Garth Nix
I tend to think of stories and books as being for everyone, just with an 'entry reading age' rather than an age range.
Writing for children, you do bear a responsibility to not include overt or graphic adult content that they are not ready for and don't need, or to address adult concepts or themes from an oblique angle or a child's limited viewpoint, with appropriate context, without being graphic or distressing.
I can understand the natural anxiety of readers when waiting for another installment of a favourite series, but I think it is much more important to get a book right than it is to have it appear on time.
There is a very big difference between writing for children and writing for young adults. The first thing I would say is that 'Young Adult' does not mean 'Older Children', it really does mean young but adult, and the category should be seen as a subset of adult literature, not of children's books.
In any genre you're working in, you can always find a way to tell a particular kind of story. I love fantasy; I love science fiction. I love all kinds of fiction, in fact.
Authors are influenced by everything they've ever read. If you've read widely enough, it helps you create your own mix.
I loved publishing; I loved working in the book industry, but I've been writing pretty much nonstop since I was 19. I realized very early on that I would need a day job, and I wanted one that was in books.
I studied writing at university, and I actually majored in screenwriting. Then I went to work as a bookseller and then as a sales rep and publicist and then various editorial jobs until I ended up with HarperCollins in Australia.
Unlike the stereotypical author, I've never had a job as a short-order cook, but I love cooking hot breakfasts for lots of people, juggling the eggs and the bacon and the tomatoes and the fried potatoes and so on.
I don't watch a lot of T.V., and I hardly ever have time to keep up with series, though I do love reruns of old favorites from my childhood like 'Dr. Who', 'The Goodies', and 'Get Smart.'
I like movies in particular, on video or T.V. I have lots of old favorites, like Danny Kaye in 'The Court Jester' or 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty' or James Stewart in 'Winchester '73.' But I also like a lot of modern films.
I like to write books that I would have liked as a child, that would have got me thinking and imagining beyond the words on the page. In a way, my audience is always how I remember myself as a child.
I find the presence of the sea quite inspiring, and sometimes I do just get out and walk around and take in the sea breeze to try and clear my mind.
With the 'Old Kingdom' trilogy, at least half the readers were older adults rather than younger adults. I wrote them for myself with no particular audience in mind.
In all my books, I try to have a strong element of realism underlying the fantastic.
If only one in 1,000 people that I talk to goes on to write a good book, that's one more good book that I've helped along... and maybe it will be a book I love myself five or 10 years down the line.
Interestingly, it is often the younger members of the audience who ask the most sophisticated questions.
I grew up in a house full of books and parents who read, which led to me to reading from a very young age. And reading seemed to naturally progress to writing.
There is never one absolutely right thing to do. All you can do is honor what you believe, accept the consequences of your own actions, and make the best out of what happens.Collection: Believe
Sometimes it is easier to see the light when you stand partly in the darkness.Collection: Light
Fear and realisation of ignorance, strong medicines against stupid pride.Collection: Strong
Often, I get the feeling that the story is really happening somewhere and all I'm doing is trying to work out the best way to tell it.Collection: Work Out
The most important thing is to be true to yourself, however you feel, and not try to feel or behave differently because you think you should, or someone has told you how you must feel. But do think about it. Unexamined feelings lead to all kinds of trouble.Collection: Life
People often presume I'm from whatever country they're from. So Americans presume I'm American and the British presume I'm British. And they're surprised to discover I actually am Australian. And actually some Australians are surprised too.Collection: Country
I don't do all the background and the worldbuilding before I start the story. What I do is I work out the bare minimum I need to start the story, and often that really is a bare minimum - it's a character in a situation, and I know nothing about the character, I know nothing about the situation, and then I think about it for a long time, and make notes about where I think the story is going to go and so on, but I don't really make notes to do with the background or the magic system or the world.Collection: Character
