BIO

Garth Nix grew up in Canberra, Australia. Besides being a full-time writer, he has worked as a sales rep, publicist, editor, marketing communications consultant, literary agent and part-time soldier. He is the author of SABRIEL, LIRAE and ABHORSEN, the books in the internationally bestselling Abhorsen trilogy, as well as SHADE'S CHILDREN and THE RAGWITCH. He now lives in Sydney, a five-minute walk from Coogee Beach, with his wife, Anna, his sons, Thomas and Edward, and lots of books.

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INTERVIEW

April 19, 2004

Award-winning author Garth Nix talks to Carol Fitzgerald of Kidsreads.com and her nine-year-old son Cory about his inspiration for the Keys to the Kingdom series and what he and Arthur Penhaligon have in common. He also discusses how he selects what to write next, his writing routine, and what readers can expect from him in the coming months.

KRC: What made you decide to write The Keys to the Kingdom series?

GN: That's a good question. It's always hard to decide what to write next. I always have a whole bunch of different ideas that I write in a black and red notebook, which I carry with me all the time. I always have lots of ideas that I write down in that notebook. Whichever of those ideas ends up sticking in my head the longest is what I start writing next. For The Keys to the Kingdom I had the seven names that would be the titles to the books: MISTER MONDAY, GRIM TUESDAY, DROWNED WEDNESDAY, SIR THURSDAY, LADY FRIDAY, SUPERIOR SATURDAY and LORD SUNDAY. I just had those seven names. I did not have anything else. I just had that basic idea. So then, over a year or so, I found myself writing more about these characters and who they were. And realizing in fact that they were the names of characters and then developing the story that would become MISTER MONDAY.

So really I am writing this series because that is the idea that stuck most in my head and lasted the longest. I have lots of other ideas for books, but this is the prevailing one of the moment --- the one that wants to come out. There are tons of stuff that are always bubbling in my head, a whole host of ideas, and there is one ready to come out as a story.

KRC: What was your inspiration for using days of the week in your titles and as a theme?

GN: I was not even thinking of them. They came out when I was writing ABHORSEN. I just stopped and wrote down the names with no idea where they came from. Perhaps I was looking at my diary and saw Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and they came from there. I honestly don't know. It's very hard to pinpoint where my ideas come from.

KRC: Do you always have to write an idea down to remember it?

GN: I don't have to write things down if I do not have my notebook with me. Good ideas just stick around. They float around inside my head. I might forget them temporarily, but they always come back. That's how I can tell that they are good ideas --- because they won't go away. Like if I wake up during the night with an idea, I may not remember it in the morning but I may remember it two weeks from now. The good ideas definitely stick around.

KRC: We know you already have the titles of each of the books in the Keys series. Have you already outlined the books or are the stories still evolving?

GN: I have quite comprehensive notes about parts of the stories in each book. I know how it ends basically. It's the process for everything I write. I write loose outlines that are like a map with landmarks, but the rest of it is blank. I know where I am going up to a point. I don't have a comprehensive outline. Even when I do have a comprehensive outline, which I often write when I am into writing a book, they often do not look like the finished book. Parts of them will, but only parts of them. The landmarks will be similar, but the details will be different. Of course, as I am writing them, new ideas are fermenting. New characters come along and all kinds of things introduce themselves that I hadn't thought of, which then end up changing the story. But I usually end up where I intended to go. So I have a pretty good idea of those big landmarks that are important plot points and are always there.

KRC: In the books Arthur has asthma. Didn't you have asthma as a child?

GN: Yes I did. I suffered from asthma and bronchitis from when I was about 6 until I was about 15 when I grew out it, which often happens. I was very pleased to grow out of it.

In fact, the beginning of MISTER MONDAY where Arthur is out on a cross-country run and he passes out is drawn from an incident that happened to me when I was 9 or 10 and I was on a cross-country run. I started to feel an attack coming on and I thought I could break through my breathing difficulties if I could just keep going and it would get better and I would be able to breathe easier. But instead I passed out. And a couple of my friends thought I was being an idiot and asked, "What are you doing here lying on the ground?" In fact, I got my breath back enough to be able to walk back to the school and then it just passed. I forgot about it. I never told anyone about it, including my mother. In fact, she was horrified when she read MISTER MONDAY and I told her that the beginning with Arthur happened to me when I was 9 or 10. And she said, "You never told me." Then I asked, "Did I tell you about the time I was knocked out with a softball bat?" And she said, "No."

