Saturday with Derek Landy: 'I need silence — that’s when my imagination activates'
Derek Landy: To be animal lovers and to have the opportunity to have pets is an absolute pleasure – they offer so much joy every day.
I get up and feed our seven cats and the dog. For us, it’s normal but anyone who walks into the house might think: ‘That’s a lot of cats!’. Our Golden Retriever has no idea what size she is and will try to jump up on the arm of the chair like a cat. To be animal lovers and to have the opportunity to have pets is an absolute pleasure – they offer so much joy every day.
I’ll have Greek yoghurt, fruit, seeds and nuts for breakfast.
I’ll go to the office where my eldest cat will sit on my chest for 20 minutes. I’ll play a podcast for the amount of time that it takes the cat to get bored because I can’t work or check emails while she’s sitting there.
When I’m driving or walking I can’t listen to podcasts. I cannot fill my time with other people’s words. I need silence. Within those moments, within that silence, that’s when my imagination activates.
For any writer, silence is essential –you have to allow yourself to be bored in order to daydream. I am making my way through a series of interviews with horror writers while the cat sits on me. When I go to conventions I don’t get a chance to listen to other writers because I’m always talking at them myself.
As the wonderful writer Garth Marenghi would say: ‘I’m one of the rare writers who has written more books than they’ve read’. For years I couldn’t read a book while I was writing. Some of my favourite writers have very distinct voices such as Elmor Leonard, Joe Lansdale and Steven Graham Jones. I had to stop reading them because I couldn’t allow myself to be influenced by their rhythms.
At one point a few years ago I realised that I had broken that cycle, so now when I write I need to be reading. That ball of excitement in your chest when you read a book you adore –that’s a feeling that I want to pass on to other people through my books.
If I’m in the middle of a book I’ll go straight into it. If I’m still feeling my way around I will go onto social media (as much as I despise it) and ease into work by 10.30am. If I’m not solidly into work by 11am I’m procrastinating.
Deadlines are hugely important to me. No matter how ‘not into it’ I might feel, I open the documents, start writing and within 15 minutes it doesn’t matter how I was feeling because things are moving.
My girlfriend will demand that I get her a coffee so I will pop down to the local coffee shop for a welcome break.
I’ll walk the dog and I might go to the gym for an hour. I don’t mind taking time off during the day but if I had my way I would stay at the desk until 10pm. The reason I have a crushing workload is because I work such long hours. I might be writing one book and my editor will go ‘How about writing two Skulduggery books and a podcast story and…?’ or Marvel comics might ask me to write Doctor Strange. The reason I say ‘yes’ to most, if not all things, is because I work long hours and I know I can get the work done. The work doesn’t lead me to long hours, long hours lead me to the work.
We will take the opportunity to relax. We’ll potter around. I don’t visit anyone until Sunday when I’ll visit my folks or spend time with my siblings and nieces.
We don’t go to the cinema at the weekend because it’s too crowded and noisy. At the moment we’re watching and are going back over I’m also rewatching to be in sync with my mother who has just started watching it.
I used to drink alcohol but I stopped going out after Skulduggery kicked off because I would go for pints and have an awful hangover the next day. I have done martial arts for years and there is no point in learning how to avoid fights and to defend yourself if you’re going to get drunk, lose your inhibitions and your guard, or be in a position where you have to defend yourself or disrupt someone else’s night.
We will realise it’s time for bed at about 11.30pm. My girlfriend will head upstairs with most of the cats. I’ll stay downstairs with some of the cats and the dog.
I’ll go to bed at around 1.30am and will fall asleep at the drop of a hat.
- Derek Landy has just published, A Heart Full of Hatred, the 17th book in his Skulduggery Pleasant series, published by HarperCollins. Fans can catch Landy today in Eason Dundrum from 12pm and tomorrow in Kennys Bookshop in Galway from 1pm. skulduggerypleasant.co.uk
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