Episode 602

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Published on:

23rd Feb 2025

The Real Writing Process of M. R. Carey

Tom Pepperdine interviews best selling author, M. R. Carey, about his writing process. Mike explains which habits from his comic writing career proved to benefit his novel writing, how Once Was Willem was written during a procrastination period, and the one element of his process many other writers would consider psychopathic.

Mike's social media account is here: https://x.com/michaelcarey191

And you can find more information about this podcast and previous episodes on the following links:

https://bsky.app/profile/realwritingpro.bsky.social

https://www.threads.net/@realwritingpro

https://www.instagram.com/realwritingpro

Transcript
Tom:

Hello and welcome to The Real Writing Process, the show that finds

Tom:

out how authors do exactly what they do.

Tom:

I'm your host Tom Pepperdine, and I'm very proud to say that this month my

Tom:

guest is the award winning, best selling, and legendary author M. R. Carey.

Tom:

I won't lie, this is one of those freak out, I can't believe it,

Tom:

this is my life, level guests.

Tom:

I've been reading Mike Carey stuff.

Tom:

For 20 years, from his epic run on the Hellblazer comics, to the Felix

Tom:

Casten novels, to the brilliant zombie film, The Girl With All The Gifts,

Tom:

Mike is just a masterful storyteller in whichever medium he works.

Tom:

I managed to snag him as he started his promotion for his latest novel, Once

Tom:

Was Willem, which is a dark medieval tale inspired by the Seven Samurai,

Tom:

but also features magic and the undead.

Tom:

So, if you like horror, or fantasy, Or historical fiction, or just

Tom:

love good stories, then it comes out on the 4th of March, 2025.

Tom:

So if you're listening to this podcast on day of release, it comes out a week

Tom:

tomorrow, and is available for pre order.

Tom:

And if you're listening to this in the future, then it's already

Tom:

out, and so just go read it.

Tom:

Or maybe you've already read it, and it's what made you a fan, and want

Tom:

to learn about his writing process.

Tom:

Whatever made you listen, really glad you're here, and welcome.

Tom:

Now, as you can tell, I'm quite a fan, and I wish I could say I kept my cool

Tom:

and was professional at all times.

Tom:

I didn't, but for your convenience and for the remnants of my dignity, I've

Tom:

cut out the most egregious ass kissing.

Tom:

It's just not good podcasting, and it's very cringy to listen to.

Tom:

So, there's some musical interludes and disclaimers throughout, but

Tom:

Mike is an absolute gent and gave some really great, insightful

Tom:

answers into his writing process.

Tom:

So, After a jingle, let's get on and hear the interview.

Tom:

Enjoy.

Tom:

And this month I am here with M. R. Carey.

Tom:

Mike.

Tom:

Hello.

Mike:

Hi, Tom.

Mike:

Thanks for having me on the show.

Tom:

Pleasure to have you here.

Tom:

I'm loving it.

Tom:

Um, first question, as always, what are we drinking?

Mike:

We are drinking instant coffee.

Mike:

Mine is from Aldi.

Mike:

Um, it's their number three blend, which is not as harsh as the number four.

Mike:

Cheap as chips, but does the job.

Tom:

Excellent.

Tom:

And is this your writing drink?

Tom:

Is this your go to writer fuel?

Mike:

It's my writing drink for the morning and into the afternoon, and

Mike:

there's a certain point in the afternoon where I'll switch over to, uh, tea.

Tom:

Okay, fair play.

Tom:

And where I'm speaking to you now, is this your office?

Tom:

Is this your writer's room?

Mike:

Uh, no, it's not.

Mike:

This is actually, uh, it was for a long time, uh, my twin son's bedroom.

Tom:

Okay.

Mike:

Um, now only one of them is, uh, is living with us and

Mike:

he has a, a different room.

Mike:

So this is sort of intermittently, it's a study, uh, it's a room where I take

Mike:

interviews, it's a room where I retreat to if my wife is working downstairs.

Mike:

Um, She does, uh, teaching English as a foreign language and sometimes she'll

Mike:

be sort of having a class downstairs.

Mike:

So I'll, come up here to work.

Mike:

So it's, it's a multi purpose space room.

Tom:

Okay.

Tom:

And so do you have a set place to write or is it just anywhere

Tom:

that's quiet or convenient?

Mike:

These days, um, it's anywhere that's quiet.

Mike:

Actually, I'm using the local library a lot.

Mike:

And that's, that's a fairly recent, um, development.

Mike:

Since about November of last year.

Tom:

Okay.

Mike:

I live in, um, in Barnet, North London.

Mike:

And there's a great, a great library on our doorstep.

Mike:

Actually, there's several.

Mike:

And I, I just find it's really useful to walk the couple of miles to the library

Mike:

to get myself in the mood to write.

Mike:

It just somehow puts you in a more productive frame of mind as well

Mike:

as being a really useful exercise.

Mike:

When I'm at home, for a long time, I had a room out the back of a

Mike:

house which had been a garden shed.

Mike:

And the previous owners of the house had attached it to the main

Mike:

body of the house with a corridor.

Mike:

And it was, um, it was a pretty appalling space, to be honest.

Mike:

It was too cold in winter.

Mike:

It was too hot in summer.

Mike:

because it was basically just single skinned brick between you and the world.

Mike:

but it was a good place to work because there was nothing else

Mike:

you could do there, really.

Mike:

It wasn't comfortable enough to just hang out there.

Mike:

So that, that used to be my space.

Mike:

But I stopped using it a couple of years ago, and now I just Carry a

Mike:

laptop around and work wherever I am.

Tom:

Okay.

Tom:

And with the library that you're currently doing, uh, work in,

Tom:

is that a practical, reason?

Tom:

Is there a lot of research that you're doing for your latest project?

Tom:

Or is it just, it's a quiet space that you like going to?

Mike:

I think it's a psychological um, boost that I get from the walk, from

Mike:

removing myself into another space.