Basically, with both those cases it just happened and I was fine, so I just drew on it later.

The asthma attack is very clear to me, which is why I wrote it so vividly. I was not a chronic sufferer. Winter was worse for me. I remember how it would start. I would not be able to draw a full breath in. Ironically just when I started writing MISTER MONDAY, or a bit before, I started to have some trouble breathing after having no trouble with this since I was 15. Now I was 38 or 39 and I started to have trouble again. I now carry something for preventative measure, which was not available when I was a child. I did not have an inhaler as a child. I had ventilate syrup. Times have changed.

KRC: Did your asthma keep you from having adventures?

GN: Not really. Occasionally in winter I would stop playing football because of it. Sometimes I would stop doing something until I recovered and then I grew out of it. It did not really affect me. I was always more careful in winter. I realize from that passing out incident that I had to stop and learn not to push.

KRC: We are having a debate. What country do these books take place in?

GN: Do you have a particular thought on that?

KRC: Australia or England?

GN: Yes, it could be Australia or England. It could be America. It is meant to be someplace that could be in any of those countries. It's meant to be a near future timetable --- maybe three to five years in the future --- in Australia, America or England, because in fact they are very similar. There are superficial differences, but they are all the same as far as being part of Western culture.

The books are deliberately not specific because I want to make it feel to the reader that it could be their hometown or school. It is intentionally not specific.

KRC: Do you have all the Wills and Keys planned out?

GN: In terms of what shape the Wills will take and how they play out? Yes. I have them, but I may change them. For example, for DROWNED WEDNESDAY I planned for the Will to take a particular shape but I changed it. The same thing happened with the Keys. I know what I have planned, but I may change them. One of the things that I did quite early on was to plan the Wills and the Keys, but I guess the shape that the Will takes and the changing is because the characters with each part of the Will are more interesting than I planned them to be. Thus, rather than just devices, they need to work with the characters. In DROWNED WEDNESDAY the Will did not work with the character I have with it; let's say this was an animal. It's not the right sort of shape. And I rewrote it.

KRC: Why did you select Suzy Turquoise Blue to be Arthur's helper? Why did you cast this character as a girl and not a boy?

GN: Suzy is a tomboy. When I was thinking about the story I thought Arthur would have to have a comrade of some kind. I actually did not know who that would be. I knew there was going to be an Inkfiller but was not sure if it was going to be a boy or a girl, but as I started writing, the character became Suzy Turquoise Blue. Some characters just pop up and they take over like that. They are very interesting and are like scene stealing co-stars who grab scenes.

Suzy is a good contrast to Arthur. Suzy is more flamboyant. Arthur is sort of steady as he goes. But he is a hero and has those classic heroic qualities that are determination and that quiet bravery, so you can go somewhere else with Suzy.

KRC: Is it hard for you to write the villains in your story? Or does evil come naturally?

GN: It comes naturally (this is said with a very deep evil tone). Villains are no harder than heroes, and are easier in fact because it is easier to think of bad things than good things. But I do try to make my villains more interesting than bad characters. I like to have them driven by some motivation so they are not just doing evil for evil's sake but are doing it for a reason.

KRC: The most confusing part for me is when the Nithlings came up out of the ground. What inspired you to make them evolve from nothing?

GN: I think because I am drawing upon a lot of myth and legend there. There are a lot of cultures that believe that before the world existed there was nothing. And so I am drawing on those ideas that there was chaos and then order was brought out of chaos by someone or a divine being of some kind. The take on that is that there was nothing and then the architect created the house out of nothing. And all secondary myths sprung from there. So actually it's a creation myth, like creation myths that exist in many cultures.

