|
The other day I sat down to chat with Roald Dahl, author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach. Here's what he had to say...
Greg: I notice that your books are loaded with silliness and nonsense.
Roald: A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.
Greg: You are a funny guy.
Roald: I believe that the writer for children must be a jokey sort of fellow.
Greg: What inspired you to write about Charlie Bucket and Willy Wonka?
Roald: On the way to school and on the way back we always passed the sweet-shop. We always stopped. We lingered outside its small window gazing in at the big glass jars. And I began to realise that the large chocolate companies actually did possess inventing rooms, and they took their inventing very seriously.
Greg: What's the most difficult part of being a full-time writer?
Roald: A writer of fiction lives in fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not.
Greg: Please, stop sugar coating it.
Roald: The writer has to force himself to work. He has to make his own hours and if he doesn't go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him. Two hours of writing fiction leaves this writer completely drained. For those two hours he has been in a different place with totally different people.
Greg: One last question. I think the world is dying to know, what exactly is Whizpopping?
Roald: Pull my finger.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed