Latest / Mythmakers / The problem With Witches...With James Nicol

Transcript

The problem With Witches...With James Nicol · Mythmakers

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
• 0:13
  creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and
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  I'm the director of the Centre and also an author. And today I'm joined by a good friend
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  at the Centre James Nickel who also teaches on our creative writing courses. But today we
• 0:32
  thought we would discuss the subject of witches in fantasy. And James first of all why
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  don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your books?
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  Absolutely I felt like I should cackle when you said witches. I'll resist the urge. Yes
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  my name is James Nickel. I am an author for children. I write sort of specifically for the
• 0:56
  middle grade audience which is kind of depending whether you're in a bookshop or a library or
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  which of those you're in. Where in the country you are it's about sort of seven to 12-year-olds
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  or anywhere within that age range. And my first series of books the Apprentice which
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  were published in 2016 2018 and 2019 and feature a young witch who has just kind of
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  stopped learning to be a witch and she's off out to do the job of a witch. And she kind of
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  messes things up quite royally at the beginning of the first book but is mysteriously still given
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  a placement as a witch because in the world that my books are set in being witches like being
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  a public servant and I'm sure we'll come on to more about that later on. So she sent to this very
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  remote back water town in the middle of nowhere to be their local witch and they've kind of
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  they've slightly messed up because they've forgotten that Lull which is the town where she sent to
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  is on the edge of this gigantic magical forest which has its own problems and it just
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  kind of things just get worse and worse from there really. And obviously over the over the series
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  of the books we see her sort of developed from this very unsure young witch into somebody who's
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  very competent with their own power and their own and their own self as well. And yeah that's kind
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  of and other than that other than being an author I've also been a book seller for many years
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  and I now also work part-time in one of our local libraries up here in Yorkshire which is where I
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  live and write these days. Excellent. So James before we go back to talking about your
• 2:45
  series and the witch and how witch is appearing in that let's do a little bit of brainstorming
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  about. There would be a hint with a character type. So I was the first thing I was thinking of
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  who is my favourite fairy tale which I'm supposed to those in novel. So have you got a
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  favourite fairy tale witch? I've got a couple of favourite fairy tale witches actually. I think
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  I'm really kind of fascinated by the witch in Rapunzel and I think partly that's because that's
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  a story I remember from a very young age being read to me and I grew up in the era of the Ladybird
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  favourite tales that had those very super realistic illustrations in them. So I'm
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  mildly traumatised by them I think and I remember because I found some of the images for when I was
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  getting ready to talk about the apprentice witch and obviously fairy tale which is a big influence
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  and I was shocked by how much these witches in these fairy tales look like nuns.
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  They kind of they've got these black kind of sort of herded robes on and yeah just quite scary.
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  So thankfully I was never really brought up around them because I think I would have been
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  absolutely terrified of them but beyond that I think it's just she you know she's often called
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  Mother Gothel isn't she or some a variation on that and she just seems like a very focused and
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  determined kind of which rather than just often in the fairy tales they're almost like her
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  you know they kind of just pop up and do something and then they disappear again whereas she is
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  very determined you know she's got her her own kind of goal set you know and that's that's
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  something we're always saying when we're talking about creating characters in books when we're
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  teaching on the course about the whole you know making sure your antagonist has a goal and
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  and her as focused as your main character I think you know with Rapunzel the witch in that just
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  seems as though she definitely does have her own story going on rather than the fact that she is
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  just a character in somebody else's tale and I think that's always that's always an interesting
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  point to be in and aside from that she's just really horrible isn't she I mean she's pushing
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  people out of windows you know she's looking people in towers forever and ever and ever and just
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  real nasty piece of work I think but there is just enough of her own story in it to make her