Also, I like the idea of nothing still being there. In my creation myths the nothing is used up. I like it still being there and trying to turn the whole world and universe into nothing. It gives an interesting opposite to the House and everything in it. In the Nithling I give this nothing a name. Nithling is also a word for an outlaw who is cast out and does not belong to anything. It is a nothing, "You are nothing now. You are a Nithling."

KRC: Do you draw pictures or sketch places as you are writing to give yourself a feel for the action?

GN: Sometimes. Not usually. Sometimes I do sketches as I am trying to work out the action on what is happening. Like in GRIM TUESDAY I drew some pictures of the pyramid to work out the relationship between the tower and the pyramid, trying to figure out how tall the faces would be. So I draw little sketches and a map sometimes to work out and help me visualize the action so I can describe it properly. Occasionally I will draw an object, like the grandfather clocks, when I am trying to work it out for let's say the spatial relationships. And other people and things. I mostly don't have to do it because I see it in my head.

KRC: Who is the first person to read your finished manuscripts?

GN: My editor, David Levithan, my agent and my wife, who is a publisher, all read the finished manuscript simultaneously. As a rule I don't let anyone read the manuscripts until they are actually finished. I don't send them out to people in advance. I don't like to get feedback along the way, though occasionally when I have a chapter that I am not happy with, I will give it to Anna, my wife, and see if she sees the flaw that I have not seen. Sometimes I have shown David something in progress, but I prefer it to be me and the paper.

KRC: How long does it take to write a book?

GN: That's hard to say. I normally take a long time thinking about something before I start writing. If you include that time and apportion it to each book, it's about a year. From the first word of MISTER MONDAY to the last word, it was about 7 months and then another 3 months editing. Some of the other books have taken much longer. Not in the Keys series, but others that I have written. The quickest was probably 3-4 months for a couple of the Seventh Tower books. I wrote two of them in six months. I was just carried along by the narrative.

It takes me probably 75% of the time to write the first half of the book, so the last is always the quickest. It might take me five months to write the first part of the book and then one month to write the rest of it. The longer I have thought about a book, the faster I work on it. Sometimes I take a couple of years before I write the first word.

KRC: What do you like best about writing for kids?

GN: I don't write specifically for children. I write for myself at separate ages. I am writing Keys to the Kingdom for myself when I was 10 and as I am now. And writing for my 10-year-old self means the book has as its entry point kids that age or younger, if they are good readers. I guess one of the things that I like about these books and other children's books is that children's novels are very traditional stories with a beginning, middle and an end, and characters that you can relate to. Story is king in children's novels and that is what I love. I am very story-oriented. I try to write a good story --- a story that will carry you through from the beginning to the end. I think there is no bigger compliment than "I could not put your book down." And that is what I try to do. That is quite an achievement when you do that.

Characters are part of the story, but when you tell someone about a book you tell them about the story. They do not talk about the themes. That is very telling. Story is what we are hardwired for.

KRC: Did you have a big imagination when you were little?

GN: Oh yes. I was always making things up and having my adventures --- adventures in normal life that were sort of added by being imagined to be more than they were. I never just went riding my bike by the shores of the local lake. I was always on an expedition to the source of the Nile or something like that.

KRC: When you were a kid did you like writing stories? Can you tell us about a story you wrote?

GN: Yes, I did. Not a huge amount, but I did write stories. My parents have held onto the stories I wrote, some of which I have no recollection at all. About three years ago my younger brother for Christmas produced this stapled eight-page book of these very short stories with illustrations, which had "by Garth Nix" on the front in block letters, not squiggles. He had been helping my mother clean up and had found it. I thought he had manufactured it as a joke since I had no recollection of it. My parents remembered it. I had done it when I was six or seven. It had such gems as "The Coin Shower," which went something like this: "A boy went outside. All of a sudden it started raining coins. He started to pick some up and it stopped raining coins." That was it. It had the rudimentary beginning, middle and end going on. There were a couple of other little stories like that.

KRC: Did you like school?

GN: I liked school up until the end of high school when I wanted to get out to the real world and do stuff. At about 16 I thought I would have freedom to do what I wanted. Of course in reality you leave school and get a job and have even less freedom, but you do not realize that for some time. But I liked it up until then. I never hated it, but I was keen to get out and start doing other things.

