What inspired you to go from illustrating to writing or have you always wanted to do both?
I always wanted to do both but the writing was the thing I was most passionate about. I could do art, loved doing it, but I have always loved telling stories because I loved getting the reaction from the audiences when I do my storytelling. I get a real kick out of it.
As you were born on Valentine ’s Day, are you a hopeless romantic?
I’m kind of romantic I suppose in that there is always a love element in my stories – not in a soppy way, but there has always got to be an emotional heart to what I write. As for being a hopeless romantic, you’ll have to ask my wife that! She’d give you a better idea of it but having my birthday on Valentine’s day – when the postman used to drop all of my birthday cards off at the house he must have thought “Hey up! Must be a looker who lives here” and I’d open the door and he’d go… birthday? Because he’d obviously assumed that this Curtis Jobling fella was unusually handsome and once he saw me he just put two and two together and realised that they weren’t Valentine’s Day cards after all!
Do you have a special place where you like to write and illustrate?
I have my shedquarters! But I don’t get in there as often as I should. My wife keeps threatening to put the chickens in there. Most of the time if the kids are out I just write with my laptop on my knee in the living room and other times when I am travelling to and from school events, I manage to get a bit of writing done on the train then as well.
Out of all of the places you have visited for international school visits, which country is your favourite?
Goodness, I would have to say the United States. I am lucky as I’ve been to places like Hong Kong, Mumbai and Moscow with school visits but with the US tours I get to see places that I have more of a connection to because of all of the films and books and stuff I have seen and read which have been set there. Any excuse to get over to New York really as it is my favourite city!
If you could have an author superpower what would it be and why?
Oh I would have to have the Underpants of Bestsellingness I think! It means that every time I pulled on these under-crackers, my books would go crazy gangbusters in the bookstores – that’s definitely the superpower that I would go with.
What are the differences between a working day when you are writing and a working day with the animation studio? Do you have a preference between the two?
I don’t really do animation stuff anymore even though I still have shows on the telly such as Raa Raa, Bob and Frank’s cat. I didn’t fall out of love with it but I find that writing is far more satisfying for me. My working day tends to be: get up in the morning with the kids and get them to school for 8.30, home for 8.45 when theoretically I can start to work but I can’t write straight away as there is then an hour and a half of writing emails! I get the emails done and then I can start writing. I knock off for lunch and if my wife is in a naughty mood she will persuade me to go out for our lunch which means I get home just in time for the school run and go to pick up the kids. I am then Dad again from 3 til 7 when I will get them off to bed and then I can start writing again!
How do you write your novels, straight onto a computer or handwritten? And do you carry anything with you like an iPad to write down any flashes of inspiration?
I carry a little notepad that I have in my bag; I always have something to hand which I can write on if I need to, but for the most part I usually just write everything straight into my laptop, keeping various word documents open with a riff of my ideas and I catalogue stuff like that. I sometimes have a blank page with one word on it but that’s enough once I’ve saved it because I can visit it later on as an idea takes shape, adding it to the document.
What was it like working for the Wallace and Gromit Aardman team? What did you enjoy most about it?
It gave me a grounding in all areas of animation. Just the week that I was working there on work experience I worked with the set department, the model making department, they had me running all over the place doing different things. It was really good seeing what it took to work in the animation industry. I was straight out of art college so it taught me very quickly that if I wanted to work in this business, my work had to be so much better because Nick Park didn’t settle for second best, he was such a perfectionist. I realized that my work portfolio had to be superb if I was going to get ahead in animation.
Where were you when you first came up with Drew’s character? Did you already have the Wereworld idea before that?
Wereworld was conceived while I was out walking. I used to live at the foot of the Yorkshire Moors and I was dog walking one day in the top of the hills with my little cocker-spaniel when I had this fantasy idea. And as I was walking there was a low mist which came down and it reminded me of the start to the movie American Werewolf in London, which is one of my favourite films. It starts with a pair of American hitchhikers walking across the moors late at night surrounded by fog and the werewolf comes and attacks them. So all of a sudden my fantasy story had a werewolf attack and that’s where the two ideas married and where Wereworld came from.
Do you prefer writing for a YA audience or writing and illustrating your picture books?
A young adult audience. It’s great fun doing picture books, I love it to bits, but the YA voice is my natural voice as a writer. Every picture book I have done has usually had a bit of a darker twist to it; they’re a bit naughty and mischievous because I am appealing to an older audience all of the time. My natural voice is YA and in the coming years hopefully you will see me doing more adult stuff as well.
