Blog

I took a huge risk at the cinema this week.

I went twice.

Backrooms and Obsession.

Backrooms received good reviews, but Obsession got better reviews.

So we went to Backrooms first.

Saving the best for last, a trick I picked up from Jesus in the Bible.*

But Backrooms was fantastic.

So I was terrified!

That Obsession would disappoint me.

I’m fussy about what I like. Ask Nadine if you don’t believe me. So two good films in a row seemed like asking a lot.

But I loved it, too! Even the young ‘uns laughing at the bits making them uncomfortable couldn’t ruin it.

Two very different horror films. Obsession is more gruelling (in a good way), while Backrooms brings the dread. I recommend them both.

So it was the reviews that let me down this week.

I always read the reviews. For films, I read and compare The Guardian and Roger Ebert reviews. But at the end of the day, it just comes down to the reviewer’s personal taste. Same as everyone else.

If you like something, you’ll find reasons to justify why you like it.

If you don’t, you’ll find reasons to justify that.

And only you have your own particular good taste, and like the things you like.

So there’s no point me trying to tell you that you’d love my book The Forgotten Creatures. How would I know?

I can only tell you I love it, and that it includes Big Toes, free fish dinners, and a priest sneaking around after dark.

But if that sounds like the sort of tasty mystery you can get your teeth into, then you can get it right here!

Chat soon,

Morgan

P.S. More Morgan? Get 2 of my books free here: morgandelaney.info/newsletter

*Part of the water into wine story. Sorry, I forget which page it’s on.

This might be controversial, but I prefer Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently books to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

I re-read them this week, and couldn’t believe it when I saw 1987 on the copyright page.

So I bought Dirk Gently’s Detective Agency when it first came out…

39 years ago!

Which makes me 21-plus and a bit, I suppose.

Luckily, we’ve aged well, for the most part.

There’s a joke about not being able to get pizza delivered in London, which might have been cutting-edge at the time, but is hard to believe these days.

But the Electric Monks…

Wow!

That was spot on.

The joke there is that, just as dishwashers wash tedious dishes for you, and video recorders watch tedious television for you, an Electric Monk will believe tedious things for you.

Don’t tell me there are no Electric Monks.

I can’t say much without giving away the ending, but comparing criticism of how people are using AI and how the Electric Monk fits into the plot gave me shivers at how prescient it was.

And Adams makes it all seem effortless. I gulped the whole thing down in two nights. The story – and jokes – trip off the page.

If you didn’t know how much he struggled to write, you’d swear he banged the whole thing out with one hand while eating brunch. A sliver of smoked salmon dangling from his fork in his other hand.

Writing good comedy is hard.

What gets me through it is being able to spend the time with all my pals.

The Alumières, de Glube, Curly, Mrs Sniffacre, Lorry Tassel.

And best pals, Mr Ball and Mr Nooney, who are up on the church roof for the epic finale of The Forgotten Creatures!

Chat soon,

Morgan

P.S. More Morgan? Get 2 of my books free here: morgandelaney.info/newsletter

Some people are naturals.

Taking the tram – again! I know! – a confused 12-year-old was pacing the tram from end to end. Sometimes he’d stop to stare at someone. Not aggressively, but as if unsure whether he knew them. Sometimes he’d stop to check under the seats.

Then more pacing.

This was a boy in urgent need of something he couldn’t find.

But with plenty of attention.

Everybody watched to see what he’d do next (and hope he didn’t do it near them).

You could have flossed your teeth with the tension.

Finally, he spoke.

“I want a beer,” said the 12-year-old.

Well, although he didn’t get one, we can all learn two things from that honest lad.

1. What excellent marketing! He didn’t waste time asking everyone individually for a beer. He got our attention, then made his demand once. I expect John D. Rockefeller and Warren Buffett were the same back in the day.
2. He knew what he wanted and went for it, regardless of what anyone thought.

Mothers tutted on that tram, but he didn’t care. He wanted beer, and they weren’t his target audience.

When it comes to books, I’m all over lesson 2.

If I wanted prizes and respect, I’d write dismal tomes about people contemplating death and divorce.

But I want silly books, so that’s what I’m writing, tutting mothers be damned!

All I’m missing is a soupçon of that 12-year-old marketing genius’ chutzpah to help me sell them.

Or Professor de Glube’s determination.

In The Forgotten Creatures, he only wants two things.

Marry Mrs Sniffacre, and dig up the massive catapult buried in the graveyard for some strange reason.

​Find out why here!

Chat soon,

Morgan

P.S. More Morgan? Get 2 of my books free here: morgandelaney.info/newsletter

We’re in what used to be East Berlin.

Tip: If there are trams, you’re probably in East Berlin.

East Berlin had trams. West Berlin ripped them up for being old-fashioned and stupid.