KRC: What was your favorite class?

GN: Probably history and English would be the two favorites, which I do not think is a surprise to anyone. The teacher did have a lot to do with it. A great teacher could inspire one to like history or English or math or science. Teachers are very undervalued for what they do.

KRC: You are such a prolific writer --- and you write such complicated stories. How do you write as much as you do?

GN: I am actually not that prolific when you consider I have been writing for 20 years. I have been steady, but not as prolific as it seems. The last five years have been very busy, but I have been writing for 20 years so it averages out as less than a book a year.

KRC: How do you keep all the plots in your head?

GN: I have a lot of stuff in my head. It's always in jumble with plots and characters and ideas and snatches of dialogue and description. It comes and goes, but tends to be there when I need it. But as you write, you find out more as you go along. Things come together when you need them. The more I write, the more that works. The more you write, the more you realize that your imagination will supply you with ideas.

KRC: Do you have any advice for writers?

GN: If you like what you are writing, just write. Try to keep going before you stop to take a break. Keep going back before too much time has passed. And just stay with it.

KRC: Can you remember a grocery list as well as you remember your characters and plots?

GN: No. Actually I have a very poor memory for people, people's names and for mundane things like grocery lists. I can get 100 meters from the house and completely forget what I was supposed to take or do and have to go back. So I am absentminded in my daily life.

KRC: We know you are a real Tolkien fan. Did you rush to see each Lord of the Rings movie as they came out? Did you have a favorite?

GN: I saw them all as they came out, not as soon as they came out (since I do not like crowded movie theatres) but in the first 2-3 weeks. I do not have a favorite. I have favorite parts of each film. I think they are very good adaptations of very difficult books. There are parts in there that I would not have done, but I am able to separate the books from the films. I love the books; I like the films. But I also respect the films as a tremendous achievement. They are done very, very well even though they are not my perfect ideal of a film from the books.

KRC: Are there any plans to make a movie about The Keys to the Kingdom?

GN: There has been continual interest. It just has not been the right interest. I am very protective of the rights to my books, as the only thing you have control over is who you sell them to. And I would happily sell them to the right individuals with the right backing instead of selling them to a studio and allowing them to do whatever they want with them. I would rather have no movie than a bad movie. It is quite possible that there is someone who is 15 or 16 years old now who in ten years will be a director and they will do these movies since they are in love with the books and not just because fantasy is the flavor of the month, which it is now. I want someone with a genuine passion for the book, individuals with the right corporate backing.

KRC: What do you see as the impact of Harry Potter on the fantasy genre?

GN: There always has been good fantasy around. The incredible success of Harry Potter as a social phenomenon has certainly made everyone more aware of fantasy --- media, parents and children, as well. It's a huge tidal wave. It has had an enormous impact on children's literature and fantasy. I often think I should write J.K. Rowling a thank-you note. After all, I was having my success in my little canoe and then this huge wave comes along and I was carried along in its wake. And I am very glad that I was already writing what I was writing since I was able to do that with more attention rather than being seen as a bandwagon jumper. I instead just kept on doing the same thing. I think it may be difficult for someone who just naturally wants to write fantasy and does not want to be seen as "Johnny Cash In." I am glad I was around before this whole thing. I am also grateful it has raised the profile of the genre and made people far more interested in fantasy.

KRC: What do you think about the age ranges denoted on books since younger children have read your material?

GN: I think that the age range is a push down. If the desire is there to read the book, they will read it. I know I read books that were not for my age when I was a child. There were always books around and I was a very good reader and reading all the time. I think it has been more interesting given Harry Potter to see how younger children are finding these books at a younger age than what was planned.

KRC: You often have a big word in your books, ones that can even have adults scrambling for a dictionary. Why do you do that?

GN: I like to push children and I try not to change words for them. Readers of any age can get the meaning of the word from context and the story that is surrounding it. And the word does not stick out, but rather is just part of the story, which is why I try not to change it unless I receive a lot of pressure to do so. Readers can figure it out from the context or it does not matter.

