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Jubilee
Books: I was wondering about your writing process. Once
you have an idea does the story come spontaneously or do
you rework your ideas?
Paul Jennings: I start with a little germ
of an idea like 'what if an eye grew on the end of a finger?'
or 'what if you could read someone’s thoughts?’
So I begin with a germ of an idea and work out a series
of events in an exercise book. I'll do that for four hours
a day for about two weeks which is exhausting. I used to
think at the end of every day that I had achieved nothing,
but now I've realized that's the process you have to go
through. You just have to keep your bottom on the seat and
keep going and going. An insurance salesman once told me
that what they think of when they were knocking on doors
was pebbles on the beach, some have little gold nuggets
underneath and if you find one it's worth turning them all
over. That's how he thought of the doors and that's how
I think of the stories.
You've
collaborated with a number of illustrators. What do you
think the importance is of the artwork in your books?
Well it's very important for the reluctant readers to have
illustrations, to give them a pointer to what's happening.
I always make sure that the picture about a piece of text
is on the correct page because I think it's very confusing
if it's not. There are two different sorts of picture books,
there's what I call a picture book and what I call a picture
storybook.
In a picture book the illustration works integrally with
the text, sometimes you don't even need the text. I've got
a book about a little fish, the last one of those fish in
the world swimming around and you can see the hook hanging
down on the page. On the next page you can see the hook
going up but there's no words, so the illustrator of those
sort of books is telling the story too. I sent the story
to Jane Tanner (illustrator of the book) when I wrote it
and the fisherman had caught the little fish, saw it bleeding
and felt really sorry so he threw it back in the water.
Jane said to me 'no, no, no Paul, it's so masculine. Why
does he have to throw it back, why can't he just put it
back?' She then did this beautiful drawing of the hands
going into the water and so she was telling the story too.
She actually said to me don't come and look at the drawings,
you're not seeing the roughs, this is my baby now. She's
so well known and I wanted her to do it so badly that I
accepted her terms and I didn't receive her drawings until
she'd done all her artwork.
A picture storybook is more like a novel. I write the story
and then the illustrator might come along and add pictures
to it.
If
you could have your books illustrated by any artist who
would it be?
Jeez, that's a tough one. I think I'd be revealing a secret
if I said. I've had some really great illustrators who've
done my covers, like Bob Lea, who lives up in the Cotswolds,
and has done my latest set of covers. I think I'll have
to pass on that one, I know it sounds wimpy but so many
of them are my friends and I've got someone in mind that
I'm going to ask to do a book soon and I don't want to reveal
who.
You've
also collaborated with Morris Gleitzman on a number of books.
What's it like working with another author on a book?
Absolutely terrible. Morris would say it too. Morris and
I are great friends, still! The way we did the book was
that I'd write one chapter then send it off to him and he'd
write the next chapter. There were two main characters,
a boy and a girl who are stepbrother and sister, he liked
writing the part for the girl and I liked writing the part
for the boy. In the story the boy would tell his bit of
the adventure then the girl would take on the story in the
next chapter from her point of view. In the first book it
was agreed that the two kids didn't like each other but
gradually by the end there was going to be a romance. What
happened is that I identified with my character really strongly
because the boy in the story is always me. Morris identified
with the girl, or some part of Morris' feminine side identified
with her. In one chapter of the book I touched her hand
and sent it off to Morris but got no reply, so I wrote another
one where my character tells the girl how nice she is and
I sent it off but nothing. So I wondered what was going
on. Well he just couldn't do it, he couldn't let my boy
kiss his girl.
It was very, very hard and Morris and I, when we finished
the first one, agreed that we'd never do it again. Then
two years later Penguin talked us into doing another one,
which we're very proud of. Morris won't mind me telling
you this because we're great friends but he changed a bit
one night without telling me.
Morris was born in England too, although he moved to Australia
when he was 14 so he's kept his English accent and dialect.
I was reading through something I'd written when I read
the words 'I've not done that' and I thought to myself 'I
don't say I've not done that, I say I haven't done that'.
So Morris had changed a part of it without telling me and
I know it's only small but you don't want someone fiddling
about with what
you've done. So we're very proud that we pulled it off as
two egotistical writers.
What
writers have influenced you the most?
When I was a boy I loved the Just William books by
Richmal Crompton, I was devastated when I found out Richmal
Crompton was a woman. William was a naughty little boy and
you used to get about ten short stories in a book. My mother
liked quirky little stories so I was always influenced by
that. I
think I was influenced by Roald Dahl too, not so much his
children's stories but his adult stories with the twists
at the end, I do that and it's my sort of speciality.