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  interesting though isn't it because it starts with a sin against her yes you know she has the garden
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  where she's presumably done the hard work or paid someone to I don't know I don't know
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  to grow the Rapunzel flower or whatever the lady who's Rapunzel's mother who wants to you know
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  with her cravings in pregnancy wants to you know it's all very very interesting feminist feminist
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  feminine themes going on here about the you know the kind of things you might feel during pregnancy
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  and then of course it the witch herself seems to be childless there's the element of you can see
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  why she might want the child which the neighbour next door has got you know it's it's it's it's it's
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  dark stuff but you can sort of understand where she's coming from which does make her more
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  interesting actually she was the one I was thinking of so I'm going to go from my favorite one of
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  course is the sort of backup who gets a lot of airtime which is the the witch in seeping beauty oh
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  yes I mean she's become a bit of a millificent you know she's become a sort of character in her own
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  right thanks to she was kind of the other one I thought of actually but then I was thinking oh
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  she's technically a wicked fairy isn't she she's not actually a witch but then I remember and
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  you probably know this more than me because you're you're much more academic than I but I seem to
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  remember somebody telling me that if you go back far enough and look at all the origins of the
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  fairy tales often the wicked witches in the fairy tales were wicked fairies and it was only as you
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  know through history when we you know the general public thought that witches were real that some of
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  those stories obviously started to reflect more what we were experiencing in the real world and
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  and those wicked fairies became wicked witches and I was always fascinated by that because I was
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  like oh you know when you think about it there are lots of witches and not that many fairies in fairy
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  tales so they should probably be called witchy tales not fairy tales at all true and then we'll
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  pop out of folk tales aren't they with all these these characters I think the thing about the if
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  we're allowing her I think so oh yeah okay the sleeping no the snow white one is the
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  it's a jealousy theme in it which is very interesting to look at because of course they all
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  all of these characters are us it's not as if they are out they represent different parts of our
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  nature yeah have these dark drives somewhere inside us so we and she's and she's that one isn't she
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  there's the fear of growing old and undesirable and it all turns in on herself and they take it
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  takes it far too far but actually I did mention they've just by mistake sleeping beauty because again
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  that's that goes to your point about the fairies because at the baptism she's the one who isn't
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  invited yes and she's clearly the same as the fairies she's the bad one and you can that also
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  plays that thing about you've been left out yeah so she's really miffed so wasn't invited to the
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  party so again she's a fairy tale character who can do her own you know have her own side in the
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  story okay so that's the ones in fairy tales which obviously are very much painted in primary
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  colors that's how it works but about a bit more subtle are going to your favorite novel which
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  you need to be in adult fiction as well as yeah see this is the difficult this was the I've got
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  like a list now okay so I was my my my gut instinct was the grand high witch from the witches by
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  rolled owl because I just again there's just that very delicious wickedness of the grand high which
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  she's there's no kind of you know it's not gray is it she's completely black-hearted you couldn't
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  be confused with thinking that oh she's gonna redeem herself in the end you you just know that's
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  never gonna happen and I think she's just such a very vivid character you know Quentin Blake's
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  brilliant illustrations aside I think you can conjure up a picture of what you imagine she looks
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  like just from from rolled owl's words but also I remember as a bookseller I used to often be
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  invited into schools to to do readings and things and and I would do anything possible I could
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  to make sure that I got to read the grand high which is kind of speech when she's telling them all
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  what she's going to do with the children because it's just wonderful it's just brilliant and delicious
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  and so she was certainly top of my list and then I was thinking about which is like Mildred Hubble
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  because I think you know without Jill Murphy's brilliant the worst which Ariam and the apprentice
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  which wouldn't have existed at all and Mildred feels very much like how we all kind of feel