KRC: What has surprised you most about being here in the States this trip?

GN: I have been to the States a lot, and from watching so much American television as a child, it does not feel that different from my life in Australia. As a traveler mundane things feel different. The middle of last year airline security was not as tight as it is now.

Fans are the same around the world. My fans come from a very broad cross section of ages since I write for so many ages. What surprises me somewhat is the age of the children reading Keys to the Kingdom and the Seventh Tower series; they are younger than I would assume. I like seeing the broad range of readers when I travel and do store events.

KRC: A reader from Australia wrote me the other night looking for your address. She is working on a paper for school and wanted to ask you what the weirdest question is that you were ever asked.

GN: Mostly they are not weird questions. For the most part they want to know mundane things, like when the next book is coming out or how many books I have written. Often there are questions about characters or something that happened in a book. Or they speculate on what could happen after the end of the book. Or they ask me to clarify something they did not understand.

Unfortunately I do not have time to respond, so I am trying to streamline my website so people will get the answers to those questions there. That is what I am developing now. I am having someone go through the questions asked in the last two years and answer them on the website.

The weirdest questions are from people who think things I have written about are real. They ask where the house is, or from the Sabriel books they ask where I can get the Book of the Dead. They are asking as if what I wrote is real.

I do get mail from students who have an assignment where they are asked to write an interpretation of my book and they write me to ask me for it. And I often answer that mail and say that I don't think that's the point. I think the point is that you are supposed to write about your own interpretation of it.

KRC: You are now a dad. Has that changed anything about your writing?

GN: To date my son has not changed anything about the writing itself, though my writing practices have changed. It has changed my working practices and hours. I also have become reacquainted with older picture books as well as new picture books. I have always had an interest in picture books and I always have wanted to write a picture book, but I think they are among the most difficult things to write. You have so few words. There are many average picture books and not many great ones. Many of the average ones are copycats of the very good ones. You have to have such a distilled idea and very few words. In the average ones there are often many words since they are not able to distill them down to the real thing. Great ones like all books stand the test of time

KRC: How hard was it to name your son after naming characters all these years?

GN: Yes, it was hard. Thomas was there as a baby…he obviously had a name, but we needed to find what it was. We had a short list of names, but they went out the window. Because he was not any of those names.

KRC: What can you tell us about DROWNED WEDNESDAY?

GN: Not very much. It's a nautical adventure about ships at seas and pirates and strange aquatic beasties.

KRC: What are you working on now?

GN: I am just finishing DROWNED WEDNESDAY. I am late with it as I was on tour in the UK and now here in the States. I hope it will be the better for being late. I would prefer to have the right book later than the wrong one on time. We are now thinking it will come out in January 2005. While writing is wonderful, it has been great getting out visiting the readers and seeing what has happened along the way. I have enjoyed this enormously.

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AUTHOR TALK

August 2003

Garth Nix is the New York Times bestselling author of THE SEVENTH TOWER series, in addition to the acclaimed novels SABRIEL, LIRAEL and ABHORSEN. In this interview Garth talks about his new series, THE KEYS TO THE KINGDOM, as well as his fascination with the number 7, his role models and favorite authors, and much more.

Q: What inspired you to write THE KEYS TO THE KINGDOM series?

GN: I have no idea where the basic inspiration for the series came from. I just sat down one afternoon and wrote seven titles in my notebook, from MISTER MONDAY to LORD SUNDAY. Then I wondered what these seven books would be about. Who were these seven weird people I'd just invented?

Then I started thinking about who the main character would be and I remembered something that happened to me when I was nine or ten years old. I was on a cross-country run and I started having difficulty breathing, but I thought it would pass, so I kept on running till I passed out from lack of oxygen. A couple of my friends helped me up, we waited a while till I felt better and then we finished the run! I never told anyone and it never happened again, though I used to get bronchitis every winter and was probably a mild asthmatic.

So that's why the hero of Mister Monday is an asthmatic, who faints on a cross-country run. Though after that Arthur Penhaligon has a very different experience to my own!