They’re regretting it now and want more, but trams still mostly don’t go further west than Hauptbahnhof (Main Station).

So if you’re on a tram, you’re probably in old East Berlin.

Seeing the most incredible things…

Taking the tram yesterday, we passed a big vet (animal doctor, not war hero), and the surgery windows were plastered with pictures of animals pimping the vet’s services.

Dogs saying, “I got chipped here!”

Cats saying, “My glands were expressed here!”

And a squirrel saying, “I was castrated here!”

A squirrel.

I mean, I can understand why the vet is proud of castrating a squirrel.

It can’t have been easy.

They’re famous for hiding their nuts.

But I’ve never heard of pet squirrels before.

And I refuse to believe people are castrating wild squirrels.

Nonetheless, this vet obviously understands there are enough people whizzing past on the tram outside his window for this service to be a money-maker.

Know your audience, I suppose.

I’m still only getting to know mine.

The only thing I know for sure is that my books aren’t for everyone.

If you’re not into something a little different, something a little strange, then you won’t like them.

And that’s fine.

I’d rather write books that thrill a few people than a bland book that everyone reads… and then forgets.

So, where else can you read about a man raising the dead with a parrot, other than in The Forgotten Creatures?

Get it here to learn why!

Chat soon!

Morgan

P.S. More Morgan? Get 2 of my books free here: morgandelaney.info/newsletter

George Orwell had blue spots or circles tattooed on each of his knuckles.

Probably done while he lived in Burma before becoming a writer.

Possibly the tattoos are the reason he became a writer.

“Writing can hardly be more painful than getting my knucks tatted,” he thought. “Let’s have at it!”

The poor fool.

Here’s the thing:

What makes tattoos difficult is that you get only one chance to do it right.

What makes writing difficult is that you get as many chances as you like.

Unless you’re under a strict deadline, you can spend the entire rest of your life trying to get it exactly right.

Douglas Adams’ publishers resorted to locking him into hotel rooms to get him to finish anything.

The writing is easy. It’s the rewriting until the right words are on the page that gets you.

Writing should be called “rewriting.”

Anything else is false advertising.

My first draft of The Cat Wore Black clocks in at 129,326 words. That’s 50,000 words too many.

And 100,000 of them are rubbish.

So now I start rewriting it until it’s as good as I can make it.

The main difficulty being that it’s hard to keep reading something and remain objective.

Unless you know my simple trick.

I often need to flick back and forth to check what I wrote somewhere else, so I don’t contradict myself. After the first draft, there are a lot of times when I skim the required chapter and think Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.

But sometimes I start reading…

And keep reading. Long after I found the thing I needed.

Because I’m enjoying it so much.

I’ll know the story is ready when there are no more yeah-yeah-yeah bits, only bits I’m happy to read again, despite having read them twenty times already

Obviously, it can take a while.

And the strain on the old grey matter is ferocious. One day, all this rewriting is going to push me over the edge.

So, wish me luck.

Or egg me on by buying my previous brush with madness.

I spent two full years writing The Squared Circle, available here now!

Morgan

P.S. More Morgan? Get 2 of my books free here: morgandelaney.info/newsletter

My two favourite things are music and books.

But I recently watched mclusky on KEXP and was blown away that some people can play music and sing at the same time.

I don’t have the concentration to listen to the music and the lyrics at the same time.

When I listen to music, I’m only listening to the music.

Of course, I like a lot of growly metal, where the vocals sound like the Cookie Monster trying to eat his way out of a quarry. Good luck with those lyrics, but still.

I’ve never been interested in what my favourite bands are singing about. I make up my own lyrics.

When I want words, I read a book.

But because books don’t have music to distract me, the words have to be good.

Especially when I’m the one writing them.

I don’t just want to tell a story.

I want to tell a story that sounds good in your ears.

(You hear the words in your head as you read, too, right?)

So for me, it’s always one or the other.

Words or music.

I’m not good at paying attention.

I’m your classic Bear Smuggler.

At Tbilisi Airport, there’s a “trophy case” of things customs have caught people smuggling.

Including a full bear pelt with the whole head.

It’s massive.

And I can only imagine it’s there because some poor guy was so distracted by the hectic beat of the airport dance:

Remember your flight number,

check you have your passport,

empty your pockets while taking off your belt,

check you have your passport,

fish out your laptop while drinking the rest of your water,

wonder where your passport went, you only put it down for one second

that he didn’t even hear them talking about bears.

“Don’t smuggle a bear out of Georgia!” they said.

But he, poor fool, heard “Don’t snuggle bare south of George, yeah?”

That could have been me!

Sometimes the words are important.

So I only worked with the best in The Squared Circle, available here now!

Chat soon!

Morgan

P.S. More Morgan? Get 2 of my books free here: morgandelaney.info/newsletter