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  doesn't she as children and probably as adults quite a lot of the time as well that you just can't
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  do anything right and then I was thinking about the white witch in Narnia because she again is just
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  you know just I can't believe and maybe somebody has and I just I'm not aware of it that nobody's ever
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  kind of written a whole book just about the white witch and and kind of her she's ready for an
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  origin story I think isn't she she's ready for a ready for her kind of story to be told in a way
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  just wonderful she does get an origin story of a sort it's only like half of it though if you
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  remember in the magician's nephew I don't I see I have read them all but it's the one I remember the
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  least and I don't know why I skipped yeah the children go through these wonderful pools between
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  the worlds and they first the first place they go is a sort of world at the end of its life called
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  Charm and I think it's one of them rings the bell oh which one is it might be Polly anyway
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  somebody rings the bell and wakes up the this Queen Jadis as she has been known and she latches
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  onto them literally sort of takes hold of their lug hole and travels with them as they escape
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  this place and goes first to the sort of Edwardian London where she then wreaks havoc like taking
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  treating everyone as surfs it's great it's really good actually I have a enjoy again I remember this
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  very vivid illustration of her like a stride a horse and carriage yes like Bodicea but in yeah
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  and they have to get get her out of there so they take her back into the ship the place
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  between the worlds and end up in Narnia so the children bring her into Narnia
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  yeah bringing that element of evil and sort of queenly you know arrogance into the genesis moment
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  of Narnia but going to your point we don't have the charm story no you just know that she's been
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  this terrible ruler of this planet that sounds a bit like some kind of game of thrones
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  society so yeah someone should do that yeah how does she get to be so mean I know and then
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  and then that got me on to thinking about Elphaba in Wicked which is one of my favorite books and
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  you know I really enjoyed the musical though it's very very different kettle of fish as they
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  often are but and I think that's you know that's that's something that's been done really beautifully
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  isn't it looking at the wicked witch and and completely flipping it around on its axis really
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  and saying you know it's just somebody's point of view that she was wicked and actually when you
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  look at the the story in wicked that's you understand completely and you're kind of there
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  gunning for her and hoping that she succeeds in what she's trying to do and you feel quite sad
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  when Dorothy throws that bucket of water over yeah yeah that's right I think I'm with you
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  on the definitely on the Narnia because that's the witch I think of you know when someone says
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  but then I have to also say oh okay so there's a lot of witches and Harry Potter too but they don't
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  feel very much like witches they feel more like student student magicians yeah it's just that the
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  terminology says they witches but if we're allowing the Harry Potter world my favorite witch amongst
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  all of them is Dolores Umbridge which is so awful in a different kind of way whereas Bellatrix
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  the strange is like witchy witch yes Dolores Umbridge is your process orientated political witch which
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  I think is quite a nice variation on a theme but all of these take us back to your own writing
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  about witches because we've obviously got this you've got some stereotypes out there which have
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  become quite problematic in some ways about the demonization of women's power and all that kind
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  of thing so when you are writing about witches what are your sort of choices that you're making and
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  how you're defining what your witches are I think there was there was there's so much isn't there
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  when you start to look at witches in in fairy stories and novels and films and everything you
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  there is just so so much that kind of comes flying at you pun intended and and it is about kind of
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  picking and choosing quite carefully and and I was very aware that you know I was writing a book
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  about a witch that flies on the broomstick and and a little bit in the back of my head I kept having
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  sort of fear of Harry Potter comparison um but to a selic sent you I sort of had to just set that
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  aside because I think if if I'd worried about it too much I would have never have written the books
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  and also a bit you know I I wrote the apprentice which really is a as a practice to see if I could
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  finish a whole novel I started another fantasy book for children and I I'd got so far with it
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  and then it would just I would get stuck so often I um creative writing course I left into the
