And so to the County Hall in Dun Laoghaire for Books 2008 and the first of the Irish crime writing panels, which featured Tana French, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Alex Barclay, Gene Kerrigan and Declan Hughes talking up ‘Heroes and Villains’, with Paul Johnston (right) in the moderator’s chair. Good stuff it was too, with Enid Blyton’s children’s mystery stories being cited as an early inspiration to more than one writer, Alex Barclay talking about charting ‘the evolution of a serial killer’ from child to adult, Tana French chatting about her fascination with what makes a person kill, Ruth Dudley Edwards touching on her fascination with what makes a person a victim, and Gene Kerrigan being intrigued by the kind of ordinary guy who ‘will babysit your children and then go to work the next day with a gun in his pocket’. Afterwards, a young girl called Lily went around collecting the autographs of every writer present. It took the combined persuasion of John Connolly and Alex Barclay to convince her that the dubious-looking guy skulking by the door was, in fact, an author. “You know I’m not famous or anything,” I told her. “I don’t care,” she said, “if you’re a real writer.” I believe the children are our future, etc. I told her that my daughter’s name is Lily too. She was pleased about that. “Tell her I’m Lily Conlon,” she said. I will.
Eats and drinks were the order of the night in the aftermath, during which I discovered that Paul Johnston is (a) a top bloke and (b) the story I’m currently working on will need to be either reworked dramatically or scrapped entire. Which is a bit of a bummer, because I’ve been working on it for five or six years, on and off, and written close to half a million words. Still, Paul didn’t tell me anything I haven’t been secretly suspecting myself for quite some time now. And I did manage to postpone the nervous breakdown until I left the restaurant. So that was good.
Anyhoos, it’s upward and onward to this morning’s 11am panel, with Critical Mick waving the baton. The topic? ‘Real Fiction, Real Ireland’. Except when I was writing THE BIG O, I was very deliberately writing a story with a non-specific setting. Plus it’s a comedy crime caper that bears very little relation to reality. Should be fun …
Sounds like I'm really missing out. Maybe I'll make it to Books 2009 though.
ReplyDeletegb
I would love to be there to listen to the writing panels - what a great line-up of authors.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you mentioned that you deliberately wrote The Bog O with a non-specific setting. I was wondering about that. I am drinking Guiness and using a drink coaster from a West Cork pub as I read so I'm establishing a bit of Irish ambiance.
Er, that's The Big O, not The Bog O. Not a Freudian slip, I promise.
ReplyDeleteQuick question, Dec:
ReplyDeleteHow is it that you can sustain interest on a project for so long? Five or six years? A half a million words? I'd love to hear the premise of that story sometime?
Sounds like a great conference, though.
Five or six years on and off, Keith, while also writing other stuff ... and the half-million words written (and rewritten) has been pared down to about 125,000 ... I guess I'm just so fascinated by the story that I want to get it right-right-right. And I'm not a good enough writer yet to get it that way. Maybe I need to shelve it for ten years ... Cheers, Dec
ReplyDeleteYour saying you are not famous reminded me of the story that when NY Yankees star catcher Yogi Berra was introduced to Ernest Hemingway and told he was a writer. He asked 'What paper are you with?'
ReplyDeleteYou are certainly famous as the father of the beautiful Princess Lily.