I long ago accepted that I have a natural tendency towards the superstitious, seeing signs and portents in every little thing. Unfortunately, I also have a natural tendency towards anxiety-filled neurotic pessimism. As such my personal list of superstitions, carried with me from childhood on, ran roughly as follows:

…and so on. As you can imagine, this becomes pretty hard to live with. There are an awful lot of cats wandering around the place, and if every time you see one it is going to cause you to feel the ICY GRIP OF DEATH UPON YOUR HEART for the rest of the day, things can get to be a bit of a drag.

And so, I grew up and embraced a healthy rational emipiricist snootiness about such ideas, acknowledging the truth that all these happenings are essentially meaningless, in and of themselves.

The thing is though… that that’s not really the point. It’s not about the meaning these events carry in and of themselves, it’s about the meaning you ascribe to them. And while you can know something rationally, somehow it is still possible to feel very differently. In short, to still freak out whenever you spill some salt, even though you rationally know perfectly well that the only bad thing is that you’ve wasted a small amount of salt. Which is fairly cheap after all, and let’s face it you probably ought to be cutting down your salt intake anyway.

And so I pressed on through early adulthood, desperately attempting if never entirely managing to suppress my own irrational panic-mongering. And then one day my son was born, and – well, to cut a long story short: my head melted.

Suddenly things were very serious, and very important, and all the bad old cognitive habits came flooding back and I could barely enter a room without seeing five or six urgent and troubling Portents of Oncoming Doom.

Fortunately, I came to a helpful and indeed life-changing realisation, which in order to improve the mental wel-being of the nation I shall selflessly share with you here. It can be summed up as: “ah, nuts to all that.”

I may not be able to do anything about the fact that I am, deep down, an emotionally superstitious person. But I can at least turn that tendency to good. Given that superstitions are entirely arbitrary, I simply decided to create my own equally arbitrary new ones, but in such a way that they would cheer me up rather than stressing me out. And so, in this spirit, I give you my own Brand New and decidedly Super set of Superstitions…

…and I don’t even play the lottery. That is the power of superstition.

You’re welcome.

Neill Cameron lives in Oxford, writing and drawing comics and generally being delighted whenever he sees a squirrel. His first graphic novel, ‘Mo-Bot High’ is out now as part of the fantastic DFC Library series. Neill is currently working on new projects combining dinosaurs, pirates, monkeys and numerous other Things That Are Awesome for new weekly children’s comic The Phoenix, available now!

Neill’s website: www.neillcameron.com

Neill’s blog: neillcameron.blogspot.com

I hesitate to tell you this – because I admired Diana Wynne Jones’ writing a great deal and I realize the blog theme is in her honour – but honesty compels me to share that I don’t believe in jinxes, curses or superstition. I know. What’s the point of being a writer if you can’t pretend there are more things in heaven and earth? Surely I should just revisit my parents’ advice and consider a career in something sensible.

I don’t doubt for one minute that Diana Wynne Jones did have no end of mishaps whilst traveling. But no matter how hard I try I can’t stop my treacherous little brain whispering, ‘well she probably traveled a lot didn’t she? More than the average person anyway which would mean her chances of encountering misfortune were therefore significantly higher than the norm.’

It’s a very unimaginative way of looking at things. But in my defence a lack of respect for superstition was one of the things I really loved about the smugglers who partly inspired the backstory in both Mistress of the Storm and Heart of Stone.

I grew up on the Isle of Wight, which has a long and proud history of smuggling (we’ve even got a theme park dedicated to the subject …yes, again I know but actually it’s pretty cool). Anyway, there is a road on the Island, near the center, known locally as Betty Haunt Lane. And the popular story about that track, even today, is that Betty was a smuggler’s daughter who fell in love with a customs man.

Later, apparently, she betrayed both her father and her smuggler friends by reporting them to the authorities. Read the rest of this entry »

Describe the place where you write/draw

I can’t work at a desk! I will work anywhere in my house, usually in my dining room or on the sofa. I have to be relaxed and comfortable to be able to be creative. I have various sketchbooks and my laptop scattered around the house.

What is your most treasured possession?

 I can’t be specific on this either as I have too many things I can’t live without! Some of my favourite possessions are books signed by fellow authors and illustrators, I have quite a nice collection now. I did an event recently with Marc Boutavant – the amazingly talented french illustrator and he signed a ‘Mouk’ book for me. He spent ages doing a beautiful drawing on the title page, in fact he spent so long doing the drawing he didn’t get to eat much of his dinner before we went on stage.

What times of the day do you work? All day, every day. I do stop sometimes but I don’t have a strict routine! Once I worked until dawn to try and meet a deadline, needless to say I wasn’t very productive the next day so now I do try to be sensible and have lots of bourbon biscuit breaks.

What distracts you?

Twitter, tea, my family, random ideas for stories, things in the fridge. I live on a busy residential street and there are always people to spy on out the window if I’m bored!

What is your favourite smell?

Damp leaves in the wood after it has rained…. ooh and grass cuttings.

Cat or dog?

Dog, I have one and we do dog agility together (the thing they do at Crufts with jumps, obstacles and tunnels, except we’re not quite to competition standard!). Here is a picture of him in the sea, he loves to swim too.

Read the rest of this entry »

Describe the place where you write.

I write in libraries.  I love them: they’ve got everything I need.  I would be totally lost without libraries.

Heart-breakingly, my favourite library is about to be shut down.  It’s the saddest thing in the world when something you love stops existing.

I wanted to put a nice picture of it here, but this is the only one I’ve got, taken a few years ago.  It’s strange; it looks so ghostly, as if it’s already dissolving away.  Maybe the camera knew what was going to happen?