Mike:

A space that's It's not mine.

Mike:

It's public.

Mike:

Yeah, there's other people working in study corrals all around me.

Mike:

It's somehow it triggers creative flow.

Tom:

I get that.

Tom:

And when you're developing an idea as you're someone who's written screenplays,

Tom:

comics, and novels, do you approach all story ideas in the same way?

Tom:

And is there, at what point do they kind of diverge into, this is probably, suits

Tom:

that medium more than this other medium?

Mike:

I tend to think that most good stories will work in most media.

Mike:

And so, um, whether, whether an idea becomes a comic, a book, or a movie,

Mike:

or a TV series, or whatever, tends to depend on who I'm doing it for, who

Mike:

I'm sort of, who I'm pitching it to.

Mike:

But often I'll pitch the same idea in many different directions, and

Mike:

it'll just be whatever it takes.

Mike:

So with Girl with All the Gifts, it was a short story, and then I pitched it

Mike:

to Camille Gatin, um, an independent producer, as a movie, at the same time

Mike:

as I pitched it to Orbit as a novel.

Mike:

And then I ended up doing both of them side by side, because they both said yes.

Mike:

So there isn't, definitely isn't a difference of the,

Mike:

at the start of the process.

Mike:

Obviously, different media have different life cycles, and so they,

Mike:

they come into being in different ways.

Mike:

With, with, comics and movies being much, much more collaborative.

Mike:

With a novel, you're basically left your own devices for however long it takes.

Mike:

Uh, yeah.

Mike:

I, I used to offer to show my editors work in progress, but they never wanna see it.

Mike:

They just wanna see the finished draft.

Mike:

Whereas, with, again, referring to Girl with all the gifts,

Mike:

that was a project that at every stage there were three of us.

Mike:

working on it.

Mike:

And I, I was the writer.

Mike:

But, um, Annie, who was the lead producer and Colin, who was the

Mike:

director, they were, they were giving me like massive amounts of input

Mike:

all the way through the sort of treatment outline and treatment stages.

Mike:

And in between the drafts.

Mike:

Um, I did comics first, I did comics before I did anything else.

Mike:

And I picked up some habits from writing comics that were really, really useful.

Mike:

Not my first editor, but the first editor I ever had on an ongoing

Mike:

monthly book was Shelley Bond.

Mike:

and Shelley liked to see quite detailed breakdowns for each issue of the comic.

Mike:

So I'd send in, I'd send in a sort of outline for the next

Mike:

six months or the next year.

Mike:

And we'd argue about that and we'd get it into shape.

Mike:

And then I'd start work on an issue.

Mike:

But I'd send her, I'd send her like a complete breakdown of the issue by scenes.

Mike:

With a kind of costing in pages for each scene.

Mike:

It was that granular.

Mike:

Um, no other editor I've ever worked with has wanted that.

Mike:

But I still kept on doing it because I found it really useful.

Mike:

I think the great thing about a plan is that once you've

Mike:

got it, you can ignore it.

Mike:

Um, you know, if a better idea comes along, then you deviate from the

Mike:

plan, but the plan is there as a kind of a framework to fall back on.

Mike:

And so for most of my career, I've definitely been more of

Mike:

an architect than a gardener.

Mike:

I've worked from a fairly detailed template that I've worked up, over quite

Mike:

a long period before I start writing.

Tom:

And when you're doing that template, is it generally a

Tom:

scenario that is the first seed that germinates your story ideas?

Tom:

Or do you sometimes have character first?

Tom:

How did the stories tend to progress, from scenario and plot and character?

Tom:

Are there different stages where you're expanding each of those?

Mike:

Yeah, I think I always start with the idea, whatever the idea happens to be.

Mike:

It's quite, it's quite rare for me to start with character and

Mike:

I'm aware of that as a fault.

Mike:

Because obviously it's, it's character more than anything

Mike:

that brings a story to life.

Mike:

Character is the, um, the kind of the cement for everything else.

Mike:

There have been times when the characters come first.

Mike:

Uh, Melanie's, uh, Melanie's voice in Melanie's, uh, Melanie's

Mike:

situation with the core of Girl with All the Gifts and Koli.

Mike:

Um, Koli existed as a voice in my head before he was anything else.

Mike:

So that trilogy, the Rampart Trilogy, was sort of very character based.

Mike:

But I tend to start with what feels like a cool idea.

Mike:

And because I'm aware that that's not the place one needs to start,

Mike:

it feels like a vice, I'll often sort of like obsess about character

Mike:

once I've got the ideas in place.

Mike:

There's a thing I do, which, which I find really useful.

Mike:

I think, I think the way into character is voice.

Mike:

And so I'll have, I'll have like extended rambling imaginary

Mike:

conversations with the characters to get, to get the voice on paper.

Mike:

Not, not, I'm not talking to myself.

Mike:

I'll write dialogues involving the character until the voice sort

Mike:

of comes clear, clear in my head.

Mike:

And then that sort of grow the rest of the character around there.

Tom:

Have you ever sort of like cast an actor to help with the voice or is it

Tom:

always you want to have a unique person?

Mike:

I'm terrible at the casting thing.

Mike:

So almost never.

Mike:

Occasionally, there'll be somebody in my friendship group, my actual acquaintances.

Mike:

I'll have them in mind when I'm writing.

Mike:

But usually, usually it's just a completely imaginary person.

Mike:

Uh, when I was writing Girl With All The Gifts, um, I did sort of vaguely

Mike:

feel that, um, the Sergeant Parks character could be Paddy Considine.

Mike:

Uh, that, that did feel right.

Tom:

Nice.

Tom:

Well, that worked out.

Mike:

Yeah, it did.

Tom:

So this is a little interlude as, uh, just for my own sanity, I've

Tom:

had to delete the most sycophantic praising elements of this interview.

Tom:

I'm a big fan of Mike.

