Tim Lebbon – horror and dark fantasy author

Well this is a bit wacky!  Here’s a podcast review of my novelisation of 30 DAYS OF NIGHT.  I really like the idea of podcast reviewing , and although the guys chatting seem sorta hazy about how the book came about  – graphic novel, to movie, to novel – it’s good to hear that the reader’s favourite scene is the polar bear scene … which is the one major scene in the book that is my own creation, and not translated from the screenplay.

That polar bear is also indirectly responsible for the Jack London books I’m writing with the most excellent and unfeasibly sexy Christopher Golden.  But more on that another time.

Three years ago today I was sitting at my desk – this very desk – as a full-time writer for the first time.  I was a little hungover.  The night before I’d had a leaving do from work at The Hanbury Arms in Caerleon, drank too much Reverend James, and generally celebrated leaving work to live my dream.  That last day in work was a lot of fun … wandering around to say goodbye, collecting leaving presents (bottles of whiskey and wine … they know me so well).  And that first day of full-time writing I spent on the first chapter of my 30 Days of Night movie novelisation.  I remember it well, because I had to scrap it three days later when the updated shooting script came through and I realised all the relationships had changed … but since that day to this, I’ve had the best time of my life.

It’s been three years.  I worked at my old day job for six times that, yet I only have vague memories of the place: I remember the people, many of whom still remain friends.  I remember cheese and bacon toasties on Friday morning.  I remember being in a tea-group of one and having to steal other people’s milk from the fridge (yes, everyone … it was me!)  But it’s rare that I sit and dwell on my time there, because that was another life.

Since starting to write full time I’ve written so many novels, shorts stories, and novellas that I’ve lost count – they include two 30 Days of Night novels, Hellboy: The Fire Wolves, Echo City Falls (coming soon), The Island, Fallen, two Hidden Cities books with Chris Golden, the first of the Secret Journeys of Jack London books (also with Chris), the novella The Reach of Children … and there I was, hoping I’d turn prolific.

I’ve also started branching out into some screen work, something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.  I’m collaborating on an exciting new screenplay, and I’m also currently developing two TV series.

And last week, as if to celebrate my impending 3-year anniversary, I had some Very Good News.  Thrilling, exciting news.  But more on that soon.

I’m very, very lucky.  I commute to work past the dog, sit in my own office with all my books and other stuff around me, make stuff up, write it down, and sell it.  I walk the dog in our lovely local woods at lunchtimes, and occasionally go out for lunch with friends.  I always wanted to get here, but was never sure I would.

Thank you, to everyone who enjoys buying and reading my books.  That means you.  You keep buying them, and reading them and liking them, and I’ll keep writing them.  There’s lots on the horizon.

So without further ado … I’m writing a novella about a thief of broken toys. I must away.

Two years ago today was my first day working as a full-time writer.  Leaving work to write for a living was a big decision, but definitely one of the best I’ve ever made, and through the downs as well as the ups I haven’t regretted it for a moment.  It seems a lot longer than two years ago that I last left Monmouthshire County Council’s dodgy old building (it’s effectively falling down), and looking at the amount I’ve written since then, perhaps there has been a time-warp thingy going on somewhere.  Here’s a rough list:

• 30 Days of Night
• Fallen
• Mind the Gap (with Christopher Golden)
• The Map of Moments (with Christopher Golden) – forthcoming
• The Secret Journeys of Jack London: Book One (with Christopher Golden) – forthcoming
• Hellboy: The Fire Wolves - forthcoming
• The Island - forthcoming
• The Toxic City: London Eye
• A Whisper of Southern Lights
• The Reach of Children

As well as those novels and novellas I’ve done several short stories, two screenplays (The Everlasting and The Dregs), and plenty of other stuff.  It does make me wonder how the hell I wrote so much when I was working, but the fact that I’m still working just as hard after two years is great.  I’ve still got plenty of work on … and a big THANKS is due to you discerning readers who continue to buy my books!

And on it goes …!  I wrote a novelette this weekend for a US market (sending it to the editor for consideration today), brainstormed a new screenplay with a good friend of mine, and this week it’s back to the Yukon to finish off book one of the Jack London series.

Many more announcements coming soon, including a new short story option.  So please do keep popping by, and in another year I hope the above list will be much, much longer.

My wife often accuses me of being absent minded, and of having my head in the clouds.  My excuse is that I live in (at least) two places at once: reality, and the reality of my latest novel or story.  I say at least two places, because I’m inevitably working on more than one project (right now there are at least eight or nine different projects on the go).  When I’m bloody minded as well as absent minded, I completely deny her allegation.

This, I can no longer do.

Yesterday, my wife called home from work to ask me if I’d seen her mobile phone.  When she rang off I called her phone, and heard it buzzing away merrily in the kitchen.

Hoorah! I thought.  Found it!  I must tell Tracey.

So I sent her a text.

Now then, my excuse for this is that I’m currently in several places at once.  These include:

• The Yukon during the gold rush, following Jack London on his intrepid journeys (for the novel I’m co-writing with Christopher Golden).
• A small town close to where I live, where zombies are chomping their way through the diminishing population.
• A tropical island, where I’m still dwelling upon my screenplay THE DREGS that is currently with my agents.
• A very long train tunnel (project still a bit hush-hush).
• A huge imaginary city where the results of weird scientific experiments run loose and where the lands beyond the city are impassable and deadly (Echo City Falls, the new novel I’m working on for Bantam).

So you see, it’s understandable, isn’t it.

Isn’t it?

This is just such a neat idea …

Take one crap reality TV show, have it take place in a world slowly being taken over by zombies, people it with characters no more outragous that the oddballs you usually get on the show … and then turn the real-life presenter into a zombie!

I can’t stand Big Brother.  I watched some of the first series and found it mildly interesting, but from series 2 on it was painful to watch, exploitive victim-TV at its worst.  There was a time when I thought, “Why not introduce a mass-murderer into the house and see how these feeble fucks handle that!”  Never happened – probably because the producers couldn’t get permission, more than anything else – but this is certainly the next best thing.

Davina as a zombie. I’m there.

Writing updates: I’ve been working hard on The Secret Journeys of Jack London, the YA series I’m writing with Christopher Golden for Atheneum in the USA.  It’s going to be a scorcher, and Chris and I are thrilled with how it’s going.  More news on this as and when it’s available.

Also been tinkering with ideas and sample chapters for a possible dark crime novel … we’ll see if this one has legs.  And a screenplay, a novella, and some short story idea for three anthologies I’ve been invited to submit to but which I can’t say much about just yet …

More soon!