http://books.guardian.co.uk/whyiwrite/story/0,,2014835,00.html
Short but interesting, especially the bit about writing getting harder and harder.

"Don't. You'll never make it. You'll never earn a living. Get a decent job and forget all about it. It's a silly idea. There's no future in it."

Superb advice! Sometimes I wish I could follow it

Great interview. The best news, of course, is that he's currently writing a "long" sequel to His Dark Materials - hurrah!

I wonder why it gets harder.Is it common among writers to find this? Do you think it's possible to get written-out? Pullman's written three very big complex books in the Dark Materials trilogy.

Naomi R

Naomi, you should look at www.achuka.co.uk's interview with Sonia Hartnett - a well-respected Australian YA writer who has been published since she was a teenager. She sounds so jaded and fed up. She basically said that if she had her time again she wouldn't write. But she couldn't do anything else because she had no experience in any other field.
Depressing, huh?

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Interestingly, my ex, who's a musician/ composer and never really done anything else, has very much the same attitude as hartnett, and it's really affected his mental health. There's a sense that he can no longer enjoy music because he feels trapped by it, somehow. Though at the same time it's his life.
Moral: have a life too...


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Hmm, just looked at Achuka, and I don't find the interview any more. It may have been taken down - it was an old one.

I think Pullman is great, and his ironic advice about the difficulty of writing spot on.

Not sure about more His Dark Materials though. It ended already. There's a lot to be said for stories that actually end.

JB

The last thing I heard about Pullman's HDM follow-up sounded a bit different from a sequel. It was called The Book Of Dust and was going to be a collection of stories, mostly filling in backstory to the HDM universe. This was when I went to see him at a lit.fest, a year or so ago. He was rather tetchy when asked about it. (But apart from that he was a brilliant speaker and reader, absolutely terrific.)

The ten year old has just finished HDM and was enthralled.

Said the cliff hanger ending to 'The Subtle Knife' was terrible and how could they let PP do that -

'People must have died waiting for 'Amber Spyglass' to come out'.

Is it possible to like books too much?

Concerned parent

Never, Sarah.

Griff, I suppose that wouldn't be too bad. I just don't want anymore Lyra or Will. I mean, I loved those characters, but their story is told. I loathe it when an author picks up from a done and dusted (see what I did there?) story to spool it out into yet another tale. It puts me off a lot of fantasy series, these 'trilogies' that become ten-book soap operas a la Robert Jordan, Raymond Feist etc. Like, get a new idea already!

JB