Under the Mountain.

The year was 1979. I was nine years old. My father gave my brother and me a book. It was called Under the Mountain, and it was set in the city we lived in. We both read it - devoured it more like - and were transported to the mysterious and dangerous world beneath our own. It's the story of twins Rachel and Theo, and the enigmatic Mr Jones, who fight the slimy, creepy Wilberforces who sleep beneath Auckland's volcanoes and plan to take over the world. They must harness the power of their twin-ness to triumph.

I loved it. I yearned for an adventure to happen to me.


Then, shortly after, I was given the opportunity to audition for the part of Rachel in the TV series. My dream come true! Drama was my strong suit at school, and I longed to be on TV, convinced that child actors in NZ were terrible and I was just the girl to make it all better. I was sure to get the part, after all, I had the right name and everything! Alas, it was not to be. My brother Jonathan, three years older, also auditioned, and along with our friend Sarah, we had to come up with a mimed scenario to show off our acting talents. I had some vague idea about a kid being bullied on the way to school, but it was vetoed in favour of a gunfight. None of us got the parts, but Sarah later went on to star in another New Zealand children's TV classic, Children of the Dog Star. My brother went on to play Theo in the Radio New Zealand version. I went on to... write books instead.

Under the Mountain, the TV series, spooked a generation of NZ kids.

But that's not all my brother went on to do. He has now directed the feature film of Under the Mountain, which premieres this Saturday night in Auckland and which opens nationwide on Thursday the 10th. Go and see it in the opening weekend if you can, to ensure it gets a long screen-life. Go and see it if you have read the book, or seen the TV series, or go and see it just because you can. See volcanoes erupt! See slimy creatures and a creepy old house on Lake Pupuke! See a great homegrown supernatural adventure.

Spare a thought for a nine-year old girl whose dream didn't quite come true but who is very glad that her brother's did.

Serendipity revisited.

Way back in November 2007, I wrote this post. Go on, go and read it.

I can now do what I said at the end of that post ("I will have to revisit the post in a few years when the book is safely written and published and it will make rather a nice story, I think.").

So, here's that cryptic paragraph, with all the details for Magpie Hall inserted.

"While waiting for the order to arrive, I had the brainwave for my new novel, in no way related in subject matter to the five books I had just ordered. My protagonist (ROSEMARY) has a specific occupation (TAXIDERMIST) and in the novel, a certain object that I had never heard of before until very recently (A CABINET OF CURIOSITIES) plays a big part in the story. So the Amazon package arrives and I am happily reading the first novel when unexpectedly, what should turn up, unannounced, but a CABINET OF CURIOSITIES. The book delves right into the history of CABINETS OF CURIOSITIES and gives many prime and beautiful examples. That book finished, yesterday I randomly picked up the second in the pile of books and lo and behold the first page has the main character STUFFING THINGS. He is a TAXIDERMIST."

What fun.

The latest edition.

Taiwan!

It's been a while.

Sorry for the absence. I have been so busy lately, and once publicity for the book launch died down, I threw myself back into the domestic life and had little room for any focused thoughts worth blogging.

It was a great night at Our City in Christchurch, a cosy chat with Ruth Todd from Women on Air. Thanks to Ruth and Morrin Rout for hosting the event and for asking me. Thanks to Gillian at UBS for selling so many books, and of course thanks to everyone who came and listened and/or bought the book. I do like doing those intimate affairs (although there were around 80 people it felt very intimate) where people chime in from the floor and we get a good conversation going. We gave away some magpie tattoos to celebrate, and you can see one of them in action here.

Magpie Hall debuted at number two on the NZ bestseller list, behind a book that was getting, ahem, rather a lot of publicity, whether it was welcome or not. Which leads me to...

New Zealand literature has finally been in the news. It's funny, with dedicated sports sections on the news every night, it's a shame that it takes a bit of controversy to get people talking about New Zealand books. Peter Wells pointed it out on his blog that at least people are now talking about literature: the national book awards usually get a two-minute slot on the late news, but this has been front page news, with this story on the cover of the Dom Post and this on the cover of the Listener.

As a sometimes-historical novelist, people have been asking about my methods for research and incorporating that research into my books. I could talk about it all day, and I might write a proper blog post about it in the future, but basically, I do my reading, I absorb it, I close my eyes and imagine myself into the scene and I write what I see, through the eyes of my character. So you see, there is little chance of inadvertent copying as it has gone through such a transformation, and often dry information is turned into something altogether more subjective. If it is someone else's bright-eyed description, I do not copy it into my notebook but I might take elements of the description and use them in another context, with different words. But if there's one thing that this scandal has taught me it's that people have different ideas about what artists of all kinds should and shouldn't do and I hope I'm never at the receiving end of anyone's scorn and disapproval due to my methods.

