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All Writers Are Avatars -- By: Interview

NASA may be putting its shuttle program to bed, but the adventure of traveling to a galaxy far, far away is far from taking a rest. Boys and girls may not know Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin like they used to, but these men live vividly in the imaginations of Boomers like Frank Cottrell Boyce. Boyce, a best-selling children?s author (including Carnegie Medal-winning Millions) and screenplay writer, among other things, has a new book out, Cosmic. But I?ll stop there and let him tell you some more. Boyce recently talked to National Review Online about Cosmic, writing, and some other little things like fatherhood and faith.

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: How do you describe Cosmic to people?

FRANK COTTRELL BOYCE: Cosmic is the story of a boy called Liam who has a massive growing spurt (his Dad says, ?That?s not a growth spurt, that?s a mutation?) just before starting high school. He discovers that he can pass himself off as an adult. At first he just uses this ability to gain extra shopping opportunities (for instance, test-driving a Porsche), but he gets more and more ambitious until he ends up in space.

LOPEZ: Who?s the audience for Cosmic?

BOYCE: Everyone in the whole world! I think it works for grown-ups and children in slightly different ways, and my dream audience is always parents sharing the book with their children.

LOPEZ: Is it more for boys than girls?

BOYCE: Not unless you think the Moon belongs more to boys than it does to girls.

LOPEZ: Do you have a favorite character in Cosmic?

BOYCE: Actually it?s the girl -- whose name is Florida. She poses as Liam?s daughter. At first she seems shallow and empty -- she?s obsessed with celebrity (she thinks Hitler?s first name was ?Heil?) -- but she turns out to be smart and courageous.

LOPEZ: A favorite line?

BOYCE: I believe in the slogan of Infinity Park -- ?The World is My Thrill Ride? -- but my favorite scene is when Liam accidentally takes morning assembly in school and tries to get everyone to walk out and go to all the amazing places in the World right now. ?These places are not in Narnia. They?re in our World. We can get to them on the bus. OK, it?ll take a lot of buses . . .?

LOPEZ: What?s up with British authors and American children? Is this some kind of reverse revolution?

BOYCE: Please don?t reverse your revolution! I suppose we Brits had to be good at something. It?s not soccer or weather or food, so why not children?s books. We do have a tradition of children?s books that tackle massive philosophical ideas -- Alice in Wonderland, Narnia, Lord of the Rings, Dark Materials. But Huckleberry Finn tops them, all I think.

LOPEZ: Did you worry at all that a 13-year-old boy posting as a 30-year-old wouldn?t fly as a storyline?

BOYCE: What?s great about books as opposed to films is that if the writer says that?s the way it is, then that?s the way it is, and your imagination just has to catch it up. In a film, I have to convince you that there?s a magical snowy land inside the wardrobe. In a book you have to convince yourself. It?s one reason that books are better!

LOPEZ: Liam describes a ?Crispy New World feeling.? What is that and does Frank know it?

BOYCE: That cocktail of adrenaline and relief and glad-to-be-aliveness you get when the thrill ride finally hits the buffers. I?m addicted to that -- the way everything looks sharper and brighter. I love thrill rides of all kinds. Sometimes I take my son to a forest in Scotland where they have these very steep, twisty bike trails. At one point you?re going downhill so fast that it feels like the forest is throwing trees at you and the wind in your ear is deafening. Then suddenly you?re cruising gently along a river bank and you feel so awake that I swear you can hear fish fins moving.

LOPEZ: You?ve got avatars in the book. Are they taking over the commercial world?

BOYCE: I think writers are obsessed with avatars because they?re very like what we do. We cobble together characters out of bits and bobs, then we take them on adventures. And the adventures either kill them or make them stronger and more complicated and interesting and we get to love them and they start to feel real. And then they get decapitated by a Night Elf. Also people keep so much information and do so much communication online now that they are in danger of turning themselves into avatars!

LOPEZ: There?s an impassioned Monopoly debate in Cosmic. Liam is very anti. Do you take a position?

BOYCE: I HAAAAAAAAATE Monopoly! It?s not a game at all. Put it away and take out the Cluedo. Or the Risk. Or the washing up. Anything. Please. It goes on forever and you have to sit down and do math before you know who?s won. How can it be a game if you don?t know who?s won!?!

LOPEZ: You seem to have an appreciation of online gaming.

BOYCE: Well the truth is, I don?t have any Internet in the house (cruel parent!) because I find it so amazing I just wouldn?t leave it alone. To me it?s like having access to Narnia and time travel there on your desk. So in order to find out about World of Warcraft, I had to go and interview people and talk to them about it. I?d heard so many bad things about it, I was taken aback by how gripping it was and how much I learned by playing it just a little bit. I definitely would get addicted if I had the opportunity!

LOPEZ: You blog in real life and begin Cosmic with a very funny Tweet. Are all these various media platforms good things in your estimation?

BOYCE: I think people worry that we?ll end up with lots of online acquaintances and no real-life friends, but my experience is that people use these things just as often to enhance their relationships with brothers and sisters and parents and true loves. Don?t you think? I love the way it allows people to keep track of each other?s activities. Though I don?t Tweet. And come to think of it, I don?t have a Facebook page either.

LOPEZ: Do you find kids know Buzz Lightyear but not Buzz Aldrin, as one girl in Cosmic does?

