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Remember to check out the Questions about Morris and the Questions about Morris' books, as well – and there's heaps more info About Morris and in the Scrapbook. 
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• When is your next book coming out?  When is your next book coming out?  Then, the sequel to Once, was published in Australia in June 2008, and will be coming out in the UK in January 2009. The publication dates for Toad Surprise are November 2008 in Australia and September 2009 in the UK. And soon after that, I hope, in the US. Give Peas A Chance, my first collection of short stories, which was published in Australia in August 2007 and the UK in August 2008. I'm working on a new book due for publication in Australia in August 2009. [ top ]
Where do you write your books? In my office at home. Though it's a bit more complicated than that because I've got a place in Melbourne and a place in Sydney. I've got an office in each with identical computers and I write each book partly at one place and partly at the other. I think the Melbourne computer is a bit better at endings. [ top ] Do you write your first draft by hand or on the computer? On the computer(s). [ top ] How do you come up with funny things to say about sad things? I guess it's the way I see the world. Or the way my characters do. It's not a case of just trying to make sad things seem funny. In a mysterious way that I don't understand, putting humour next to sad things can make us even more aware of just how sad they are. [ top ] How do you get your titles? Sometimes they just come to me without me looking for them. Other times I have to make lists of possible titles while I'm writing a book and wait for one to stand out. [ top ] Where do you get your character names? Often a character will have a name attached when he or she first appears in my imagination. Other times I only discover it after I've got to know a character well. Sometimes I need to use the phone book or my trusty edition of What To Name Your Baby. [ top ] Do you draw or paint your own covers? Absolutely not. My publishers made it clear years ago that they weren't interested in lopsided stick figures on their covers. Various talented illustrators and designers have created my covers and their names can usually be found on the back of the book or on the copyright page. [ top ] Have you won any awards in your career? Quite a few, but I try not to let my head swell too much. Most awards are given by small groups of people who are just expressing their very personal preferences. The awards I really like getting are the ones voted for by actual readers, like the Yabba Award in Victoria and the Koala Award in NSW and all the other state awards voted for by young people. Winning the Dymocks Children's Choice Award did mean that I had to put elastic in a number of my hats. [ top ] How long have you been writing books for? I wrote my first, The Other Facts Of Life, in 1985. [ top ] Can you give me some hints on writing a story? Read lots of stories. Ask yourself questions while you read. Why are the characters feeling what they're feeling? What could you change in the story to make them feel different? How would that affect the ending of the story? In your imagination, find a character who will let you write about their feelings. Ask the character questions. Find out what they want most in the world. A pet. A Dad. An illness to go away. A trip to see someone. Love. A friend. Find out what is stopping them getting it. Write about how they feel about that, and what they do to try and get the thing they want. [ top ] What inspires you as a writer? Lots of things. The knowledge that somebody I've never met somewhere I've never been can read one of my stories and laugh and cry at the same things as me. The experience of being inside a character who can be braver, funnier, wiser, sillier, naughtier, more determined, more creative and more loving than I'm usually able to be. The hope that after I'm dead people will still enjoy my stories. Stationery. [ top ] Who influences your writing? The authors of every book I've ever read, plus most of the people I've met in my life, and the garbage collectors who wake me up when I'm in the middle of dreaming my next book. As a kid my favourite author was Richmal Crompton. Her series of funny books about a kid called William probably influenced me more than anyone. [ top ] What's it like being a writer? I could write a whole book about it and perhaps I will one day. For now, here are some of main things about being a writer. 1. You get to go to work in your pyjamas. I'm wearing mine as I write this. 2. It's heaps of fun seeing your name on books in bookshops and libraries. 3. Writing on your own for weeks gets lonely. 4. After doing it for 25 years you get a bad back. 5. You get to travel to different parts of the world and meet readers from different countries. 