SOME
INFORMATION ABOUT HOW GARY WRITES:
Gary writes picture books, short stories and novels, mostly for children and teenagers. His ideas often come from non-fiction such as history, science, criminology and other non-fiction books. The ideas for The Lost Diamonds of Killiecrankie, Bright Star and The Viewer come from history. Gary alters the true or non-fiction events to create his story. Sometimes his ideas do come from his own life, such as the fishing trip in First Light. When Gary gets an idea, he often jots it down in an 'ideas' journal along with other notes and diagrams.
Gary is particularly attracted to the intriguing, the macabre and bizarre. He very much likes unsolved historical riddles. His main aim in writing is to make his readers think and to stimulate their imagination. Gary might work on an historically based novel such as Mama's Babies for two years. At present, Gary is working on a novel about convict boys in Tasmania, entitled, Edward Britton. His research has taken him to Port Arthur as he believes a great deal can be learned 'on site'. Although the picture books may take only 6 months for the written text to be complete, the work of the illustrator takes much longer and Gary stays in constant touch so that his picture books are the united effort of writer and illustrator.
Early
writing is done by hand, then when Gary knows what he really wants to write, he uses his computer. He writes for 6 or 8
hours each day - so he suffers from very bad back aches! Gary prints out what
he has written every hour or so and checks it over, editing out what he
doesn't like. This may happen twenty or thirty times until he is satisfied.
When a complete draft manuscript is ready, Gary mails it to his trusty long
time editor, Helen Chamberlin, for her opinion then he incorporates the
changes Helen has suggested, if he agrees with her - as he usually does!
Gary also edits other author's stories. He is the series editor of the After
Dark series, for example. A great deal of Gary's time is spent running
writing workshops for both children and adults in Australia and Overseas as
well as lecturing at University in Creative Writing.
Gary
is very interested in the environment. He is a very committed gardener
developing areas of his property as rain forest and country garden. In fact,
his latest book, Memorial, released in March, 1999 and
illustrated by Shaun Tan, tells of the tragic fate of a huge Moreton Bay fig
tree that a town council wants to cut down.
While Gary loves writing - and says that 'he would die without it' - for
relaxation he spends time in his two acre country garden, walking his dogs in
the beautiful mountains around Maleny and reading, although much of his
reading [mainly non fiction] is research for future stories. He also confesses to being a 'video addict' to take him away
from 'bending over the computer screen' with 'his neck and back burning and
aching'.
Gary's ambition is to go on writing stories 'that make people think … that make them say "ooh - aah! Wow!" as he puts it. He will continue to write for children and teenagers but is considering writing for adults one day … when he gets 'a bit older …'.