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  apprentice witch and and I kind of I liked making those decisions and thinking okay so how is she
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  going to what is the magic going to be like in this world how are they going to control the magic
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  and and I kind of discounted ones very quickly because I think they are so
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  cemented in the world of Harry Potter these days that it just it didn't seem like the right thing
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  and I quite like the idea for a while that she would have a a cauldron like a small cauldron
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  and that she would have to brew her magic in this cauldron but then I was thinking well practically
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  speaking my practical brain kicking in by the time she's got this potion bubbling and boiling
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  away whatever she's trying to protect herself or other people against is probably going to be chewing
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  both of her legs off isn't it so the the cauldron thing whilst I thought it was a lovely idea just
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  didn't seem practical enough and then I was thinking about symbols and and obviously symbology and
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  witchcraft are very closely linked but and I think that is the point where it becomes you know
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  where people might think oh well how are you going to overcome that and I remember
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  when I was when I eventually worked out the glyphs that are what they use in the in the stories
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  these magical symbols I had this gorgeous notebook it's not anywhere to hand to show you but it's
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  just a small little leather bound notebook that somebody gave me as a gift and it was one of those
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  things it was it was too small to use in sort of any real practical way but it was too nice just
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  to use for kind of like making shopping lists or notes in a meeting and so it just sat on my book
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  case rather anyway in the end I do did all of these glyphs in this book which then kind of became
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  the inspiration for the second book but when I had a meeting with with by accounting on my publisher
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  fairly early on and I showed him this book that had the glyphs in it he flicked through it all really
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  really quickly and when he got through he closed it and he sort of sied with relief and I said
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  what's the matter and he said I was just checking the world and he pentagrams in there
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  I think he was quite worried so I kind of used that idea of the symbols but completely went
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  in the opposite direction I was looking for inspiration at kind of you know Chinese and Japanese
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  characters other kind of made up languages like Elvish or Vulcan all sorts of things and in the end
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  I made up my own because I just couldn't find what I was looking for and it was very quickly a
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  a mixture of musical notes and numbers my little person has woken up
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  so we just had a little break because James's baby woke up so if anyone who's an stranger
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  is it's a baby happily being cuddled yeah it's not my stomach
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  so we were talking about the witches in your world and what they do I'm interested in this idea that
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  they're like a kind of civil service or a sort of local representative what is their job what is
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  what they mean before so magic is something that everybody has to deal with in that world it's
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  it's kind of almost the flip opposite of Harry Potter where it all happens in secret and in hidden
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  places magic happens out in the open and everybody has to deal with it regardless of whether they
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  have the ability to actually do something or or whether they're just you know a non-magical person
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  and so the witches can control the magic and they are then given positions of responsibility
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  within communities to help people so it could be a magical infestation that you have in your house
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  which is one of the problems that Ariane went encounters fairly early on in the book
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  or it could be as simple as making a magical charm for somebody for whatever they need it for so
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  when she first arrives in Lull and there has issued everybody with a within an out of date for
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  a start magical charm but he doesn't know anything about magic and he's actually given given
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  them the charms that a farmer would use to protect himself from a marauding pair of cows
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  oh getting you need to go back to sleep
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  yeah so it's kind of those are the sort of the two examples of the types of magic that the
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  witches get involved with somebody once described it as a cross between call the midwife and the
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  worst witch and my agent says it's more like all creatures great and small cross with the worst
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  because of the there's an awful lot of magical creatures the feature in the story as well so
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  yeah it's kind of it's a it's a mishmash but they are there as a you know in the way that you
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  would go and see a GP or a dentist or you know a bit like the local librarian or the vicar or a