Tom:

It was great to interview him, but you don't need to hear it.

Tom:

Let's just say the next bit, I talk about how distinctive voices

Tom:

are of all of his characters and leads onto the next question.

Tom:

But just to smooth out the transition, I'm cutting that and putting this

Tom:

in, uh, the rest will make sense.

Tom:

Um, and were you involved with the audiobooks and regional accents

Tom:

and having those discussions?

Tom:

Or was that just the narrator, the actor, bringing it themselves?

Mike:

I was involved in a very, very peripheral way.

Mike:

So very often they will send me, um, a series of voice files.

Mike:

And they'll say, yeah, we have these, um, these voice actors in mind.

Mike:

Just give us your rankings, give us your feelings about it.

Mike:

And then occasionally we'll have a conversation.

Mike:

Like with Koli, because with the Rambos trilogy being set in the North of England,

Mike:

should they have strong regional accents?

Mike:

Did we want a Nigerian reader for Hadiz in Infinity Gate?

Mike:

And so on, but I don't have any kind of decision making power.

Mike:

I just give an opinion and they go away and do whatever feels right for them.

Tom:

I did it again, I'm sorry.

Tom:

His books are very good.

Tom:

If you haven't read them, read them.

Tom:

Uh, this time, in my sycophantic praise, I actually catch myself.

Tom:

So, um, yeah.

Tom:

It's shorter, but it's still cut.

Tom:

yes, anyway, Um, other parts of planning that I'm interested in, are Research.

Tom:

obviously there's a lot of science in the Rampart trilogy in The Pandominion.

Tom:

Are you someone who likes to just have a bit of real science and then make up

Tom:

a lot, or do you like to ground it as much as possible and then just tweak

Tom:

the reality to make it fantastical?

Mike:

I am an inveterate bluffer.

Mike:

I tend to do just enough research to give a feeling of

Mike:

verisimilitude and then I'll stop.

Mike:

By having said that, with Infinity Gate, um, the spark for that story was

Mike:

I was watching a, an interview with a physicist on YouTube, and he was

Mike:

talking about quantum entanglement.

Mike:

And about a different way of looking at the Schrodinger's box thought experiment,

Mike:

which is you open the box and the cat is either alive or dead, but until

Mike:

you open the box, the cat is both.

Mike:

The waveform hasn't collapsed.

Mike:

And he was saying, well, the thing is, the waveform doesn't

Mike:

collapse when you open the box.

Mike:

What happens is you become quantum entangled with the box.

Mike:

So, there's a reality where you open the box and the cat is alive.

Mike:

And there's a reality where you open the box and the cat is dead.

Mike:

And those are now two states of being for the entire universe.

Mike:

And then he said, the structure of the universe is bigger and

Mike:

bigger quantum entanglement to just like spreading outwards forever.

Mike:

And that just like blew the top of my head off.

Mike:

The whole idea of the pandemonium came from that, what would that

Mike:

kind of universe look like?

Mike:

And what would it be like to live in that kind of universe?

Mike:

but yeah, my, my, my research is shallow, I would be the first to admit it.

Mike:

Um, and then, therefore, when I'm aware that there is like some aspect of the

Mike:

research that's going to be crucial, I will try to reach out to people

Mike:

who know more about it than I do.

Mike:

I've used sensitivity readers to very, very great effect in a lot of my stories.

Mike:

And always have a way, um, knowing a lot more and particularly knowing a lot

Mike:

more about the things that I don't know.

Mike:

It's good to be able to look, uh, look into your own blind spots in that way.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tom:

absolutely.

Tom:

And saying you're an architect with your planning and having a strict

Tom:

outline, but a light researcher, how does your outline look?

Tom:

Do you have it all on, say, one word document?

Tom:

Are you someone who uses a lot of post its or index cards to

Tom:

map out scenes of the plot?

Tom:

How do you map out your outline?

Mike:

It's often a, a sort of fairly extensive document for the Castor novels,

Mike:

particularly, which is when I made the move from comics into prose fiction.

Mike:

I had these colossal chapter breakdowns.

Mike:

The one for The Devil You Know, ran to about 20, 000

Mike:

words, which is novella length.

Mike:

It was crazily, um, uh, circumstantial.

Mike:

Like every single beat was in there.

Mike:

I didn't stick to it religiously once I had it, but I felt

Mike:

like I needed to have it.

Mike:

And I will still do those breakdowns.

Mike:

I don't always do them anymore.

Mike:

I've tried in some cases, like with Once Was Willem, which is the

Mike:

book that's coming out in March.

Mike:

Um, that is kind of folkloric in its approach.

Mike:

And I felt like it needed a kind of simplicity and that my usual obsessive

Mike:

plan would militate against the kind of very, very direct and linear style

Mike:

of storytelling that I was aiming for.

Mike:

And so I worked with a very light plan.

Mike:

I just had a few sort of key moments worked out in my head.

Mike:

Mostly, for the climax, to be honest.

Mike:

And the rest, came much more sort of, much more organically.

Mike:

And that was great.

Tom:

So, once you've got the outline done or comfortable enough to start

Tom:

your initial draft, how disciplined are you in getting the words on the page?

Tom:

Are you someone who has a daily word count?

Tom:

Do you work to set hours?

Tom:

because you've got to go to the library.

Tom:

Is it just, the time the library is open?

Tom:

Or once I've done 2, 000 words, I check out for the day.

Tom:

How does a writing session look for you?

Mike:

I mean, funny you mentioned that precise figure because, yeah,

Mike:

2, 000 words is quite a good day.

Mike:

And so I'll tend to get to the library about 9, 9.

Mike:

30, 10 o'clock, sometimes earlier.

Mike:

Um, it depends on whether I'm walking in with my wife or by myself.

Mike:

and I'll sit there through the morning into the early afternoon

Mike:

and probably get 2, 000 words under my belt before I get up again.