6. You earn money from doing something you'd do even if you didn't get paid. Pretty lucky. [ top ] How many drafts do you write? Usually two or three, but I write lots of drafts of a plan before that. My plan is a list of chapters with a paragraph about each. I need to know what's going to happen in the last chapter before I can start writing the book. Sometimes I do nine or ten drafts of the plan. [ top ] Are your stories based on your own life? The things that happen in my book are almost all made up. For me, imagination makes much better stories than memory. Specially as my memory isn't very good. I can't remember many of the adventures of my childhood, so it's easier for me to make them up. Occasionally, though, a bit of my real life creeps into a story. I emigrated from England with my folks when I was 16, and that experience helped me write Misery Guts. I make all my characters up too. Or I think I do. I've never been any good at following friends, family and complete strangers around with a notebook and jotting down things about them and putting them into my stories. My characters come from somewhere inside me and a big part of each of them is me. Perhaps without me knowing it, though, small parts of them come from people I've known and cared about in my life. The parts of my stories that do come entirely from my life are the emotions the characters feel. I don't think you can make emotions up, no matter how good your imagination is. I've never met a writer who knows how to invent new emotions. All we can do is use the emotions we all feel every day. Love, hate, hope, fear, excitement, jealousy, sadness, guilt, joy, anxiety etc. The characters in our stories may be feeling them for different reasons to us, but they're the same emotions. [ top ] How long does it take you to write a book? It varies a lot. Two Weeks With The Queen took four weeks. Blabber Mouth took ten years, though most of that was thinking about it. I'm always thinking about my future books (which is why I walk into things quite a lot) so it's hard to put a time frame on that part of the process. Once I start working on a story in earnest, I usually take about six months. Two months of planning, two months of writing and two months of re-writing and editing. It varies though. Deadly, the second story I wrote with Paul Jennings, took 18 months. [ top ] How do you go about writing a book? I have to plan things in advance. Once I know who my main character is and what their story is in general terms, I start planning the story into chapters. I write a few sentences about each chapter – notes to myself about what happens in each chapter and how the main character is feeling. I usually do more drafts of the plan that I do of the book itself. Ten drafts of the plan sometimes (17 with Belly Flop), and usually only two or three of the actual book. I need to know how the story will end before I can start writing the chapters. Sometimes, though, the ending changes as I'm writing. I revise the plan a lot as I'm writing the chapters. [ top ] Your books are always funny, yet at the same time, often deal with some very serious issues. Do you feel that it is important for a children's book to have some kind of moral behind the plot? Not in the sense of moralizing, of telling readers what to think. My characters always have a strong moral sense, but it's their own personal morality, the way they think and feel about the experiences of their own lives. I hope readers will sympathise with the moral choices of my characters, but they might sometimes question them, and that's fine with me too. Most of all, it's the emotional journeys of my characters that I hope readers will share in and empathise with. As you mentioned issues, I should say that the issues always, I hope, grow out of my stories and not vice-versa. I've never written down an issue and then tried to find a story to dramatize it. I always start with a character's emotional life. [ top ] Where do you find the inspiration for your stories? Do you often base your stories on events that you, or those close to you, have personally experienced? Almost none of the incidents and events in my books are from personal experience. I make them up. (OK, some might be from experiences I've forgotten.) But the emotions in the stories are not made up. I don't know how to invent emotions. I can only use the emotions from my own life. We all share the same range of emotions, which is why we can share the feelings of the characters we read about. So part of the storytelling process for me is to find interesting and unusual reasons for characters to have the emotions that the rest of us experience every day for familiar reasons. [ top ] Have you always wanted to be a writer? I wrote a lot of stories in my head when I was a kid, but I wanted to be a professional soccer player. Unfortunately the school I went to only played rugby, so most of my soccer experience was in the playground with a tennis ball. I couldn't find a Premier Division club that used tennis balls. I've wanted to be a writer since I was 17. [ top ] What motivates you to write? My characters, who are all parts of me wanting their voices to be heard. [ top ] What do you enjoy most and least about writing? I love the thought that people I've never met, in places I don't even know exist, might at this very moment be sharing my characters' feelings. Sometimes, though, writing can be a bit lonely, specially if your character isn't speaking to you. [ top ] Do you ever get writer's block? Not really. A couple of times stories have bogged down for a while. I've learned that at those times I have to find a way to trust my character a bit more and to help him or her trust me a bit more. [ top ] Where do you like to write? In what conditions do you find it easiest to produce your best work? I'm lucky, I can write just about anywhere. I prefer not much noise and no distracting views. I keep the curtains in my writing room at home closed all the time so I can pretend it's night. I write better at night. [ top ] What advice would you give to developing writers? Welcome to the club. We're all developing. Use language you feel comfortable with. Some people think that using big words makes them look more like real writers. That's dead wrong. When you're writing stories, try not to let your characters spend too much time thinking and feeling things without doing things, or doing things without thinking and feeling things. Read lots. Write lots. Read even more.
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