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  teacher they're kind of you know people within the community that others turn to and expect a lot
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  from and look up to hopefully as well um yeah that was kind of the the sort of the the thing
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  I wanted to do that would be would be different because often with with magical stories you find that
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  the main character quite early on is discovers that they have a magical power and then it's about
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  them learning to use it and I thought well there's lots of brilliant books that already do that
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  and I wasn't interested in trying to retread that ground I wanted to know what happened after
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  they learned how to use their magical ability so I knew that it was going to be about somebody
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  doing the work of a witch that as you quite rightly asked what is the job of witch and it took me
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  water to work that one out myself but that was part of the fun as well was discovering that for
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  myself and I think this goes back to where we were talking about the one of the problems about writing
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  about which is is the fact that they've been this um anti female stock figure on the edges of
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  society and you know the sort of either the thought was that very often it was the old woman who
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  grew herbs and made a little bit of a living as a sort of natural healer who then got picked
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  on us a witch because they could and then you get things like the sale and witch trials and all
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  where it's used to settle scores so one way of handling all of that is I is what you've done is to
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  put the witches as part of society yeah part of the community your local vet um yeah no I can see
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  that that really helps draw the sting that is in the the idea of a witch and I grew up in Norfolk
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  which you know like lots of East Anglia is kind of rife with stories and legends of witches and
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  I can remember one particularly um kings in where I where I lived there's a building in the market
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  square and above the central window there's a black diamond and then the black diamond there's a
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  black heart and it's called the witch's heart and there's a legend about this woman who was burnt
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  well she was actually boiled in oil in the market square she was called Margaret Reed
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  and um as she was bubbling away in this cauldron her heart allegedly burst out of her chest flew
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  across the marketplace and hit this building which was the house where the people who'd accused her
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  of being a witch lived um and I don't know who told me that story it's one of those things that I
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  seem to have known my whole life and if you ask anybody from kings in the story the witch's heart
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  they'll tell you something similar if not identical to that story the witch's name might be slightly
• 24:04
  different um the method of her dispatch might be slightly different but it always ends up with
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  that heart flying across the marketplace which is you know it's a very visual thing to have
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  implanted in your brain at a very I'm assuming young age um but I knew like you were saying that
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  there's a lot of the what we do know about those people who were accused of witchcraft historically
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  were they were healers and midwives and and that you know they were they were trying to help people
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  so it was you know without wanting to kind of think that I was going back I'm writing old
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  wrongs that wasn't at all but it was kind of what would have happened if if the reverse had been
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  the truth then they had been celebrated and and encouraged rather than picked on and persecuted
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  I think Terry Pratchett has a good line on this which I'm going to slightly misquote but it's
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  something like you know the the wizards get to do the sort of you know serious high magic and
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  witches get to give you walks a lot about the sort of glass ceiling in magic um which I think
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  is what has been done to try and rectify that but you still get it coming in don't you um yeah I was
• 25:19
  thinking thinking about the witcher series obviously a different kind of witcher isn't a witch but
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  the witches in the witcher they the very first run of them Jennifer Jennifer
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  she's this sort of ugly old ugly girl who gets this beautifying spell and that I found that
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  at where is me where that story starts she turns into a really good character and an interesting
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  character but this point of her magic makes you beautiful and desirable sexualized object
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  I found quite worrying and problematic anyway we're not in that world
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  going on in in terms of the archetypes of what witchcraft is about yeah and I did I think when I was
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  when I was thinking about my story when I started to write the apprentice which and I was thinking
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  well I wanted to be a story that has magic in it and who's the best person to control magic and
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  I thought well a witch just seemed like the natural person to pick without overthinking it too
