Byker Books

 

The head honchos at Byker Books are of the opinion that Radgepacket should be launched with a ‘proper’, ‘best selling’ and ‘star’ interview so they tasked us, the numpties at Britain’s soon to be best loved bible of bollocks, with getting one.

Imagine our surprise, as we wandered into a pub in North London bemoaning our lack of success and with the sole intention of robbing the jukebox, when we noticed the author Danny King propping up the bar. In the shake of a barmaids tail we had him bundled into the van and talking for his very life…

• So, Danny King, what’s happening with you at the minute?

Lots. I’m doing rewrites on the next book, ‘Blue Collar’, which unfortunately won’t be published until July 2009. And I’m working on a sitcom for the BBC called ‘Babe Magnets’, though it’s at a very early stage. I’ve only written the pilot and the BBC aren’t sure what to make of it at the moment, so they’re going to cast it and see what it looks like when it’s performed. And I’ve got a few irons in a few films fires, so I’m pretty busy at the moment, but not a lot of my time seems to be taken up with running cheques to the bank, which is worrying.

• How are the film adaptations of your novels progressing – likely to be on the big screen anytime soon?

I think I’ve got four films on the go now. The rights to The Hitman Diaries have been acquired by an actor called Daniel Caltagirone, who’s looking to produce his first feature. He has a lot of interested backers so that all he needs is a script he’s happy with. I’ve written him one, but he’s not mad about it, so he’s working through a few ideas himself. I’ve also just this minute agreed a deal for the film rights of The Pornographer Diaries with a British company called Formosa Films. They’ve made a film called Clubbed which will be released in Sept 08. Again, I’ve written a script for them, but I’ve a feeling there are rewrites in my future. But most excitingly (by which I mean most money) is School for Scumbags. That’s been acquired by a time-served producer out in Hollywood. Again I wrote him a script, but he wanted to give it to an American screenwriter, which is his right and fine by me to tell the truth. Be interesting to see someone else’s take on it (particularly an American take) and I get the cash either way, so wahay! Lastly, I wrote a low budget vampire film called Reign of Blood. The rights were acquired by Coracle Films and they landed a deal to work on the plot with a big British film company. At first they had me working on it, but they wanted a level of commitment from me that I couldn’t give (ie. they wanted me to park all other projects and work on it full-time for an indeterminate period of time for no money and no guarantees, one week after my wife gave birth to our first child – very tempting), so they’re doing their own thing with it now and good luck to them.

• You’ve been responsible for inspiring a few of the lads at Byker Books HQ, particularly as you’ve all got similar backgrounds, so who would you say inspired you to take up the pen initially?

I’ve always loved stories. I like their shapes and their unexpected twists and turns. I think this came from an early love of jokes. I used to love telling and hearing jokes in the playground, so stories and books naturally followed on from there. Unfortunately, I’m awful at remembering jokes, but after wracking my brains I’ve got one. Two blokes in a bar. One says to the other, “I’m such a liar. I’m probably the biggest liar in the world you know.” The other one goes, “No you’re not, I’m a bigger liar than you are,” and the pair disagree so much that they decide to settle it with a lying competition. The first one thinks for a minute or two, then eventually says; “Remember when I wasn’t in last week? Well, I couldn’t make it because I was going over the Niagara Falls in a barrel.” The second one replies; “I know, I saw you.”

• It’s an absolute nightmare getting anywhere near either an agent or a publisher these days – how did you manage it?

Persistence. I wrote to pretty much every publisher in Britain and got rejected by them, then every agent, then put whatever I was trying to flog to one side, wrote something different then started again. The Burglar Diaries was the book that eventually landed me a deal, but it wasn’t the first book I’d written, and almost every publisher in the country turned it down, but Serpent’s Tail took a chance on it and I’m eternally grateful to them for doing so, as I think I would’ve jacked it in had I not got anywhere with that one. Once I had a publishing deal, I got an agent off the back of that.

• You’ve recently become a father (congratulations by the way) has this affected your approach to your writing in any way?

Not yet. But I have become an enormous blow-hard about everything else, and drop in the fact that I’ve got a kid whenever I’m yelling at Customer Services in B&Q. I also now get to lord it over anyone who hasn’t got children yet, talk with authority on any given subject ad nauseum and throw things through my neighbours windows if I suspect them of being paedophiles. My kid’s name is… er… what is it… er… Charlie.

• No childrens books in the offing then – The playgroup diaries etc.?

Actually, I did think of trying my hand at children’s stories. Just because I’d want to read… er… Charlie stories at bedtime and I figured if I made them up myself instead of buying them, that would leave more money to spend on myself.

• What are you reading at the minute then (apart from Radgepacket obviously)?

I’ve just finished The Kenneth Williams Diaries (what a mess that bloke was) and I’m now halfway through Angels & Demons because I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code, much to the horror of my publishers and fellow writers. There seems to be a lot of snobbery about Dan Brown’s books in the literary world, but then again there seems to be a lot of snobbery about my books too, so I’m in good company.

• You always seem to have a lot of projects on the go, books, films etc. – how do you manage to stay on top of them all?

Not having a proper job helps. I save on commuting and I don’t get distracted by chitter-chatter at work, so I’m able to knuckle down and do eight straight hours on a project and get a lot done. At least that’s the theory. Unfortunately my wife’s now on maternity leave and has discovered I actually spend the day rearranging cupboards, Googling myself and sloping off to the pub for the afternoon.

• And what do you prefer screenwriting, stage or novel?