BOYCE: I grew up in the ?space age? and I really did think, now that Aldrin and Armstrong and Shepherd and Bean had been up there, that it might be my turn next. I fully expected to have a personal jet pack, clothes made of shiny tinfoil, and a holiday cottage on the Moon by now. I think modern children know that people walked on the Moon but they don?t have that hope or expectation that I had -- that they might go there themselves. I think it?s like Magellan sailing round the globe -- they know someone did it once but why would they want to do that.

LOPEZ: ?Dadliness? comes up a lot in Cosmic. What is that exactly?

BOYCE: I think at the beginning Dadliness is the quality that makes someone look like a Dad -- i.e., being badly dressed, rubbish at dancing and obsessed with road maps and directions -- but in the end it turns out to be something a bit more profound. Maybe Dadliness is the willingness and ability to be the safety net. To be able and willing to get there and sort it out when it all goes wrong.

LOPEZ: How do you learn it?

BOYCE: Sadly, the same way that you learn everything -- by doing it. Which does mean that you?re learning on the job and you?re going to make a lot of mistakes. And you?re going to make them in front of your children who are never, ever going to let you forget them.

LOPEZ: At a point in Cosmic, a character thinks he has mastered ?Level One of Being a Dad.? What would you describe ?Level One of Being a Dad?  as in reality?

BOYCE: Well the truth is that Level One is something that Liam can?t really know -- namely that you?re doing all this stuff (changing nappies, cooking food, etc.) for someone that you really think is the most amazing person on earth. Level One is surely that rush of fun and pleasure you get when you first start out as a dad. I think that carries you through. Plus it means you?re allowed to play with Lego again.

LOPEZ: There?s a book that?s talked about in Cosmic, a how-to guide to being a dad. Have you ever encountered one that worked?

BOYCE: I?m ashamed to say that I?ve never read one.

LOPEZ: There are a number of dads in Cosmic. Are any of them modeled after you?

BOYCE: I guess there?s a bit of me in each of them. I?ve been all those different dads in my time. But I?ve grown out of them now.

LOPEZ: You have seven children? Does anyone really have seven children anymore? Especially in England? Are you into bucking trends?

BOYCE: You know strangely there are a couple of families in my road with six or seven and one with eight. There must be something in the water!

LOPEZ: Do you test your stories and characters on your own children?

BOYCE: Well, I read an early draft of Cosmic to them and they HATED it. My eldest daughter very kindly took the time and trouble to tell me what was wrong with it and she was right, so I started again.

LOPEZ: What do they think of Cosmic?

BOYCE: Now they love it. They remember a lot more of it than I do and they sometimes quote lines from it to me. Isn?t that brilliant!

LOPEZ: There seem to be lessons for parents in Cosmic. Is that by design?

BOYCE: Not in the sense that I?m trying to teach anyone anything. I don?t have a message. But if a book is going to be any good you have to put something of yourself in it. For most of my life I?ve been a dad so a lot of what I?ve learned -- and more importantly what I failed to learn -- is in there.

LOPEZ: Do you read everything your kids do, before they do?

BOYCE: I think so. You know when you?ve got teenagers, it can be quite hard to keep up with their taste in music or food -- or sleep patterns -- but books are easy to share. I always tell them if I?ve read something really good, and they do the same to me. My son went to live in Peru for a year -- he was working in a very poor area -- and he took lots of big books with him because he knew he wouldn?t hear much English. I made sure I read the same books. It was really great to have that link when he came back. He?d really been so far away (the children he was working with had never heard of the Beatles!) and having that bridge was a real blessing.

LOPEZ: You?ve got Joan of Arc, St. Christopher, and First Communion in Cosmic. Is there a reason?

BOYCE: It?s the same as the Dad answer, I think. You put a lot of yourself into a book and I?m a Catholic so it gets in there.

LOPEZ: Are you going somewhere with Liam saying ?being alive is only a temporary state??

BOYCE: Did I really say that?! Blimey. That?s a bit of a big one isn?t it? I guess Liam is having to face up to how big the universe is. It?s the eternal and brilliant contradiction -- we are infinitely small and insignificant and we are also infinitely amazing and special. I love that thing that Bede said about how life was like a bird that flew into the banqueting hall out of the darkness and then out the other end into more darkness. It sticks in my mind because I went to a lecture about it and when the lecturer started to explain it, a bird flew in through the window!

LOPEZ: You?ve written for adults and you write for children. Do you prefer one or the other?

BOYCE: Writing for children is much harder and much, much, much more rewarding. I cannot begin to tell you how much I love reading my stuff to a child.

LOPEZ: Will we be seeing a movie version of Cosmic?

BOYCE: I hope so. It?ll be harder than the other movies because weightlessness is so hard to do.

LOPEZ: What are you writing now? Do you enjoy writing?

BOYCE: I?m working on another children?s book. Do I enjoy it? Honestly it?s like asking if I enjoy walking and breathing. Writing is the frequency on which I communicate with the world.

LOPEZ: People must ask you all the time, ?How do I become a successful author?? What do you tell them?

BOYCE: Maybe I?d say that if the ?successful? part is important to you, then do something else. Some of the most important -- and some of the most successful -- books were written in the face of massive apathy and antipathy. Harry Potter was rejected dozens of times. Even Catcher in the Rye was not well reviewed. You can only cope with that if the writing itself gives you so much pleasure that you genuinely don?t care if it flops.

-- Kathryn Lopez is editor-at-large of National Review Online.

Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on February 17, 2010 (boomark / email).