Friday, May 20, 2005

Cherubs and Romans

Today I did a new kind of event: sharing the stage with another author!

Cherub series author Robert Muchamore and I spoke to 60 boys from Shrewsbury House School in the morning and 60 lively girls from Brentford School for Girls in the afternoon.

Robert and I both stood up and spoke for about ten minutes about how we got started writing, then fielded their questions, both of us answering whenever we could. They boys were especially well-prepared and had each read at least one of my books and at least one of Robert's books each!

In the break between sessions the Waterstone's staff gave us lunch: cheese, salad and vegetarian samosas. The lovely organizer Alex (right, with me and Robert) even did a Starbucks run to get me a mocha. It was great meeting Laura and Gerald who are both Buffy fans. Especially Gerald.

I had mentioned the archetypes in my talk to the boys and over lunch Gerald and I tried to match them up with the crew of Serenity:

The Hero: Mal
The Faithful Sidekick: Zoe
The Funny One: Wash
The Wild One: Jayne
The Mentor: Reverend Book?

Of course because it is Joss, the characters are much more than archetypes. Apparently he took aside the actor who plays Jayne and said 'You are really the hero of this story.' A good author knows that each character – like each of us – is the hero of his own story. I have great hopes for Serenity, out this October.

Joss, don't let me down the way George let me down last night with Revenge of the Sith...

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