Writing life – James Russell
James Russell, author of the best-selling Dragon Defenders series, answers a few questions about why he writes.
What inspires you to write?
That something that magically materialises in my own head can then transfer to someone else’s through some squiggly black lines on a piece of paper. It’s some sort of miracle.
What sort of things provide inspiration for your writing?
Dogs slipping over on shiny wooden floors, bumble bees bumping into me, turkeys falling off fence posts. Also great books, in which you end up hopelessly lost. That hollow longing when a really great book has ended. The jigsaw piece ‘click’ in my brain when I find the right word.
Since you’ve been a published author, is there anything that someone’s said about your work that has surprised or delighted you?
One mum told me that she crept into her ten-year-old son’s bedroom at 10:30pm, only to see the light from the iPad glowing from under the covers. Pulling them back, she discovered that he was using the light from the iPad to read one of my books!
