Mo Hayder Newsletter - December 2009 (Edition 3)

Mo Hayder Hello everyone, Welcome to another Mo-Hayder-rare-as-hen’s-teeth-newsletter. Thank you all for everything you’ve done both on the website and on helping get SKIN to number two (I’ve never been to number two before – I’ve hit three a few times, but this is my highest yet, so thank you, thank you, thank you).

I hope you’ve got a lot to look forward to in the coming year, and that you are facing it with excitement not dread. I know have a lot ahead – the new novel, now re-titled GONE, is due out in February and I have a small UK tour (details will be published on my website soon) plus a couple of European gigs coming up. Then a small research trip to South Africa I hope. All very exciting. But what’s really preoccupying me about this year is that it’s the first of a new decade. Cast your mind back ten years - do you remember those turn of the Millennium weeks when we all passionately believed computers were going to turn on us? Y2K - gridlocks in the city and survivalists stocking up on water barrels and shotgun rounds? Ah happy days. But I remember it especially well because I was a Millennium baby author - it’s a whole ten years since my first book, Birdman, was published. The strapline read Dead on Time, a New Killer for a New Millennium. (Talk about a cultural time capsule.) The momentousness of this milestone has put me in a proper navel gazing mood, so if you’d like to hear me blathering on about this decade’s contribution to world peace then check my cheery Christmas message on the forum – it’s sure to perk you up. And meanwhile I thought the newsletter is the perfect chance to bring you Mo’s list of ‘ten things I’ve learned after a decade in the biz’.

Writing is HARD work. Those ads on the back of the Guardian that say “Why not become a writer?” Like all you have to do is make your mind up to do it and it’ll happen? As if it’s just an easy option, a cop out or something. (Your country needs more writers, do your duty etc.) Bleh – they made me sick. The ad should read Are you prepared to sacrifice your health, your social life, family life and your sanity all for the 1% chance you might get a crappy book deal with a vanity publisher in Ipswich? Then writing is for you. Honestly, I exaggerate not. I’ve lost count of the people in their forties who’ve had successful careers as businessmen/lawyers/doctors etc and who’ve said casually to me: actually, I’m toying with the idea of writing a novel. As if you only have to decide to do it and it will happen. I’m tempted to reply: Funny that, because I’m a bit bored with writing and I’m toying with the idea of taking up brain surgery. Watch this space, eh?
If something is going to happen in the book world Shots magazine’s Ali Karim usually knows about it five years before anyone else. Forget the oracle of Delphi, Ali is the man. He tried to convince me to get into Twittering about a year and a half ago. (I’m afraid I laughed, sneered and privately I’m still not convinced. Does anyone know if this so called ‘Tweeting’ actually caught on?)
Karin Slaughter is half Goddess half Lunatic. Actually she’s 49% of one and 51% of the other but I can’t say which way round. She is also HIDING HER LIGHT UNDER A BUSHELL. You think she’s just a great crime writer. NO - she has another talent, she is one of the funniest human beings I’ve ever met. You’d never know it to read her work, would you, because it’s so dark. But it’s true, and I’m waiting for her to publish comedy under a different name.
A trade paperback is just like a standard paperback except BIGGER. Learning this was a seminal moment for me.
European authors don’t have agents. I mean WHAT? How do they do it? My agent is like my Mummy. I cannot and WILL NOT function without her.
Mark Billingham is involved in witchcraft. How else do you explain his outrageous talent and energy? I hate the man.
The Crime Fiction label is a very stretchy one and no one – not publishers or writers or readers or reviewers – quite knows where the boundaries of the genre begin and end.
The word ‘genre’ sounds very pompous and elitist but is enormously useful.
There are two Cs and two Ms in the word ‘accommodation’ and Americans spell ‘paedophile’ differently from the way we do in the UK.
And finally: authors work their socks off (see point number 1 above) but they are some of the luckiest people around. What other professions get to speak and be listened to in the way that we are listened to by you, the readers. You cannot imagine a bigger, better more flattering reward for all the trials and tribulations. No really and seriously and truly, you can’t. And you don’t know how grateful and humble it makes us feel.

So much love to you all, and I hope the next decade brings you everything you could possibly hope for.
Mo xx