Mike:

If I'm on a role, I'll come home and I'll just have a quick

Mike:

bite of lunch and I'll carry on.

Mike:

I feel like I've got the wind in my sail.

Mike:

Other days I'll just stop there and I'll use the afternoon for other things.

Mike:

You know, for, um, admin and, um, uh, household stuff.

Mike:

But yeah, so it's so it's loaded toward the morning.

Mike:

The morning is a more productive time, um, and then the rest of the day is flexible.

Tom:

And are you someone that as you start a writing session, you reread

Tom:

what you wrote the day before, maybe make a few notes and at the end of a

Tom:

session, do you leave a little summary for you to pick up the next day?

Tom:

Or is it just, No, I've locked it away.

Tom:

Yesterday's done.

Tom:

I'll get to that in the edit.

Tom:

A new day.

Tom:

Fresh, fresh words.

Mike:

Yeah.

Mike:

Much, much more.

Mike:

The latter.

Mike:

Um, I, I tend not to rewrite as I go along unless, I come to a point where

Mike:

I feel like I need to make a change.

Mike:

I need to make change retroactively.

Mike:

So I need to, uh, to, put all of the stuff that's been written

Mike:

into a different configuration.

Mike:

Then I'll stop and go right back to the start.

Mike:

But mostly now it's a very linear process.

Mike:

I start at the beginning and I go through chapter by chapter, in the sequence in

Mike:

which, it will appear in the final draft.

Mike:

I almost never jumped forwards or backwards.

Tom:

Yeah, And when you you're sort of coming to the end of a section of

Tom:

writing, are you someone who likes to finish off a chapter, or do you like to

Tom:

leave it in the middle of the action?

Mike:

Um, I've often just left, just left in the middle, even sometimes

Mike:

in the middle of a sentence, you know, because I'm just thinking,

Mike:

this isn't quite coming together.

Mike:

I need to go away and um, and kind of mull on this.

Mike:

Because I discovered quite early on,when I started writing professionally, that

Mike:

um, the pauses are part of the process.

Mike:

Stopping can sometimes be the best thing you can do.

Mike:

If you're forcing something against the grain, it's best to go

Mike:

away and do something different.

Mike:

Because some subroutine within you, within your brain, it's

Mike:

still working away at the problem.

Mike:

So, so I'll often finish a day's work in the middle, right,

Mike:

right in the middle of something.

Tom:

It's funny you say that, because a lot of times on this show, and

Tom:

regular listeners will know this, I've asked the question, do you ever leave

Tom:

it t in the middle of a sentence?

Tom:

And the amount of guests that I've had that have reacted in horror, of like, what

Tom:

kind of psychopath leaves their writing session in the middle of the sentence?

Tom:

I can now say, Mike Carey does.

Tom:

But, um, yeah, coming on to your point there with, yeah, the subroutines in the

Tom:

brain working on stuff, again, regular listeners will know, I've actually had

Tom:

a writer who was a psychologist in her day job and we discussed alpha waves.

Tom:

And it's, uh, the problem solving part of the brain that if you're doing a

Tom:

repetitive action that doesn't require a lot of intense thought, like walking

Tom:

to a destination that you know.

Tom:

It frees up the alpha waves so you can problem solve, which is why going for

Tom:

a run or having a shower or walking the dog or doing the dishes can often be

Tom:

the time when you Solve a plot point.

Mike:

Right.

Tom:

And so I think having the walk, you know, the commute to the office

Tom:

as it were, frees up the brain, gets all that problem solving creativity

Tom:

mindfulness, loosened up and ready.

Tom:

And you might find that, yeah, if you get stuck, but you walk home and

Tom:

suddenly it clicks and you go, oh, I'm going to work on this this afternoon.

Mike:

Yeah.

Tom:

So, uh, yeah, there is science behind it.

Mike:

But my good, my good friend, uh, peter Gross, who I used to work

Mike:

with, uh, on a whole bunch of comic projects, including, um, Lucifer and

Mike:

the Unwritten, he would take difficult problems to the bath, to the bath tub.

Mike:

And he would just have a long, long soak in hot water.

Mike:

And then he'd come out with with insights?

Mike:

And then he'd send me an email saying, we need to have a bathtub conversation,

Mike:

. Tom: Yes, which, um, you know, in those days was perfectly acceptable.

Mike:

These days can get you in a lot of trouble.

Mike:

Uh, but no, that's, that's great.

Mike:

Um, Also, because you're someone who works from such a, a structured outline

Mike:

when you start, even if you don't stick to it, you don't really start a project

Mike:

until you've got a complete outline.

Mike:

Are there any times when you have uninspired periods where you walk

Mike:

to the library and it is just the words aren't there, or you know,

Mike:

just whatever you were thinking.

Mike:

Suddenly, as soon as you sit down and the laptop's open, it's gone.

Mike:

Uh, do you have situations similar to that?

Mike:

And if so, how do you tend to deal with it?

Mike:

Yeah, I, I, I do, I do have off days.

Mike:

Uh, and I think, I think one of the things that's happened to

Mike:

me, in the last five years or so.

Mike:

I mean, since, since, um, COVID, since the lockdowns, um, I found

Mike:

myself much more distractible than I ever used to be before.

Mike:

So there are days when, when I, I just can't bring my brain to focus.

Mike:

When I'm just kinda like letting every single thing in the world

Mike:

come between me and the work.

Mike:

And it's really distressing.

Mike:

The walks to the library were in fact a, um, attempt to address that problem.

Mike:

And it seems to have, it seems to have worked.

Mike:

so those days don't come as frequently since I started that,

Mike:

since I started that regimen.

Mike:

But yeah, I don't have any, I don't have any solution to that.

Mike:

Those days are just like purgatorial and, you know, I

Mike:

come out of them deeply ashamed.

