Lucky Jesus

My son and I went round Jesus College yesterday and looked at Stephen Chambers paintings in the chapel (part of the Festival of Ideas). I'm not quite sure what I made of them. I think I needed to know more about what he was trying to achieve. My son quite liked them. We both agreed that we liked the prints best. There were also supposed to be Jake and Dinos Chapman sculptures, but we missed them if they were there. Ah well.

We had never been to Jesus College before and so impressed by its beauty was my son that he has now changed allegiance from St John's College to Jesus (as a future beneficiary of his many talents). Lucky Jesus, is all that I can say (although it sounds a bit weird).

The chapel had some nice carvings in the choir stalls. Not quite the Demon Bench End, but some were still fairly sinister as even this blurred photo will testify. I love that expression. . .

Doodles

I finally got round to doing the doodles for Doodled Books. I also managed to remember to scan a few in before I bubblewrap them and send them back.

Glum wit

Tales of Terror from the Black Ship was reviewed in a couple of newspapers over the weekend. The Times called me 'that wily weaver of spine-crawling tales' (and I rather like that), said that David Roberts' illustrations echo my 'glum wit' and that the book was perfect for 'lugubrious nine-year-olds'. So if you know any lugubrious nine-year-olds, that's Christmas sorted out. Or maybe they are too lugubrious for Christmas.

The Times may think the book has wit, even if its glum, but The Observer decided that the book had 'no black humour to lighten the gloom and fear'. After three reads, I couldn't quite decide whether the reviewer liked the book or not, but I will be very happy to put 'Guaranteed to give you nightmares.' on the paperback!


Both reviewers placed me in the 8-12 category even though 12 seems a very early cut-off for my stories and 8 seems very young. Interestingly I am in the 12-14 category for the Lincolnshire Young People's Book Award. This is why age-banding of any kind is so tricky: it is very subjective, and may seem prescriptive.

What was I thinking?

I finally sent off the edited ms of Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's Mouth. I actually think it may be the strongest of the Tales of Terror books, but I have found the editing process painfully slow this time.

The trick is to be flexible enough to be open to the possibility that you may not have written the perfect story, whilst not losing confidence and letting the substance of the story slip through your fingers. The right change can make a story. The wrong one can unpick the fabric.

Helen Szirtes has worked on all the Tales of Terror books and I value her opinion highly. She sent a list of queries about the stories and most were easily sorted out with minor additions or alterations. She also suggested a reordering of the stories, though - and that proved more problematic.

The stories always have a connecting narrative and this can be very difficult to rearrange. The relationship between the narrator and the storyteller (the narrator being the person listening to the stories, if you see what I mean) develops as the book goes on and this narrative can be hard to unpick from the stories themselves.

It may have something to do with the way I write the books. I do not - as might seem likely (and possibly easier) write the stories and then put them in order and write the bits in between. I write quite a lot of the story, its true, but I put them into the mix before they are finished. I don't want it to become just a short story collection with a narrator tacked on. I want the whole book to hang together. The stories become like chapters to me. Once they are in a certain order it is very hard for me to see them in a different one.

Anyway - because I think Helen talks a lot of sense - and because I am racked by self doubt - I did change the order. A bit.

And now I'm itching to get back to Ghosts. I must think of another name for this book! Ghosts? What was I thinking?

I have seen the future of horror

I was interviewed by the Sunday Mercury today. They were going to call yesterday but instead sent me an email with a string of questions for me to answer and send back.

One of the questions was about Clive Barker. In the early 1980s I designed posters for Clive's Dog Company theatre group. This was before he was a superstar writer and director living in Beverly Hills - we were both living in slightly less glamorous north London.

I'm sad to say that I lost touch with Clive. I am, and always have been, quite useless at keeping in regular contact with people - even people like Clive, who I like very much.

And of course the trouble with losing touch with someone who subsequently becomes rich and famous, is that any effort to get back in touch simply looks like you are after something. Which is really not in my mind at all. The fact that I never got paid for any of those posters is really not important. . .

I'm hoping we'll meet at some publishers thing. There are people I know I will meet again. Clive is definitely one of them. But in the meantime, Clive - should you see this - a nice review wouldn't kill you, would it? For old times sake. . .

Clive's life changed with the publication of his Books of Blood short story collections and the licence-to-print-money-quote they garnered from Stephen King - 'I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker'

Stephen - if you are reading this - any chance of me getting something similar? I'm not expecting anything quite so monumental. How about a simple 'I've seen the future of fairly creepy stories for older children and young adults and his name is - or at least could be - Chris Priestley.'

Hook the undead

I stayed at home today, both in order to take a call from Lorne Jackson at Birmingham's Sunday Mercury newspaper who wants to do an interview with me for a Halloween feature, and so that I can knuckle down and get the revisions done on Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's Mouth.


The website for Tales of Terror from the Black Ship went live today. If 'live' is quite the right word, given that Adrian has devised a game called 'Corpse Fishing' for the site. Go and have a look and while away a few moments hooking the undead.


You know you want to.

The man in the picture

I was volunteered to be the linesman at my son's football match and managed to miss two offside decisions, gifting the opposition two goals they would not otherwise have had. Excellent.

I decided to do a little research on adult horror fiction when I went to London on Friday and bought a selection of books I may review at a later date. I read the beginning of all of them, but the only one that compelled me to carry on was Susan Hill's The Man in the Picture.

Now this may not be surprising. There is a strong link with my latest writing here. The story concerns a Cambridge scholar talking to an old student - and Hill must have had M R James in mind. The story itself - involving a creepy painting of a carnival scene in Venice - is very much in M R James territory.

But the appeal lies in the quality of the writing. Susan Hill does this kind of thing brilliantly. It is short - almost an extended short story - and I haven't finished it yet, but what a lovely thing it is so far.