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Back to Featured Interviews >> MEET D. J. MACHALE
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| D. J. MacHale |
When I was young, we didn’t have the same wealth of middle grade fiction that now exists so basically I went from DR. SEUSS to DR. NO. I devoured all of Ian Fleming’s Bond novels as well as the adventure stories by Alistair McLean. The book that influenced my writing style the most was CATCHER IN THE RYE.
Did you write stories when you were growing up? at school? Or at home as a hobby? As a young child, or as a teenager, or both?
I hated to sit still and write, but I was always a storyteller. I was fortunate that I found film and video as a way to tell my stories…without having to be stuck in the house sitting in a chair.
When you were a child did you ever have a moment when you decided that you were going to be a writer when you grew up?
No, because I hated to write so much. But oddly I do remember taking a standardized test in third grade where you had to answer seemingly random questions and the answers would somehow predict what you would do for a living when you grew up. My result came out…writer. I thought it was a joke. (Maybe it was!)
When you went to college, were you already pursuing a writing career?
(or a career in illustrating? or just art in general?)
I was in film school and wanted to be a director or cinematographer or producer or anything but a writer. When kids ask me if they should study writing in school, I say that they shouldn’t. Instead they should study everything else…and then write about it. Anybody can learn how to write. That’s only half the battle. The other half is to have something interesting to write about.
What kinds of things inspire you to write?
Everything and anything. You never know where an idea is going to come from, or when it may present itself. I tend to look for unique conflicts that people deal with every day, and create entire stories about them. Of course, since I write fantasy adventures, I take the simple conflicts and blow them up to fantastical proportions. For example, I once knew someone who spent all his time playing an on-line computer game. Because it became his whole world, it was ruining his life. I took that conflict and created a whole society that was addicted to a virtual reality simulator and chose to live inside it, which brought about the decay of entire cities.
How did your life change when you got married? and had children? Did it make it easier or harder to find time to write?
Getting married didn’t change a thing. Having a child was another story. I write in an office at home so it’s hard to explain to a little girl that even though daddy is downstairs, he’s at work and can’t play. Sometimes it’s even hard to explain the concept of “work” in general. As for finding time, when it’s your job you have no choice but to make the time. You just hope to be able to steer clear of the household drama.
Which of your books did you most enjoy writing?
I had the most fun writing THE NEVER WAR which was the third in the PENDRAGON series. Unlike the other Pendragon books that take place in far off worlds of my own creation, this book was set in 1937 New York. It was fun doing research into that era and incorporating actual events, places and characters. The process was so different from what I was used to. Since I was already familiar with New York, it was fun to take what I knew and turn the clock back to a different era. Much of THE PILGRIMS OF RAYNE also took place in 1937 and I didn’t want to duplicate the setting. I was having trouble deciding on what the venue should be when I remembered that The Queen Mary is docked not far from my house. Since it was in operation in 1937, I set much of the story on that boat during a transatlantic crossing. So the research there was to walk the decks of the ship, taking pictures, and imagining what it was like in its glory. That was fun.
What are you working on now? When do you expect to start submitting it to publishers?
I’m writing three new series that will start publishing in 2010. MORPHEUS ROAD is an upper middle-grade spooky trilogy about a guy who is being hunted by ghosts. THE EQUINOX CURIOUSITY SHOP is a younger middle-grade series about a magical valley that is the seat of all imagination…and run by toys. THE MONSTER PRINCESS is a picture book series for little girls. So on the one hand I’m writing about pink and purple sparkly things, on the other hand I’m digging up graves and destroying universes. It’s an odd way to spend the day.
When you do school visits, what question do children ask you most?
The three most frequently asked questions are: 1) When will Pendragon be a movie? 2) Where did you get the idea for Pendragon? And 3) Are you rich? One of them makes me laugh.