Mike:

Hey, that sounds, sounds a little dramatic, but there are days,

Mike:

you know, when, um, where I just produced nothing and I frittered

Mike:

the time away, and I just feel like this deeply disgusted with myself.

Tom:

And is it just a waiting process for that to sort of just, this too

Tom:

shall pass or is there any sort of exercises or things that you can do

Tom:

to sort of help get you out of a rut?

Mike:

Um, it's mostly just wait, wait, waiting for it to pass.

Mike:

I mean, I think I'm starting really early.

Mike:

Psychologically useful to me, so like coming in at the start of the day and

Mike:

basically thinking, I'm going to sit at this desk until I get to X, until

Mike:

I, until I get this thing sorted.

Mike:

That can be useful.

Mike:

But yeah, often it's just waiting for a more productive

Mike:

frame of mind to, to come about.

Tom:

For someone who's been writing for as long as you have at a high

Tom:

level of bestsellers and success, do you ever get imposter syndrome during

Tom:

writing projects where you're like, I'm a terrible writer, what am I doing?

Tom:

Uh, does that ever crop up and is it something that's just part of

Tom:

the writing process, do you think?

Tom:

Or is it just it only happens now and then?

Mike:

No, it's always been there for me.

Mike:

Um, and it's intensity of it has never really, has never really changed.

Mike:

I do this thing where a lot of creators I know say they never read reviews,

Mike:

they just steer clear of reviews.

Mike:

I read, I read all the reviews and then I ignore the positive ones.

Mike:

I look for criticism and say, yeah, okay, that's what I got wrong with this one.

Mike:

Um, which I know is pathological.

Mike:

But, um.

Mike:

I tend always to compare myself to the people I most admire, uh, in

Mike:

the fields in which I'm writing.

Mike:

And to sort of be aware of the shortfall Between their work and mine.

Tom:

I mean, it's a way to keep you humble, I guess.

Tom:

But, um, I mean, is there, you know, sort of focusing on the criticism, are there

Tom:

times where you're just like, well, I can just dismiss that, that's someone

Tom:

who doesn't like my style of stuff?

Tom:

Or do you find yourself being a bit of a people pleaser, and taking the

Tom:

criticism on board, and actually trying to apply what they were

Tom:

complaining about in your next project?

Mike:

I think, neither of the above.

Mike:

I think I can recognize when criticism is valid and when it isn't.

Mike:

I did a book called Re-gifters a long time ago for DC's Minx imprint,

Mike:

which is intended to a YA audience.

Mike:

Um, I got a review that was like really stinging, but the, but the were absurd.

Mike:

It's sort of like.

Mike:

went trolling for a few tiny inconsistencies in the way

Mike:

I'd represented, the Korean communities in Los Angeles.

Mike:

And then, used that to lambaste me as essentially frivolous

Mike:

and inconsequential writer.

Mike:

So I thought, yeah, she definitely has an axe to grind.

Mike:

I don't need to take those criticism on board, but it's still, and I

Mike:

certainly don't sort of like, uh, make changes to the work based

Mike:

on that, but it still stings.

Mike:

It still hurts.

Mike:

Even though you can sort of recognize, um, what reasonable criticism and what isn't.

Mike:

The unreasonable criticism still, uh, still, still rankles me.

Tom:

Well, I, I hope you have, uh, less and less in the future.

Tom:

Uh, I'm, I'm, certainly a fan.

Tom:

and, I'm, I'm sure better days will be ahead.

Tom:

Um.

Tom:

Now, there's the odd adage that writing is rewriting, so going into

Tom:

rewriting your work and editing, once you've done the initial draft and

Tom:

done the end, how long is it before you go back and start revising.

Tom:

Is it like the next day straight away?

Tom:

Is it no, I'm going to go and have a drink, celebrate with the wife, you

Tom:

know, take some time off and then go back to it once I've had some distance.

Tom:

What's the process from first draft to revision?

Tom:

And how does it start?

Mike:

Well, if it's a novel, then I will tend to wait until I get the

Mike:

feedback from my editor before I reread.

Mike:

I can't, I can't go back in straight away because, um, I'm too close to

Mike:

it to add any objectivity at all.

Mike:

So there needs to be, you know, a month or a couple of months just

Mike:

in order for you to sort of start having amnesia, so that you can come

Mike:

at it as though you were a reader.

Mike:

It looks like you were just a reader, uh, see what works and see what's not landing.

Mike:

So I'll tend to do a sort of stop start process.

Mike:

And the pace of that is determined by how quickly my editor gets back

Mike:

to me, uh, with their commentary.

Tom:

And, going on from what you were saying about the comments and the bad

Tom:

reviews and the criticism and what's valid and what isn't, how is it taking that

Tom:

first batch of notes from your editor?

Tom:

Is it a relief of like, okay, great, we can go back and this is a lot of

Tom:

stuff I can work on to make it better or do you need a stiff drink and say,

Tom:

why didn't they say it was perfect?

Tom:

They should have come back no notes.

Tom:

Um, because, you know, we all have ego.

Tom:

It's fine.

Tom:

Um, but is, is it more of a pleased or is it more of a bruised ego

Tom:

overcome and then get back to work?

Mike:

Um, there's definitely, yeah, the initial impact will bruise,

Mike:

but there's no getting around that.

Mike:

But normally the pain doesn't last very long.

Mike:

Um, an editor's job, I think, is to pick a fight with the story.

Mike:

I'm sorry, to pick a fight with the, um, with the writer on the path of

Mike:

a story to sort of see where you're trying to go and to take you to

Mike:

task when you're not getting there.

Mike:

So, um, good notes will make the story better.

Mike:

And so you come to value them.

Mike:

pain goes away quickly and the value lasts.

Mike:

I say with a good editor, um, I have very good editors at the moment, but

Mike:

that hasn't always been the case.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tom:

I was going to say, like, most of your novels have been with Orbit Books,

Tom:

and I was wondering, has it been the same editor at Orbit the whole

Tom:

time, or, you know, very few changes?

