I definitely don't write with any kind of 'message' or 'lesson,' probably because when I was a child, I used to run a mile from books like that.
From Michelle Paver
I would love to live in the wilds of nowhere, and when writing 'Chronicles,' I would occasionally rent a cottage in the middle of nowhere that had no mobile reception, but I'm not about to move away from my family.
I sometimes wonder why I do so much research - I look at other successful writers, and I think it must just be so relaxing to write about flying horses or something, but I have to make it plausible.
A lot of my writing is wish-fulfilment, making things the way I want them to be.
To get the feel of the polar night, I went back to Spitsbergen in winter. I went snowshoeing in the dark and experimented with headlamps and climbed a glacier in driving snow.
If you get a sense that your writing isn't quite working, change it. Or cut it out. Don't just tell yourself it'll do, because it won't.
I'm not the next J. K. Rowling. We've got one already. It's flattering to be compared to her. I like her books and loved the first three particularly, but apart from the fact that they've got young boys as heroes, they're very different.
For a child, reading a book can be such an intense experience.
By about chapter six of 'Wolf Brother,' I was having so much fun that I knew I wanted it to go on and I couldn't tell Torak's story in one book. So I sat down, and it took me about a week to plan in broad outline all six books.
I rode 300 miles through the forest and ate all sorts of strange food. And every time 'Torak' did something new, like swimming with killer whales or kayaking, I thought I'd better go and do it.
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