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  much at that point I'm sure there was lots of overthinking later on um but it seemed to me that
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  you know as somebody who's always read a lot of children's books and and kind of existed in that
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  world that even then and this would have been 2012 so we're talking you know a while ago now 10
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  years in fact um that there was still even in in the books then the witches were the
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  warty old lady who curses people or was somebody sidekick there weren't there weren't that many witch
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  witches who were heroes in their own stories and even poor old Hermione is only the sidekick she's
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  not the main character in the Harry Potter books although she's a main character um she was still only
• 27:16
  you know there to do all the brainy stuff for him yeah that's another discussion really about you
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  as a booksellerist whether or not Harry Potter the Hermione Granger series I was always told as a
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  writer that boys tend not to read books with girls that is interesting because I would say
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  from my experience at doing events and selling books you know of my own books when I'm doing
• 27:44
  school visits and things I'd say it's soft and 50-50 that I sell books to as many boys as I do to
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  girls um and I think part of that's largely down to the lovely covers that are on the books in
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  that they're silhouettes and they're not overly not pink and not pink one of them was very nearly
• 28:05
  pink and I it was one of those kind of you know disappointed Christmas present faces when you sort of
• 28:11
  like oh it's lovely um and inside you die a little bit but thankfully it got changed to yellow
• 28:20
  before it was published so that was a big relief um yes but I think that's that's part of the
• 28:27
  the the thing that's made it not accessible but not it hasn't put boy readers off
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  and perhaps the fact that I'm not a girl um might have helped as well I don't know but
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  I get lots of lovely messages from parents you know they're like oh my sons you know my son
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  met you at school or my son's picked your book up um and that's always really that's really
• 28:50
  nice because I didn't expect it you know I wrote a book with a female a largely female cast
• 28:56
  the boys one of my one of my best reviews ever was from a young reader young girl and um she gave me
• 29:05
  nine golden balls out of ten for my for the book and I would have got ten golden balls
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  if there hadn't been any boys in it because boys are stupid apparently right um and so yeah
• 29:17
  and they're in largely in the apprentice which the boy characters except for Colin they are
• 29:22
  rather stupid okay so we've we've sort of been talking a bit about the the problem about
• 29:30
  witchcraft when it comes to the sort of the way it's been used against women uh over the centuries
• 29:36
  but there we haven't re-talked about the association with evil because why you know where
• 29:42
  witchcraft in the sort of Halloween sense comes from is that it's to do with the whole idea of
• 29:47
  black magic evil in some story world it's to do with sort of the devil and that sort of thing too
• 29:55
  and you know there's the witch in the bible which are end or and things like that um what do you do
• 30:01
  with evil in your world how do you deal with that side I'm thinking here that you know there was um
• 30:09
  you know the well publicized cases of people not reading Harry Potter uh I don't know how true this is
• 30:15
  but trying to ban it from libraries in america because it dealt with witchcraft which were seen
• 30:20
  anti-Christian um anyway all that stuff what if you're done with evil I put it in a nice little box
• 30:30
  and hidden it um no I haven't because I think you know well
• 30:37
  Percy speaking and experienced from people that you know I know thankfully very few of us
• 30:43
  ever really experienced true evil in our lives on a personal you know to deal with and so I
• 30:52
  didn't feel that there needed to be I mean there are wicked characters in the story obviously
• 30:58
  and there are bad things that happen but I think on the scale of that we all have bad things that
• 31:04
  happen to us and we all meet characters that we don't much like in life and that aren't very pleasant
• 31:10
  but those characters aren't actually truly evil so most of their bad characters in the story
• 31:17
  aren't pure evil and also I think pure evil it kind of it feels a bit twirly moustache and
• 31:23
  tying you to the train tracks doesn't it doesn't feel yeah doesn't feel um real in a way that I wanted
• 31:32
  the you know the characters to deal with real real in a fantasy world kind of experiences so
• 31:39
  I've made the the things that Ariane and her friends have to deal with to be the sorts of things
• 31:45
  that we all have to deal with like you know overbearing um older people or bullies or um you know
• 31:54
  overcoming their own doubts and worries and fears so it's I haven't tried to kind of pretend
• 32:01
  evil doesn't exist but I kind of tried to to make it feel more realistic in an odd way because
• 32:09
  it's a fantasy book so it's never going to be realistic um but not not just to be oh they did it
• 32:16
  because they were evil um because that just feels like a bit of a cop out in a way um but as I said
• 32:23
  I mean there are some pretty wicked people in the books later on um the people that are kind of
• 32:29
  pulling all the strings but not yeah there's you know the reasons behind it and it's not just
• 32:37
  oh because they're because they're evil um so yeah does that answer the question yeah I think what
• 32:44
  it's describing is the fact that one of the things you learn when you write fantasy is there
• 32:49
  various forms of worlds so the problem about that Harry Potter must be banned because it's got
• 32:55
  witches in thing is that within the laws of the Harry Potter universe there isn't a religious
• 33:01
  level in it there isn't a sort of demon side there is good and evil but it doesn't have a supernatural
• 33:08
  supernatural ghost and things but it's all within a sort of bubble which is the fight for
• 33:12
  in good and evil and a redefinition of witches and wizards within that world so in your world you've
• 33:20
  got a a sense of good and bad which is recognizable you're not tapping into some sort of
