BSC is the 6th stop on the Bram Stoker and British Fantasy Award winning author Tim Lebbon’s Blog Tour. Personally, I enjoy Lebbon’s short fiction, and BSC actually has a story by him, Falling off the World, hosted at our site. I’d highly recommend checking out his collection As the Sun Goes Down. This tour’s purpose is to promote the release of Lebbon’s latest novel in his Noreela setting, The Island (June 1st by Alison & Busby), and the paperback release of his Fallen (which was released last month). Each spot will present some unique feature along with adding to a continuing excerpt from Fallen and an opportunity to win a signed copy of The Island. You can read BSC’s portion of the excerpt here, and enter the contest here utilizing the password VOYAGER. BSC’s unique content in the tour is an essay by Lebbon where he summarizes “everything he has ever written” and its source. Check it out below . . .
I’ve talked a lot on this blog tour about my fantasy world of Noreela, the characters from Fallen and The Island the flora and fauna of this giant island, the creative processes, and the freedom of being able to have sentient tumbleweed in a world of your own creation. So I thought now would be a good time to chat a little about where all this stuff comes from—my head.
Don’t worry, this is just the short version. For the long version, read everything I’ve ever written.
There’s the age-old question that all writers are asked: Where do you get your ideas from? My usual answer is ‘No idea’, and that’s essentially true, so if I wrote about that it’d be a pretty short blog. I actually don’t like dwelling on where my ideas come from too much, just in case analysing their origins somehow causes the source to dry up. In truth I don’t think there’s one true source, but rather a mindset that encourages countless disparate factors to merge and coalesce into story ideas … so, let’s just leave that alone for a bit, shall we? There might be something brewing in there—there usually is—and I don’t want to disturb it. It’ll pop out when it’s good and ready, waking me in the middle of the night, disturbing me during a run or a shopping trip or whilst working on something else, and then it’ll be ready for the real work to begin (my ideas are usually seeds, and the act of writing encourages their eventual growth).
As for why I write what I do, perhaps that’s more worthy and welcome of discussion, investigation, excavation … whatever.
Now, I often spend long periods agonising over my writing, panicking that I’m actually far too boring to be a decent writer. Read most writers’ biographies and they’ll contain details of dozens of exotic, unusual, plain dangerous, or morally questionable jobs, upbringings being shuttled around the world behind parents with fascinating careers, and tales of traumatic events that have steered them to create fictions that are both cathartic and a personal escape. Just occasionally you’ll find a writer who has been a writer all his or her life, and that’s fascinating and exciting in itself.
Me? I left school at 18 with average qualifications, got a job, moved to another place of work at 20, stayed there until I was 37 (I could tell you what I did but then I’d have to kill you), then quit and became a full-time writer. My work used to take me all over my home county of Momouthshire looking at buildings. Hobbies? Reading, walking in the country, running, drinking fine ales … not an alligator, restricted weapon or apocalyptically fast means of transport in sight. Been in trouble with the law? Yep … one speeding ticket, and maybe three parking tickets. Told off by a policeman at 18 for kicking a rubbish sack down the street.
Mean mutha, me.
And yet … I still seem to write some crazy shit. And after long and careful consideration of just why, I’ve come to the conclusion that I am far from normal. In my head, I have always been living in interesting times. Oh, I think I’m pretty level-headed, sociable, a decent sort who loves his family and friends and being in good company … but if I didn’t write, I think a lot of that would be quite different. Very different. If I didn’t write, I’d be someone else entirely.
I can trace my fascination with the fantastic way back to my earliest memories. We lived in the country in Devon when I was a kid, in a house which (to my mind) had a massive garden. I drive by that house once every few years for nostalgia’s sake – I get very nostalgic about a lot of things, especially as I ‘knock on’ towards 40 (July 28th this year, if you’re interested) – and the garden isn’t actually that big at all. But when I was 3 or 4 it was huge, and there was a dense patch of trees and shrubs at the bottom in which something lived. I never knew what that something was, could never quite picture it in my mind, and I think that’s why that something was so bloody scary. I spent a long time avoiding that foliage. Had nightmares about it. And it was nothing to do with what I watched on TV …
Well, okay, maybe it did. The programmes that most stick out for me from my early years (from the ages of 4 to about 10) are Doctor Who, Land of the Giants, Children of the Stones, Land of the Lost, The Tomorrow People, Nigel Kneale’s Beasts (not when I was 4, honest), Tales of the Unexpected … and I’m sure there were at least as many again that I’ve forgotten. These shows always fascinated me, and though I found them scary they were compelling as well, perfectly good reasons to hide behind the sofa but just as good to make sure I could still see the TV.
As for why I liked this sort of stuff from an early age, I don’t know … I’ve always found more excitement in stories that stretch beyond what I know—what we all know—but I guess in that, I’m preaching to the converted here. It’s very rare that I’ve ever written anything that doesn’t have a touch of the fantastic about it, whether it be supernatural or, as with Fallen and The Island, stories set in worlds that are a long, long way from our own. As I’ve said before—and to use one of my long-missed grandmother’s sayings—it’s just the way my mum and dad put my hat on.
And I’d like to thank them very much.
As this blog was an insight into my frankly strange mind, here are the last 5 random thoughts I can remember having (and obviously this has been edited for family reading):
1. When I go for a bike ride later … maybe I should end up at the pub.
2. When it’s really windy why aren’t all the birds blown up against one particular hill?
3. Green Day have lost their edge.
4. How does grass know when to stop growing?
5. Why when I’m on an international blog tour is my Amazon sales ranking going down? (note to self: stop giving away free book …)
And if this wasn’t enough for you and you want to know what other random boring thoughts go through this odd head, follow me on Twitter @timlebbon
About Tim Lebbon: British fantasy-horror writer, Tim Lebbon, is the winner of countless awards including the prestigious Tombstone and Bram Stoker Awards and the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel 2007 for his novel Dusk. He has co-written books with other star authors in the genre, including Christopher Golden, and after years of success in the U.S., has finally been published in the UK as of last year. His novel Fallen is out now. It actually precedes the previous books in the Noreela series in terms of chronology, so for any reader who has yet to be introduced to Noreela, it’s the ideal book to start off with. The Island follows and will be released in hardback 1st June. Visit www.timlebbon.net and www.noreela.com
Check out Tim Lebbon’s next stop on the tour on May 25th Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review, where you can grab another excerpt, have more contest opportunities and more!
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Great interview, adn the books sound awesome