I also liked writers like Ray Bradbury, John Wyndham, Somerset
Maugham.
What
are some of the most interesting comments you've had from
children about your books?
I've had many but the one I think I liked the most was one
little boy who said 'Dear Paul Jennings, how come you know
what it's like to be me?' and I think that's a big complement
for an old person who writes children's books and, as I
was saying this morning, you do feel the same inside as
they do, so that was a lovely comment.
Where
do you usually write?
That's an interesting one because I live in a house which
I've just built right on the edge of the ocean, a really
wild place. It’s a sort of Australian equivalent to
Wuthering Heights and I can even see whales in the
ocean, it's really beautiful and we've got this semi-underground
house where I worked. You look at it and think it's just
the sort of place you’d like to think of writing in,
but I actually write in a three storey Victorian office
block in town. I go there because when I first started writing
I was writing in this cottage in the back of my house and
my wife was lecturing at university and I was there all
day on my own and I was so lonely. I would sit in this idyllic
cottage all day and I missed the staff room; talking, joking,
the students, I was just so lonely. So I said to my wife
that I thought I’d like to write in an office block
and now I go in every morning and write and write, I’ll
go and have a coffee with some of the other people in the
building, the pub is just over the road. I write in about
40 minute bursts then go and talk to someone.
Do
you have any hobbies or interests?
Reading, walking, I love walking along the cliff. I used
to really be into old English cars which I got from my mother
and father; M.G’s, Jaguars, Rielly’s and those
kind of cars. My father used to tell me they were the best
in the world. I’ve got rid of most of them now but
I have just bought a new mini.
When
do you find it easiest to write, do you stick to regular
hours?
Yes, the morning is the most productive time for me. I think
that, like a lot of people, the night is a very fertile
time, you’re very close to your unconscious side and
you're dreaming and so from 9am until 12pm or 1pm are the
most productive times for me. After I've finished a book
or a story I can't do it for a little while, I find it really
hard to think of a new idea so I'll go and veg out for three
or four weeks
When
you’re writing a story do you go back and change it
very often?
I never start a story until I know the end. I do a report
form in an exercise book where I plan out the story and
after about 10 goes I suddenly think ’YES, that’s
it’. Once I've got that outline I can do a short story
in say 2 days. Then when it’s finished I’m walking
on air and my editor, Julie, used to live up the road and
I'd put the story in her letter box the same day and I know
she’ll get it that evening. If she doesn’t ring
me the next morning I know it’s no good. Then I’ll
get her edits back, and I hate that, it’s like I’ve
said goodbye to the story and I don't want to see it again.
The story will then come back with comments on it like ‘I
don’t like the ending Paul’ or ‘the middle
is weak’, so I have to do the whole thing again. I’m
very heavily edited and I’ve been with the same editor
for eighteen years, I hate editing because I like saying
goodbye to the story but you’ve got to do it, I usually
do two or three edits.
You
refer to this theme that you keep coming back to of separation
and loss. Do you think that you reveal or expose a side
of yourself in some of your stories that you weren't aware
of doing?
I don't think so in the stories, I mean I've revealed a
number of stories to you today and you probably would never
know that, although you might pick up a theme. There was
a man, Matthew Ricketson, who wrote a biography of my life
and that was incredibly painful. I let him do it because
I thought someone was going to do an unauthorized one. I
made a deal with him that I would give him complete access
to all my stuff including my thoughts and so on, and that
he could say what he liked about me as long as he agreed
not to say anything bad about anyone else in my family because
it's very hurtful for them. So he agreed to that but I found
it extremely difficult. He was very thorough, things like
first girlfriends and people who didn't like me. The other
thing is that everyone else came out of it like angels living
with this chaotic, black character.
You
mentioned your mother earlier on, did you share storytelling
with her?
I can't remember ever being read to but I always had books,
I remember Rupert Bear books very well. My
mother loved books and poetry and I used to think I got
that from her, but I now think I got it from my father.
He was a Yorkshireman and a terrible exaggerator, he'd tell
stories and I'd think 'you liar'. When we first went to
Australia we had a Morris minor and went up into the mountains.
We were coming home in the dark along this winding road
amongst all these gum trees and we had to stop so he could
get out and have a wee. So he got out and this wallaby bounded
through the bush and he got frightened and jumped back in
the car, and that was all that happened. But when he told
it! We stopped about six times and every time we stopped
there was a new creature, like a heard of horses.
A lot of writing is exaggeration, it's the ability to build
a little thing up and he was a great storyteller. I used
to get sick of it, hearing the same story over and over
again, but he was a great storyteller and I think I got
that from him and a love of books from my mother.
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