Novels. No competition. You get so much more freedom with a novel. There are no time restrictions, no length restrictions and no templates you “have to” follow. You get to share your thoughts and theories in a novel, crack jokes, take your characters anywhere regardless of budget and write with true originality because you don’t have some producer or director trying to reign you in with their theories on what works and what doesn’t, so for a writer, the novel is the only truly blank page.


• What have you lashed all the millions on – Premium Bonds, Lager or Chocolate?

Lager. Definitely. But as I’m getting older I’ve recently discovered bitter. I guess it happens to us all when we get to our 40s, we look to less fizzy beers for our refreshment. But I won’t be joining CAMRA any time soon. I still just like smashing it back as fast as I can to oil my kebab tubes.

• We have a number of literary heroes here at BB towers – who would you say yours were and why?

The late great George MacDonald Fraser. He didn’t invent Flashman, but he took the character and hurled him headfirst through twelve fantastic novels. If you’ve not read them, serious, don’t delay, check them out. I’m a bit of a sucker for John Wyndham too. Perhaps it’s the period his books were set in (or written about) that reminds me of movies and books of my childhood, but he’s a top writer too. And writers like Raymond Chandler and Lawrence Block always get my thumbs turning up.

• You have very kindly posted advice to would be writers on your website; do you reckon you could sum it up here for our motley band of reprobate readers?

No, but the best advice I can give is this: Always set yourself a daily limit (it doesn’t have to be daily, just per writing session). Set yourself a minimum and, most importantly, a maximum wordage for the day. Apparently Somerset Maugham used to write 600 words a day – never a word under or over. I write 1,000 words. Some times it’s possible and tempting to write more but often when I’ve written 2,000/3,000 words in a single sitting, a lot of it will feel rushed. Concentrate on one sentence at a time. When planning a book, by all means look at the book as a whole, but when you’re actually writing it, just concentrate on the actual sentence you’re writing and try to make it as interesting and as enjoyable to read as you can. Then when you’ve finished it, move on and write the next sentence. I know this sounds obvious but it’s all in the detail. Life’s a journey not a destination and the same goes for books. Who cares if we find out the butler did it in the last chapter if we’ve had to slog our way through 250 pages of poorly written or mundane prose just to get to this one glorious twist?

• Ever considered Celebrity Big Brother?

I’m not even famous enough to go on normal Big Brother. But then again, this doesn’t seem to stop the ‘celebrities’ that do go on it each year, so yeah I guess. I mean, there’s not much I wouldn’t do for a couple of hundred grand (except manage Newcastle – don’t fancy that poison chalice). And if I did go on Celeb BB, it would afford me an excellent opportunity to bang on ad nauseum about how much my wife and kid mean to me while spending a few drunken weeks chasing one of those birds from Escala around a swimming pool in front of the nation and a furious Jeannie.

• It’s been well documented that you’ve drawn on past experiences to write your books – has that particular well dried up yet?

I don’t think so. My burglary and porn pasts are well documented (not least of all by me) but I still draw on my own experiences. These might not be obvious or as notably as the crime and porn, but if you read in one of my books that my character’s all annoyed with the world because some little scumbag smashed his car’s wing mirror off overnight for juvenile kicks, you can probably take it that my car’s wing mirror got smashed off a night or so before I came to write that particular paragraph. Incidentally, guess what happened to me two nights ago?

• You’re renowned for your use of the word ‘Fuck’ – we too are fond of the more profane side of the English language – did you find that any kind of barrier when you were starting out?

I don’t think so. I probably use it way too much to be honest, but there is a reason for that. I’ve found that you write and read at different speeds, so if I were to spend a day writing and drop in a swear word just once an hour, then you’d assume that’s not bad. Only swearing once an hour? That’s almost language you could get away with in front of the Queen. But of course a day’s writing only takes ten minutes to read back and suddenly it looks like every second word is cunt or fuck. So, I’m trying to bear that in mind when I write these days. But we all swear (at least I do – especially when some little cunt smashes off my car’s wing mirror overnight) so to not use this sort of language in my books wouldn’t be to reflect reality. Especially considering the characters I write about.

• Who would play you in the film of your life?

Probably my brother, Robin. He studied as an actor at Guidhall and has been in The Bill, Casualty and Thieves Like Us, but things dried up for him in recent years. He’s a bit gutted about it, but philosophical and is getting on with his life and carving out a career for himself making films. However, if they were to make a movie of my life and not even consider him for the part of me (or even him), then I think he seriously would string himself up.

• And what sort of soundtrack would you like playing?

The 80s. I’m a child of the 80s, so a bit of Depeche Mode, The Smiths, Nick Kershaw, Tears for Fears and so on would have to play throughout. I’m also looking forward to Charlie growing up and asking me what the hell a Kajagoogoo is. And why I’m hoping the Russians love their children too.

• What’s next for Brand DK - should the Beckhams be worried?

Only if they go away on holiday and forget to set their burglar alarm. Other than that, I’ve a few more books in the pipes. Besides all the other stuff I’ve mentioned above, I’m halfway through writing a super-villain adventure book called ‘The Henchmen’s Book Club’. I’ve got a bit of film interest in it already, but I want to get the book done and get it published before I accept any more offers to write film scripts for no money.

• And finally, is there any chance you might need a fifteen stone shaven headed Geordie for the Hitman film???

I’ll have a word with the producer. But in the mean time, if they do ever make a film of my life, perhaps you can play the part of my brother, Robin?

Cheers.