I'm also not sure why people have focused on historical novelists as novelists of all breeds research things and rely on the knowledge of others.

Right, that's me. I've joined the twittering classes, and you can follow me here. I hope to be keeping this blog up to date but my life is an unknown quantity at the moment. I will just leave you with this:

If you're new to my blog and have come here because you're interested in Magpie Hall, you may be interested to know that I started this blog as a diary of writing a novel. Please take a look at the archives when I used to post a lot more regularly and philosophically - I was pretty honest about the highs and lows of the writing life, and the novel writing process is documented from go to whoa.

Launched!

Magpie Hall is now officially out in the world. Available at all good (New Zealand) bookstores yada yada. I feel something like relief.

It had a great launch at Mighty Mighty, which was the perfect venue - it conjured up all the lushness of a Victorian tattoo parlour. The book was launched by my good friend Gemma Gracewood who said unbelievably nice things about Magpie Hall and about me. Afterwards we discussed the fact that while Rosemary Summers isn't based on anyone we know, she is someone we could imagine knowing (indeed, Sally, the manager of Mighty Mighty, is herself a tattooed lady who collects taxidermy). After the speeches, Gemma was joined on stage by three more friends (Nigel, Carmel and Andy) from the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra, and they serenaded us with songs by Nick Cave and The Be Good Tanyas, both inspirations for the novel and on my list.

The launch was somewhat overshadowed by the sad death earlier in the week of our friend Heather McKenzie. She was sorely missed and will continue to be so.

Further to my last post about my new website, within days of it going up it was chosen as one of 8 great author websites, alongside the likes of Dan Brown, Peter Carey and Isabelle Allende! Thanks to my fantastic designers Sharon Blance and Brence Coghill. Sharon also took my author photos. If any authors out there would like to contact them in view to having their own website done, please feel free to leave your contact details in the comments here and I will pass them on. They were wonderful to work with and really listened to what I wanted, the result being my dream website. These two are multi-talented and are also the best swing dancers around.

Finally, if you are in Christchurch, I am doing an event tomorrow night (Tuesday, November 10) with Women On Air at Our City, Oxford Terrace. For more details visit www.womenonair.org.nz, or www.rachael-king.com. Please tell your friends!

My new website.

I have a new website! It's the same address as the old website but it has been completely overhauled and redesigned. Please visit to find out about me, The Sound of Butterflies and Magpie Hall, including excerpts, reviews, interviews and stories about how I came to write the books. It's also where I will post news relating to the books and events.

I am overjoyed at the way it has turned out, thanks to my talented web designers Sharon Blance and Brence Coghill. They have perfectly captured the visual essence of my work.

Oh, you might want the address. It's at www.rachael-king.com.

It's here. And more on the Book Awards.

So here they are: photos of an actual copy of Magpie Hall, due to be released here in NZ on November 6. I was ridiculously excited to receive it, just as Vanda Symon was to get hers (both with hands on the covers - spooky). I carried it around with me all day and kept looking at it, much as I might stare at the wonder of a newborn baby. There's that comparison again.

The publicity machine is in motion. This week's Listener has an interview with me, and the Sunday Star Times will tomorrow be running a 1000-word extract to give people a taste of the book over the long weekend. I will put up links if and when they appear.

After the strange silence surrounding the announcement that the new look New Zealand Book Awards would carry a shortlist of only three fiction titles, which I blogged about last time, Bookman Beattie finally brought it up on his blog and a good number of people weighed in on the argument against such a small shortlist. You can read the comments here, and add your own if you can, since I don't know that the right people are reading this blog and its attached comments. The story has been picked up by the Dominion Post. I hope the powers that be don't dig their heels in for the sake of it and listen to what people have to say.

Thoughts like leaves.

Further to my New Zealand Book Month post, I did a quick tally of the books I have read so far this year. 17 novels, 7 of which are from New Zealand. So I'm beating the 5% average by 36%. Yeah! Interestingly, four of them are by debut authors, and all of them are by women.

I also pondered why it is that, when our newspapers are full of NZ-only interest stories, with tiny sections devoted to world news, we are not similarly interested in NZ fictional stories.