Mike:

Very few changes.

Mike:

So, when I first came on board it was, Darren Nash.

Mike:

And that was a great, that was a great partnership.

Mike:

He was a, a huge comic fan.

Mike:

the way I got my foot in the door there was because I was writing

Mike:

Hellblazer, for DC at the time.

Mike:

And I sent him a bunch of issues and said, yeah, I could do some novels

Mike:

that are a bit like that, but, uh, with a slightly different protagonist.

Mike:

I worked with Darren for many years.

Mike:

And then, uh, Anne Clarke.

Mike:

Darren moved into the, uh, digital gateway, the orbital gateway work.

Mike:

And Anne Clarke became my editor.

Mike:

And currently it's, um, Anna Jackson.

Mike:

Those have all been really, really, um, really fruitful, collaboration.

Mike:

So they're really good at their job.

Mike:

And I've enjoyed very much into good working with them.

Tom:

And what would you say is the, um, the best things in a good editor

Tom:

and the worst things in a bad editor?

Mike:

Okay.

Mike:

Yeah.

Mike:

So, so a good editor looks for what the story should be, looks

Mike:

at what you are aiming towards.

Mike:

And, and has a sense of what you're aiming towards.

Mike:

And therefore their notes will be sort of informed by that.

Mike:

They won't be random.

Mike:

They will be purposeful and they will have to do with the core themes,

Mike:

the core structures of the story.

Mike:

Um.

Mike:

A bad editor just likes to make a mark.

Mike:

A bad editor just um, well I think there's two kinds of bad editors.

Mike:

There's bad editors who would rather write the story themselves, and therefore

Mike:

just throw in extraneous ideas based on stuff that came into their head

Mike:

as they were reading, which has got nothing to do with what the story is.

Mike:

And then there are, I think, insecure editors who feel like they need to

Mike:

pick holes in things, whether their holes are, are worth picking or not.

Mike:

So my first, my first ever editor was on a, was on a comic that never

Mike:

got published and he is now dead.

Mike:

Um, I can't, I can't hurt his feeling.

Mike:

But, the comic in question starts with Lucifer's fall from, uh, from heaven.

Mike:

A caption said, you know, he fell for nine days and nights.

Mike:

By the ninth day, his speed, his energy would have been incalculable.

Mike:

And the editor's note was, Assuming that the acceleration due to gravity is 9.

Mike:

8 meters per second per second, then at the start of the ninth

Mike:

day, the speed would have been

Tom:

Yeah, I feel that there's no poetry in that man's soul whatsoever.

Tom:

Yeah.

Tom:

Wow.

Tom:

Um, now Another thing I want to talk about with the ends of projects is,

Tom:

it's certainly because you're someone who has written a series like the

Tom:

Felix Castor novels and you've written a trilogy and duologies and, uh,

Tom:

you've also worked in other people's IP, like you mentioned Hellblazer,

Tom:

also X Men and, uh, Fantastic Four.

Tom:

So, when you've finished a project, I feel there's always

Tom:

a ratio of relief and grief.

Tom:

The relief of, oh, that's done and grief of, oh, I don't get to

Tom:

have fun in that sandbox anymore.

Tom:

Would you say that when you finish a project, do you feel

Tom:

more relief or more grief?

Mike:

Tough question.

Mike:

Um.

Mike:

I think, I think it's relief at first.

Mike:

You sort of, you feel the satisfaction when you put the pen down, it feels

Mike:

like, when you set your hands off the keyboard, and the last word is done, and

Mike:

you feel, you know, you've come to the end of something, big, momentous for

Mike:

you, even if it's not for anybody else.

Mike:

Um, and then the pain kicks in later.

Mike:

you do feel a kind of, equivalent to the reader's book hangover.

Mike:

You know, when as a reader, you finish a long series, you're a bit bereft.

Mike:

You know, when I finished reading the expanse books, I wanted to go back

Mike:

and start them again, because I wanted more time with those characters.

Mike:

There's a version of that, I think, that the writer gets.

Mike:

I want to go back to that voice.

Mike:

I want to go back to that character.

Mike:

And many, many times, um, I've written something as a short story and then I've

Mike:

not been able to put the character down.

Mike:

And so I've expanded it into a novel or a sequence of novels.

Mike:

So, Girl with all the gifts started as a short story and the Rampart

Mike:

trilogy started as a short story called All That's Red Earth.

Mike:

so yeah, I guess ultimately more pain than really.

Tom:

Okay.

Tom:

And also, my, uh, guest that I had last month, we had a discussion about

Tom:

when does it feel like it's over?

Tom:

And I feel as someone who's written screenplay and novels and comics, when

Tom:

do you feel that your part is done?

Tom:

when does it end for you?

Mike:

For comics.

Mike:

So, this comes back, uh, to some extent to what we were saying

Mike:

about good editors and bad editors.

Mike:

Um, when it's over for the writer, depends to some extent on whether the

Mike:

editor is doing their job properly or not.

Mike:

Um, bad editor will just take the draft, give the draft to the artist, and

Mike:

then the writer is sort of cut out of the process until the book comes out.

Mike:

Oh yeah, you just suddenly have the book arrived.

Mike:

Uh, a good editor will sort of keep the team talking at every stage, so they,

Mike:

they'll send a page for us, to the writer, and uh, invite the writer to sort of like,

Mike:

comment on the structure of the pages.

Mike:

Um, they'll let, let the writer do a dialogue pass on the pencil art and so on.

Mike:

And therefore it's not over until, until the, it's like goes to press.

Mike:

So Girl With All The Gifts is an interesting, really interesting case

Mike:

here because, um, I said earlier that I wrote them at the same time.

Mike:

And that, that's not entirely true.

Mike:

I started them at the same time.

Mike:

But a movie takes a lot longer to happen than a novel does.