What times of the day do you work?

There isn’t a set time.  Usually I give myself a goal for the day – say, writing 1,000 words, or editing a couple of chapters – and when it’s done, I’m free.

What distracts you?

Everything.  It’s so much easier to be distracted than it is to concentrate – and that’s why I love libraries, because there are no distractions there!

But my favourite distraction, as I’ve mentioned before, is photography.  I’ve just started using a wooden box camera from the 1930s, and I can’t stop making pictures like this:

Read the rest of this entry »

As Custodian of Charlie Small’s Journals, I was lucky enough to be able to speak directly to the lost boy adventurer on his crackling, hissing mobile. I put Tilda’s questions directly to him, and here are his answers:

Describe the place where you write/draw.
I write up my journals wherever and whenever I can. I might be a prisoner of the great apes of Gorilla City; I could be on a mission with Snipe and his rodent-like, pickpocketing gang in Fortune City, but if I get a moment I’ll scribble down all my latest adventures.

What is your most treasured possession?

My rucksack! It contains my explorer’s kit – all the things that might come in useful on my amazing adventures. I’ve got a tube of instant super-glue, the skull of a Barbarous Bat, the bony finger from an animated skeleton, a penknife, the glass eye from a steam-powered rhinoceros, the tooth from a monstrous megashark, and loads of other stuff!

What times of the day do you work?
I’m on the go 24/7, unless I’ve been taken prisoner of course – like the time I was turned into a performing marionette. I spent ages trapped in my own skin, which had been petrified by the dastardly Puppet Master!

Read the rest of this entry »

Describe the place where you write/draw.

What is your most treasured possession?

What times of the day do you work?

What distracts you?
Read the rest of this entry »

I wish I had some good sailing stories to tell you, but I don’t.  I can tell you a story about the sea, though.

The sea is my favourite place to go when I want to relax.  I don’t mind where in the world it is, or what the weather’s like – there is something about the sea that always makes me happy.

I can spend hours, days, weeks, just standing by the shore, watching the waves come and go, listening to them break upon the land. Read the rest of this entry »

Being a bit of a daydreamer is a great quality to have if you’re an author: first time it’s ever come in handy in my life. Generally speaking though, it’s not something you look for in a sailor.

I always have to start any blog posts about the sea and sailing with a caveat explaining that I’m not actually a particularly good dinghy sailor: it’s just something I love.

Oh how embarrassing then to have an entire series of eminent authors (and me) writing posts dedicated to sailing. I’m starting to feel like I’m on one of those radio confession slots now. But, dear reader, I have to admit that I am such an inadequate sailor that it nearly done for me, and another unfortunate.

I’ve blocked most of the details from my mind but suffice to say it was a summer in the 1980’s; I was trying to learn how to be a slightly-less-average sailor courtesy of a UKSA week-long course, and was dutifully tacking across Cowes harbour in a Wayfarer with some poor boy from London.

It had not been an auspicious pairing this young man and I. He was shy, I was awkward, the weather was freezing: we didn’t get off to a brilliant start. And after we’d spent 30 minutes in the mouth of Wootton creek – in the water and the pouring rain – trying (and failing) to right our capsized boat, relations were on the downhill slope.

But what do you know, come the last day the weather turned, we were a bit more confident and things started to feel much better. ‘How lovely,’ I thought to myself as I sat at the helm. It was Dinghy Week and there were lots of other boats on the water, the sun was shining. ‘Isn’t this pretty?’ I expect I was thinking to myself, possibly whilst playing a 1980s tune in my head by way of a soundtrack.

Lovely green water, clear blue sky, I wonder if I’ll get a tan today…

Until suddenly my crewmate’s hand grabbed mine angrily and tacked our Wayfarer violently. Read the rest of this entry »

Ahoy there, and a Happy New Year to ye!

Over the next 2 months, the storyblog is going to be awash(ho ho) with nautical tales - of sea, sand, salty air, and sailing!   Last week, we published A Boy and a Bear in a Boat by Dave Shelton and Heart of Stone by Melanie Welsh, and next month we’ll be releasing The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan.  Although very different, all three titles share some common ground: a journey over water, a harbour town with magical history and Selkie legend.  That’s right, all three stories take place in, on and besides the sea!   So, the DFB Storybloggers – authors and ilustrators all – will be sharing their thoughts, memories and ideas based on the seaside – these might be photos, jokes, artwork, prose…  We’ll have to wait and see.   Watch out for the first post from Linda Newbery this Thursday!

When I finished writing The Outlaw Varjak Paw, I knew very little about my next book.  I was sure of only two things.  First, it would not be a Varjak Paw book; I wanted to do something completely different.  Second, I had an idea for a story about someone who goes on an epic journey to the end of the world.  But I had no idea who this person would be, or what it would feel like to do such a thing.

While writing my books, I’d also been working as a film journalist.  My favourite film of all time is Atanarjuat The Fast Runner.  That incredible image above is a still from it, and believe me, the film is even better than the still!  It was made in 2001 in the Canadian Arctic by Inuit film-makers, based on oral legends thousands of years of old, and it completely blew me away.  I got to know the makers when I interviewed them, and they kindly invited me to visit them the next time they made a film.

So in 2005, just after finishing Outlaw, I went up to the Arctic.  Specifically to a place called Igloolik, on the edge of the frozen sea, in the Baffin Island region of Canada.  That’s where they live, and I stayed with them while they shot their second film, The Journals Of Knud Rasmussen.

Read the rest of this entry »