The new look New Zealand Book Awards has been announced, now sponsored by NZ Post. I certainly look forward to the new format, and good on NZ Post for the tireless support of New Zealand literature (they also sponsor the Wellington Readers and Writers' Festival and the Katherine Mansfield Menton fellowship)... but. There will now only be three fiction finalists. I don't understand this decision, especially given everyone's dismay the year the judges chose only four finalists instead of the five they were allowed to. Aside from winning, it is a good honour and a good opportunity for promotion to be short-listed, and that honour is now much harder to obtain. I really hope this is re-thought.

In other news, congratulations to fellow-blogger and wonderfully pink-haired Laini Taylor, whose latest YA book, Lips Touch, has been short-listed for America's National Book Award. Laini's books aren't available in New Zealand as far as I know, but her other project, Laini's Ladies, can be bought from Cosi Fan Tutte in Christchurch. Of course, you can always check out Laini's books from Amazon, or order them from somewhere like Unity.

I hope to be blogging much more regularly now that things have settled down somewhat on the home front. And of course it is only three weeks until Magpie Hall comes out. I am expecting an advance copy by courier tomorrow. Exciting! Well, it is for me anyway. Heh.

New Zealand Book Month.

Unless you have your head in the sand or you're not from New Zealand, you'll know that it's New Zealand Book Month this month, an initiative that it is hoped will have the same impact on NZ books as NZ Music Month has had on NZ music (ie a good one).

Last week, the Sunday Star Times ran a story with statistics of what people are buying when it comes to books: of all the fiction sold in New Zealand, only 5% of it is from New Zealand. On the one hand that looks like an appalling ratio, but on the other, when you consider just how much international fiction there is out there, it's not so bad. Surely only 5 % of novels available are from New Zealand?

That optimistic view aside, once I had finished the article, which interviews some well known literary types about why this might be, I was surprised that nobody mentioned this: if we want New Zealand fiction to sell as well as international fiction, bookstores are going to have start putting New Zealand books alongside 'real' fiction. Walk into any bookstore and you find a 'fiction' section, and a 'New Zealand fiction' section. I imagine that Joe (or more likely Josephine, as women buy far more fiction than men do) Public, when they go into a bookstore looking for a novel, make their way to the fiction section for their browsing. They find a book and they are happy. It might not even occur to them to make a special trip over to the NZ fiction section.

Perhaps bookstores think they are doing NZ books a favour by singling them out like this, giving them their own special showcase section, but I disagree.I think it makes the average buyer see New Zealand books as somehow second-rate. By all means have a NZ fiction table, or a section, but can we please see NZ books put alongside the Peter Careys and the Hilary Mantels and the Sarah Waters? Otherwise they are just not seen, let alone considered, by the buying public.

It seems obvious to me. Thoughts, anyone?

The countdown begins.

Only one month to go until my new novel, Magpie Hall, is published here in New Zealand. I am feeling rather excited and, of course, apprehensive as to how it will be received.

I read through two sets of proofs - admittedly the second not quite as thoroughly as the first given the timeline and my commitments at home - and fixed up a few typos and some potentially embarrassing factual errors. It is now at the printers, and advance reading copies (or ARCs) will be going out soon to booksellers and reviewers. I have already done one media interview which was a joy because the interviewer had actually read the book (not as common as you would think!), and it made me realise that I have plenty to talk about with novel so hopefully I won't be boring people by going over all the same ground as the last time I had a novel out.

In fact, there are quite a few things I would like to say about Magpie Hall on this here blog, but I think I might wait until the interviews are over, in case I get the chance to wax lyrical in those about why I chose Magpie Hall as the title, what led me to tattooing as a theme, how this novel was assembled in a completely different way from The Sound of Butterflies etc etc. Then I can write about whatever I wasn't asked. I hope that anyone who reads the novel and who also reads this blog will feel free to ask me questions about it as well.

In the meantime, I wait. It's like that final month of pregnancy where you're sick of being heavy with child and would just like to get it out now please, so you can meet it and see how it is in the world.

Speaking of which, the upside to spending hours on the couch feeding a baby has meant that I've caught up beautifully on my reading, as anyone who has been keeping an eye on my 'what I'm reading' section over there to the right will have noticed. I've just started Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger, which, like my book, is set in an old country house that has seen better days and may or may not contain a ghost. All I can say is thank goodness it came out after I'd written mine so I couldn't be influenced by it in the slightest. Now I just get to enjoy reading it.