It's funny how one thing morphs into another and keeps changing until it is so far removed from your original idea. That is what happened with MourneQuest. I had originally intended it to be a fantasy story for 6 year olds. In it Jack, the hero, had to call upon an evil creature for help. It was a creature from everyone's childhood. A being so evil that no good could come out of that meeting. But brave Jack found the creature, THE BIG BAD WOLF.
That wolf was about to devour Jack. He had him pinned down, teeth beared, saliva dripping into Jack's face. Jack had closed his eyes waiting to be eaten when he heard sobs and when he opened them again he could see the wolf crying. The wolf explained it couldn't eat him, it couldn't eat anyone, it didn't even eat meat. The Big Bad Wolf was a vegetarian called Francis who was framed for blowing down the Three Little Pig's houses. They had stolen the Wolf's mother's locket and all he wanted to do was get it back. But the cute little piggies called the police and by the time they got there the Wolf was trying to blow down the house of bricks and mortar. He was arrested and thrown into a magical prison. Who would believe in a vegetarian wolf.
So there you have a part of the original story. It was called Dandelion and the two heroes were Jack Turner and Cobs the Bear ( Cobs is short for Cornelius Otis Teddyus Bearus). But a few things happened to change all that....
I was at work one day, my alternate reality I like to think of it, where grown-ups act like grown-ups and work is serious because it needs to be. One of my colleagues, who I hadn't seen for some time asked me what I was up to. To try and look windswept and interesting (difficult to do when you've three young kids because washing, ironing, tidying up seem to take up a large part of your life). I told him I'd written a children's book. Instead of him laughing as I expected he told me that his brother-in-law's brother did that sort of thing and he told me his name; Declan Carville and proceeded to give me his telephone number and advised me to give him a bell as he was very approachable and could be of help.
For those of you who don't know Declan Carville, he is a very prolific children's writer in Northern Ireland. He has written THE FAIRY GLEN, THE INCREDIBLE SISTER BRIDGET, THE MAGIC HARP and about 10 others. I rang the number and heard the most immortal words in the English language... The person you are calling cannot take your call at present. Please leave a message. So I did. I explained who I was and what I was up to and left it at that.
Two weeks later I was in Gosford park finding Fairy money with my children and my phone rang. It was Declan Carville and he asked if we could meet up that week in Belfast.
All this leads me to my best friend and painfully talented artist, John Farrelly. John and I had met in first year in grammar school and thirty odd years later are still great mates. We hadn't seen each other for a while and when we met up for a wee jar or two I told him what I was up to and proceeded to tell him about Cobs. Before I had finished telling him the tale he had sketched him out and presented him to me. It was as if someone had snuck into my thoughts and lifted him out. From then on John was to illustrate the book.
John and I met Declan in Belfast armed with the script and about 15 to 20 illustrations, one of which I was very unhappy about but that John insisted must be included. Out of all the pictures can you guess the one Declan liked the most?
I'll tell you more very soon, there's some ironing to be done and those non-iron shirts don't iron themselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment