at the seaside, confetti, scented candles, lip balm, happy people, thinking up names for characters, finding money in my pocket that I didn’t know was there, saying ‘It’s like The Secret Garden’ every time I see a walled garden with a door in it.
Would you ever write a sequel to your books?
Never say never. Although at the moment I don’t have any plans to write sequels as I’ve always imagined that the main character’s story is finished and it’s the right time to leave them, knowing they’re happy. However, maybe if I was writing a smaller story from Charles Scallybones point of view or Brian the snail’s point of view I might be tempted. Who knows, is the honest answer. Perhaps one day I will but no plans right now.
Which of your books is your favourite?
Ah, I can’t pick because I love Dan, Becket and Adam equally. It would be like choosing between cake, biscuits and buns, all are lovely.
Do you like the books you write and would you ever write something completely different?
I do like the books I write and I’d still be quite happy to curl up in a corner on a rainy day and read them (even though I’ve already written them, read them a bazillion times and know the ending off by heart). As a child I read lots of different types of stories from adventures to mysteries, to stories about families and friendships. The books I’ve written would slot in to my ten-year-old self’s bookshelf quite nicely. In fact, I still have a lot of my childhood books and I can see they’ve been read over and over again and it makes me feel happy. Recently, a little girl brought a copy of my book to be signed and it was obvious the book had been read over and over again and that made me very happy indeed. Yes, is the answer to would I ever write something completely different. Yes, why not? If I had a burning desire to write about a tight-rope walking gorilla called Gordon McGee in Smart Billy’s Circus I think I would just go for it. Life’s too short not to.
Sum your books up in a sentence.
Even better, I can do it in three words: humour, heartbreak, hope.
The names in your books are funny where do you get them from?
I love thinking up names. With shop names and places I tend to use puns. Not everyone loves a pun but I do and I’m shameless about it because it amuses me greatly. And if I smile writing the book I hope someone else will too when they read it. Before I wrote books I used to write for a teenage magazine and when I was thinking up snappy headlines for my stories I’d try to think of a pun that would fit the story. For example if I was writing a piece about perfume I’d call it ‘Let us spray’ or something like that. You might not have noticed it but if you keep your eyes peeled you’ll see lots of shops around you have funny names too. Recently I saw ‘Curl Up and Dye’ and ‘Planet of the Grapes’. Genius!