Mike:

So, um, the novel came out in January of 2014, and we didn't go

Mike:

to principal photography on the movie until June, July of 2015.

Mike:

so there was a long period where the novel was done and dusted.

Mike:

You know, the last final draft had been accepted.

Mike:

And the novel was in the world.

Mike:

I was still working on the movie.

Mike:

I was still, um, writing drafts of the movie.

Mike:

So especially in the later scenes of the movie, there are beats that, I think were,

Mike:

With second thoughts and better thoughts.

Mike:

Particularly the final confrontation between Melanie and Caldwell.

Mike:

I think it looks better in the movie than it does in the novel.

Mike:

Because it just adds longer to live with it and longer to think about it.

Tom:

Yeah, that is.

Tom:

I mean, I love both, but it is an interesting thing.

Tom:

I think a lot of authors, well, you have it with filmmakers going

Tom:

back and revisiting their work.

Tom:

I don't know who it's attributed to, but it's that a great art is

Tom:

never finished, it's abandoned.

Tom:

And yeah, having that opportunity to revisit a story later

Tom:

on, uh, it's really cool.

Tom:

I wish I had something more profound to say, but no, that's just really cool.

Tom:

Um, and with, um, your current projects, uh, just want to sort of like talk about.

Tom:

So, uh, you have, Ghost Box, uh, your comic series that you're

Tom:

working on, at the moment.

Tom:

Is that project finished?

Tom:

Is it's just been released in stages?

Tom:

Or is it something that you're still working on?

Mike:

That's it.

Mike:

It's finished.

Mike:

I've sent Pablo the, uh, the final script.

Mike:

We're hoping, really, if the series gets well received, then, um, we'll do

Mike:

another mini series off the back of it.

Mike:

Uh, we have a few, a few sort of rough ideas for what would happen in that.

Mike:

But yeah, currently that's done.

Mike:

Except in so far as, you know, Pablo will send me rough cuts to

Mike:

the pages and, uh, we'll do some dialogue adjustments as we go.

Tom:

Okay, excellent.

Tom:

And actually, how many issues is that?

Tom:

four is coming out, the week of recording, but, you know, sort of

Tom:

five will be, be in previews by the time the episode comes out.

Mike:

Five is the last one.

Tom:

Okay.

Mike:

Five is the climax.

Tom:

Okay, nice.

Tom:

And, what are you working on at the moment?

Tom:

Are you working on novels, novellas, short stories?

Mike:

Um, mostly novel, mostly prose.

Mike:

I've just sent in a first draft of another novel, which will

Mike:

probably be coming out in 2026.

Mike:

and I'm waiting for feedback on that.

Mike:

And I'm about 15, 000 words into the novel after that, which is, I feel very much

Mike:

like still feeling my way on that one.

Mike:

Um, am I doing anything that's not novel at the moment?

Mike:

No, I mean, I'm not talking to people about current projects, but,

Mike:

uh, there's no other writing about, apart from the prose at the moment.

Tom:

And with those novels that you're waiting to hear back and you're

Tom:

working on, are you under contract on those, or do you write novels under

Tom:

spec and then send them out to see?

Mike:

I normally have a sort of pampered institutional creed it

Mike:

comes to prose, I normally have a contract on the go with orbit.

Tom:

Nice.

Mike:

Um, so the novel I'm working on is the last novel in the current contract.

Mike:

usually, I'll tell them in advance, I won't ever send them a sort of like the

Mike:

laborious plans, you know, because, um, I don't think anybody wants to read those.

Mike:

Um, but I'll send them like a one or two page kind of outline of the novel.

Mike:

You know, they'll, usually sort of like give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down.

Mike:

but really a thumbs up, and then I'll start work.

Mike:

Occasionally.

Mike:

So, once was Willem, uh, I said there was a, there was a longer story about this.

Mike:

So, um, I was working on Infinity Gate, um, and it was during

Mike:

the lockdowns, during COVID.

Mike:

and.

Mike:

I got about 60, 70, 000 words in and, um, I sent a partial graph to my editor.

Mike:

and she was a little bit concerned about the structure.

Mike:

She thought, you know, you know how, um, there's a long time that you

Mike:

spend with Hadiz and then there's a long time that you spell with Essien.

Mike:

And then you don't meet Paz until about 200, 200.

Mike:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mike:

She's in.

Mike:

so my editor was concerned about that and said, you know, could, is there

Mike:

a way of introducing Paz earlier?

Mike:

Is there a way into leaving, the different narratives more, um, more organically.

Mike:

And I said, yeah, sure.

Mike:

Of course.

Mike:

Of course.

Mike:

Yeah, no problem.

Mike:

Um, and I started trying to do it.

Mike:

And the entire novel fell apart in my hands.

Mike:

That is not an exaggeration.

Mike:

It just completely and utterly imploded.

Mike:

And I came to hate it.

Mike:

There was a period where I couldn't look at it without, um, without flinching.

Mike:

and so I gave it up.

Mike:

I thought, I can't write this.

Mike:

This is never going to happen.

Mike:

And I wrote, I wrote Once Was Willem.

Mike:

I wrote it in three months.

Mike:

It just, like, really, really flowed.

Mike:

And it felt fantastic not to be writing Infinity Gate.

Mike:

and then once I finished, I'd kind of exorcise those demons

Mike:

to go back to Infinity Gate.

Mike:

There is a way of doing it.

Tom:

I feel that's like the ultimate procrastination of

Tom:

like, I've got a writing problem.

Tom:

I'll better write another novel to distract myself.

Mike:

It's the only novel I've ever done that, but God, it was

Mike:

so cathartic, I was so happy.

Tom:

I was doing so well at holding it together, but this last exchange when

Tom:

he's talking about Infinity Gate, I then had to go into how much I loved Infinity

Tom:

Gate and its sequel Echo of Worlds.

Tom:

The whole Pandaminion duology is fantastic.

Tom:

But it's so painful to listen back.