Choosers will be beggars if the begging's not their choosing.Collection: Begging
Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?Collection: Destiny
Please," said Lirael..."I think I would like to work in this Library." "The Library," repeated Sanar, looking troubled. "That can be dangerous to a girl of fourteen. Or a woman of forty, for that matter.Collection: Girl
I love you," he whispered. "I hope you don't mind.Collection: Love
Five Great Charters knit the land Together linked, hand in hand One in the people who wear the crown Two in the folk who keep the Dead down Three and Five became stone and mortar Four sees all in frozen water.Collection: Hands
Even now, she wished she could write a note, push it across the table, and go away to her room. But she was no longer a Second Assistant Librarian of the Great Library of the Clayr. Those days were gone, vanished with everything else that had defined her previous existence and identity.Collection: Writing
For everyone and everything, there is a time to die. Some do not know it, or would delay it, but its truth cannot be denied. Not when you look into the stars of the ninth gate.Collection: Stars
Unhand my tail!" squealed the Will.Collection: Tails
But we survived, didn’t we? That makes it an adventure. If you get killed it’s a tragedy.Collection: Adventure
I can see time," whispered Mogget, so softly that his words were lost.Collection: Lost
Why, Yrael?” it said, as the last of the dark gave way to silver, and the shining sphere of metal sank slowly to the ground. “Why?” “Life,” said Yrael, who was more Mogget than it ever knew. “Fish and fowl, warm sun and shady trees, the field mice in the wheat, under the cool light of the moon.Collection: Dark
Be careful..you're all I've got left, to remind me who I really am.Collection: Be Careful
Knowledge, like all things, is best in moderation," intoned the Will. "Knowing everything means you don't need to think, and that is very dangerous.Collection: Mean
Time and death sleep side by side.Collection: Sleep
I enjoyed the army reserve, and I learned a lot from it, but I also... it helped me work out that I didn't want to live in that kind of closed environment.Collection: Army
Maybe if I act well enough, I'll come to believe it myself.Collection: Believe
Touchstone watched, suddenly conscious that he probably only had five seconds left to be alone with Sabriel, to say something, to say anything. Perhaps the last five seconds they ever would have alone together. I am not afraid, he said to himself. "I love you," he whispered. "I hope you don't mind.Collection: Love You
If an action must be taken that will benefit the majority at the cost of the minority, is it morally indefensible? If an action taken for the benefit of a majority occurs at the expense of a minority, is it moral action?Collection: Taken
Being published is not a necessary validation or a path everyone wants to take with their work. Writing—and finishing—a novel is a great thing in itself, whether or not the book is published, or becomes widely-read or not.Collection: Book
I sometimes talk to people who think I got published because I was an editor, or because I was an agent, and I have to disabuse them of that notion. It wasn't because of my emplacement within the industry. Actually the writing came first, and the publishing came first as well.Collection: Writing
I have a lot of friends who served in the regular army for a long time. Quite a few of my friends from that time went on to become full-time soldiers. But you live in a world that is entirely army. Your whole world is pretty much that military service, and it's very hard to do other things and to break out of that environment.Collection: Military
I think there is a kind of laconic Australian leg-pulling sense of humor that is certainly in some of my stories, or is an element in some of my books, and that's probably a direct result of where I've grown up. But other than that I don't draw particularly on the Australian landscape or the Australian biology and so on. So I don't think there's anything you could point to and say is particularly Australian.Collection: Book
I think I've actually benefited from Australia being a kind of combination of both British and American culture. We kind of got the best of both British and American television and books, science fiction and fantasy, and so on. So I'm familiar with a lot of, for example, American books and television that a British author of my generation might not be.Collection: Book
I certainly have had experiences of a sense of wonder at the world and a feeling that even though it could all be explained rationally, it still feels that there is more to it.Collection: Feelings
I think having an open mind about these things is probably the most important thing, because even though I've never had an experience of the supernatural, something I couldn't explain.Collection: Thinking