Joshua Mowll

By PJH

Time for me to get real. No more dreaming of easily achieved fame and fortune (well, not too much anyway) and back to reality. Joshua Mowll spoke thoughtfully and realistically about the perils and pitfalls of being a writer of children's books / graphic artist for the Mail on Sunday.

His down-to-Earth manner was refreshing, telling of his first inspiration from doing solely illustrative work to story writing as well. This came about by his boredom in drawing, of all things, dog training graphics. The idea of a Tin Tin style adventure came to him through these canine diagrams and he decided he should really start writing his ideas down. Hey presto, a writer is born - well, after several million hours of gruelling hard work and, apparently, screen-staring related sciatica into the bargain. What a lot to look forward to.

He also spoke more seriously about his career, starting with 'The Guild of Specialists', his series of illustrated children's novels with Walker Books and, also, about his forthcoming book 'The Great Space Race' - set in the 1920s and very much in Indiana Jones mode. I looked carefully at some of these books after the lecture and I thought they were amazing. To have the writing talent alone is wonderful enough - but to be able to draw so brilliantly as well? Mind blowing.

Next on the agenda was the presention of tips for budding writers and warnings of what not to present to prospective publishers / agents. His tales of editing woes worried me mercilessly - regurgitating scary memories of creative writing workshops, being told "no, cut it, scrap that, start again!" Is this really what I have to do? Ouch. All this is true said Mr.Mowll. He added, with a wry grin, that cutting a 70 000 word novel down to only 40 000 is just a case of, 'well, you gotta do what you gotta do'. Scary indeed.

So - has this put me off being a writer? Well - it did for a moment, possibly for as long as half a minute. But being the glutton for punishment that I am, I walked out of that lecture theatre inspired rather than depressed. What is wrong with me?