• 33:29
  narrative of raising demons and no i mean the devil which is a a folkloric version of this but
• 33:36
  it's not in your world so when you say which you aren't saying that one of which but
• 33:42
  some people don't listen to this or not so you get to sort of need your reaction which i
• 33:49
  hope you don't get but um no i mean very i've been surprised i was invited to a Catholic prep school
• 33:56
  on um ash wednesday to do a whole day of creative writing sessions and talk about the apprentice
• 34:04
  which and i was thinking do they know it's got a witch in the book i mean i know it's not that sort
• 34:10
  of witch but um it was there was no problem but i did i somebody did tell me once that they had
• 34:16
  brought copies for their local i think it was either their local school or a school where a family
• 34:21
  member taught or a child went to and they refused to have it because of it having witch in the
• 34:27
  title and i was flabbergasted to find out it was a church of england school
• 34:33
  those are you listening but i was seeing church of england is very mild it's not a sort of um
• 34:39
  exact must be just a local issue i think so and i just and in the way i was kind of excited that i
• 34:45
  kind of you know i'd sort of been banned a little bit i kind of i was like yes we could probably get
• 34:51
  a bit more social media play from that but then it takes you into you know it waters all of that
• 34:56
  doesn't it i mean it's not too the thing is it's just it's not that anybody's downplaying
• 35:02
  the nature of evil it's no in my world how i'm using this it doesn't
• 35:09
  doesn't hit those points that you're making so what you're accusing me of doing with it's not
• 35:14
  it's just i'm not there in at your particular version of a witch and that's the difficult conversation
• 35:20
  to have um anyway so thank you that's that's all that's really interesting so
• 35:27
  so we always finish our podcast by thinking of where in all the fantasy world is the best place to
• 35:35
  be something and of course i want to ask you now where in all the fantasy worlds that you've read
• 35:41
  about where would you think of the best place to be a witch well again i was kind of torn between
• 35:50
  a few places so i mean i did i was kind of strongly drawn towards the world of Harry Potter because
• 35:57
  obviously that's a very you know it's sort of very mostly welcoming and all-encompassing place
• 36:04
  to be a witch but it's also still a place where they live in in secret um and again i thought
• 36:12
  again of of the world of the worst witch but do we all really want to be stuck at school for the
• 36:18
  rest of our lives probably not um depending on your experience of school you might be quite happy
• 36:25
  so like when people say oh i'd love to go back and be a teenager again and go back to high school
• 36:29
  and i can't think of anything worse um but then i was drawn to um Alice Hoffman's practical magic
• 36:38
  series um which is it's the real world but the witches kind of lived through all of the
• 36:46
  thermal of being which is you know from they've had kind of a brush with the Salem witch trials
• 36:52
  and they've they've you know they've they've existed and survived through those through those periods
• 36:58
  and and in a wonderful kind of way that this family has just embraced their abilities as witches
• 37:10
  and and i kind of like that that kind of feeling yes i i've had this um the same Harry Potter
• 37:19
  thought as you the thing that actually i often think about that is have you noticed how magic never
• 37:26
  runs out it's that it's yeah it's resource they can just keep on doing spells as long as you know
• 37:31
  the spell and do it right you know when guardian leviosa or whatever it is yeah
• 37:38
  leviosa if you long as you get that right um you just you can just keep on doing magic which
• 37:46
  i i feel so if i was inventing a magic world i might have a budget so it doesn't feel as though
• 37:51
  you can keep on doing it so from that point of view you could just carry on doing magic all the time
• 37:57
  and so it sounds quite and you've got all the it's quite cozy when you're not being attacked by
• 38:04
  Lord Voldemort you know yes um it's got books and friends and pets and food and you know steam
• 38:12
  trains so yeah i think i'd go for that world um i'd be some obscure witch though i wouldn't want
• 38:20
  to be one of the one the right over time that doesn't sound very much fun you know i'm not
• 38:25
  greater on camping so i would you know the thing yeah but their camping always looked really
• 38:31
  lovely didn't it was like i would i would go camping if my tent had like a separate bathroom and
• 38:37
  kitchen living room in it yeah actually now i think about it wasn't the weasley tent a little bit
• 38:42
  down markets so probably you could you know spend and get uh you know it was yeah it was a
• 38:46
  i think it still looked nicer than the house that they lived in yeah anyway the inconsistencies
• 38:54
  there we go you know i put up a marquee for the wedding when you could just put off a tent and
• 38:59
  magic locked the room but anyway that's the worry about that um so thank you very much James
• 39:05
  you're very welcome it's your series now complete or is there more books to come
• 39:11
  we always say it's complete for now just because i think you know they're when you've written
• 39:18
  three books and and written the characters in the world you can always think of more things that
• 39:25
  you might like to do with them or do to them um and yeah so i'm not i'm not saying no
• 39:34
  i'm not saying yes either really i don't suppose um obviously they're they're in very early stages
• 39:39
  of development for TV at the moment so that's that's going to bring a different life to them
• 39:44
  um and if that you know if that means that it brings new readers which hopefully it will
• 39:50
  that's exciting and that might mean that people want to read more um but that's not what i'm
• 39:58
  working on at the moment the next book that's coming is this thing still magic still middle grade
• 40:03
  but different not a printer switch and i hope they'll still appeal to fans and i hope soon i can
• 40:10
  tell everybody what is cool because i feel like i've been waiting forever yes what she's been
• 40:16
  and if you if you're listening and you want to join James and me and the other tutors on one of
• 40:21
  our fancy writing courses the next one sets off in April so do sign up uh it's already filling
• 40:27
  up so it'd be good to uh if you wanted to grab a place that you grab it now thank you very much James
• 40:33
  and well done to baby uh actually managing to quiet and down and have a little listen
• 40:39
  she's gone back to sleep excellent she's got all these stories waiting for her when she's
• 40:44
  coming back thank you very much James thank you for listening to myth makers podcast
• 40:54
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• 41:02
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• 41:09
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