Tom:

I'm sparing you and I know there'll be some of you saying

Tom:

oh, it's fine Tom Just play it.

Tom:

It's three minutes.

Tom:

Three minutes of how much I love these books.

Tom:

That's too long.

Tom:

I even at one point to compare him to Dickens in his story structure and

Tom:

his characterization It's wonderful compliments and he deserves every single

Tom:

one, but it's three minutes of cringe.

Tom:

So no, you don't get it I've learnt my lesson.

Tom:

Anyway, uh, back to the last couple of questions.

Tom:

So I have, my two last questions, which, we'll just wrap up, but I

Tom:

really like to thank you, Mike, for being a great guest today.

Tom:

You've, your answers are brilliant.

Mike:

It's been a great pleasure.

Mike:

I really enjoyed it.

Tom:

Good, good.

Tom:

Um, it's my belief that writers continue to grow and develop their writing

Tom:

with each story that they write.

Tom:

Uh, was there anything in particular that you learned from, say, Once Was

Tom:

Willem or a project that you finished recently that you're now applying to the

Tom:

novels you're working on at the moment?

Mike:

Yes, um, not so much Once Was Willem, but the story that I've just

Mike:

sent in, which is, um, a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's Tinderbox,

Mike:

I kind of relearned a lesson that I'd forgotten, which is about characters

Mike:

who are only plot functions.

Mike:

Characters who you introduce to a story, um, purely because you need

Mike:

to, you need to get A, B and C done.

Mike:

like, um, Gaudium in Lucifer was originally just a messenger.

Mike:

He was just somebody who was there to tell another character, Elaine,

Mike:

something that she needed to know.

Mike:

But then he became interesting and we, and we played with him for a long time.

Mike:

Um, and kept on reintroducing him.

Mike:

Oh, so there's a character in Every version of a tinderbox story.

Mike:

It's um, it's the witch who, um, initially tries to get hold of the magical artifact

Mike:

by swindling the, the protagonist.

Mike:

And is usually killed quite early on in the story.

Mike:

So she's an antagonist, but she's only an antagonist in Act One.

Mike:

And then the story goes elsewhere.

Mike:

Um, and when I started writing, I had relegated that character to that role.

Mike:

and I realized in the course of writing the, uh, the scenes between her and the

Mike:

protagonist, I realized She needed more.

Mike:

She needed much more of role going forward and much more of

Mike:

a, much more agency in the story.

Mike:

Um, no character should ever just be a plot function.

Mike:

This was the lesson that I'd forgotten to relearn.

Tom:

That's, that's a great lesson to learn.

Tom:

I, I, and I hope a lot of listeners take that on board as well.

Tom:

And throughout your writing career, has there, in my last question, is

Tom:

there one piece of advice that you find yourself returning to that's

Tom:

always resonated to you, uh, in regards to the writing process?

Mike:

Yes.

Mike:

you can't write what you don't read.

Mike:

You, you have to, you have to love the medium and the genre or media

Mike:

and genres in which you're writing.

Mike:

If you're not first and foremost an enthusiastic consumer.of

Mike:

that t was that kind of story.

Mike:

Because, because because every genre is a dialogue.

Mike:

Each text within every genre is part of that dialogue is, is a sort of

Mike:

part of this ongoing exploration of ideas and situations and themes.

Mike:

If you're not reading you're not part of the conversation, then you're gonna write

Mike:

only trite and um, and undeveloped stuff.

Tom:

that's that's a very good point.

Tom:

And I think it also risks being unintentionally derivative.

Tom:

Where you think you're being original and it's just like, oh, no, you just

Tom:

haven't read enough of the genre.

Mike:

Yeah.

Tom:

Yeah, I see that a lot online people arguing sort of like saying

Tom:

oh, you're just copying so and so.

Tom:

Nope, I was writing a lot before they were and we have the same references and we're

Tom:

actually harking back to Medieval folklore or Greek mythology and actually, you know,

Tom:

these stories go a long long way back.

Tom:

And yeah, stories are universal.

Tom:

Stories can be references to the past.

Tom:

But yeah, you really should be an expert in the genre that you're writing in, I 100

Tom:

percent agree, and I think you can tell.

Tom:

Well, that's it, that's all for this week, but, uh, Mike Carey, thank you

Tom:

so much for being my guest this month.

Mike:

Thank you, Tom, thank you for having me, I really enjoyed the conversation.

Tom:

And that was Mike Carey.

Tom:

M. R. Carey, or Mr. C. Whatever you wish to call him, that

Tom:

was him, and he is great.

Tom:

Now, as mentioned in the interview, he has a short five issue comic run

Tom:

out at the moment called Ghost Box.

Tom:

It's about two sisters who inherit a box full of ghosts and hijinks ensue.

Tom:

If you like comics, give it a read.

Tom:

I would like there to be more adventures, so it needs a decent audience, and

Tom:

hopefully some of you will be decent.

Tom:

It's free to download onto Kindle if you have Amazon Prime, so it

Tom:

might not even cost you anything.

Tom:

Also, uh, Once Was William is available everywhere books are sold, either for

Tom:

pre order or regular purchase, depending on where you are on the timeline.

Tom:

And the film version of Girl With All The Gifts is not currently on streaming,

Tom:

but maybe it's your excuse to return to physical media and get the Blu ray.

Tom:

Now, I'll put his social media handle in the show notes, but

Tom:

otherwise that's it for February.

Tom:

We have another incredible best selling author for March ready with a beverage

Tom:

to tell you all about their writing process, and it's time for me to sign

Tom:

off as the music is about to kick in.

Tom:

Ah, there it is.

Tom:

Keep writing until the world ends.

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The Real Writing Process
Interviewing writers about how they work
Interviews with award winning writers as well as emerging talent on how they manage their day to day process of writing for a living. Hear how the professionals approach structure, plot and imposter syndrome, as well as what they like to drink.
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