Q: Any fascination with the number 7?

GN: Lots of fascination. Seven is an important number in many cultures, myths and religions. Why do we have seven days in a week? Why seven deadly sins and seven virtues? Why is seven important in dice games? Some words and numbers resonate because of their historical importance in many cultures that are the foundation for our own, and "seven" is one of these.

Q: What made you decide to become a writer?

GN: I love telling stories. Making things up and crafting them into a written story so they work and entertain other people is very satisfying. You start with your thoughts and blank paper and after a lot of hard work, hopefully have the satisfaction of creating something that can be shared with thousands or even millions of readers.

Q: Where do you get your ideas for THE KEYS TO THE KINGDOM?

GN: Ideas come from all over the place. They don't quite drop like a gentle rain from heaven, but they do pop into my head very frequently. Ideas come from the people I see, the books I read, the clouds that drift overhead, the music that I'm listening to. In the particular case of THE KEYS TO THE KINGDOM series, some of the inspiration has come from the novels of Charles Dickens, from books about 19th century antiques, from old photographs, from the Bible, from Greek legends, from sitting at a cafe watching people walk against the wind, from music by Velvet Underground and Machine Translations and early Beatles and Bach and 1930s jazz, from watching the ravens outside my window, and dodging the spider who weaves a web every evening next to the porch light . . .

Q: What do you like best about writing books for children?

GN: Children (and adults who haven't forgotten) are able to completely surrender to a story, to immerse themselves in the other world of the book. That's the experience I seek as a reader, so that's what I try to achieve as a writer. Children are often braver readers, less concerned than many adults by what other people think about their reading choices or the time they spend reading. But having said that, ultimately I believe a good book is a good book, regardless of the age group it's published for. Many children's books are enjoyed by people of all ages and I think that's the ultimate aim, to write a book that escapes all boundaries of category and genre and reading age.

Q: How is THE KEYS TO THE KINGDOM different from other books you've written?

GN: It's different because it is set in a very near-future America or Australia, which I haven't really done before, and also in a fantasy world which is quite different from anything I've created in the past.

Q: What are some of your favorite books?

GN: This is a very difficult question to answer, as I have so many favourites. Lots of fantasy and science fiction, of course, but also historical novels and non-fiction. My favourite authors included J.R.R Tolkien, Ursula Le Guin, Susan Cooper, Alan Garner, Lloyd Alexander, Robert Heinlein, Andre Norton, John Masefield, C. S. Lewis, Georgette Heyer, Dorothy Sayers, Rosemary Sutcliff, Ronald Welch, Cynthia Harnett, Patricia McKillip, Jane Austen, Victoria Walker, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Arthur Ransome, Margery Allingham, Joan Aiken, Charles Dickens, Brian Aldiss, Jack Vance, Robert Graves, Diana Wynne Jones, Robin McKinley, E. J. McGraw, Patrick O'Brien. . .

Q: What's it like growing up in Australia?

GN: Much like growing up anywhere else in the Western world, really. Most of the same hopes and fears and experiences. One of the benefits for me was being easily able to spend time in unspoilt bush and at deserted beaches, though this isn't true for all Australians. It's a very big country and lots of people don't live near the beautiful beaches you see on television, or get much chance to get into the bush with the kangaroos and all the other animals.

Q: Who would you consider to be your role models? What are the greatest lessons you learned from them?

GN: I think most of my role models came from characters in books. A few examples chosen from many would include Frodo, in THE LORD OF THE RINGS, shouldering great responsibility at great personal cost for the good of everyone. Taran in THE PRYDAIN CHRONICLES learning about what it means to really be a hero, and what is ultimately important in life. Sparrowhawk in A WIZARD OF EARTHSEA finding his true self. But of course I have also benefited from the loving wisdom of my parents, and the support, encouragement and friendship of my brothers and friends both old and new.

Q: What's next after MISTER MONDAY?

GN: GRIM TUESDAY, the second book in THE KEYS TO THE KINGDOM series. But I cannot tell you more, for I have sworn a vow of silence.

© Copyright 2003, Scholastic. All rights reserved.

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