British - Writer | November 8, 1991 -
I'm often daydreaming, and it's because I've always liked the idea of there being something more than the normal world.
Samantha Shannon
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People question what I thought of Oxford. Students used to talk about the 'Oxford bubble' because the place can make you feel cut off from the rest of the world. I would forget there were places like London that were not centred round libraries and essays.
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I was so sure I wanted to be a novelist. I would spend hours and hours every day writing. Little stories about nothing in particular. I recall one about someone with an illness. But my dedication wasn't really healthy, and it reached the point where I wasn't sleeping. My mum would tell me, 'You need to go outside to get some fresh air.'
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I fell even more deeply in love with Tolkien's legendarium after studying Old English literature at uni, as I got a sense of the historical events and cultures that Tolkien used to create his world. My favourite of his imaginary locations is Lothlorien.
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I was not really aware of the dystopian genre before I read 'The Handmaid's Tale.' Many poets as well, like John Donne and Emily Dickinson, would be the influences; I specialized in Emily Dickinson at university. Both of those poets have really interesting ways of looking at life and death.
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I worry that people think you have to go to a university to be a good writer, which is categorically untrue. I don't think I learned how to write at Oxford. I did not go to any creative writing classes or anything.
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I know what I want to achieve in each book and the major points, but I don't plan right down to the chapters. I think that the characters write themselves in some degree.
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I am the first one to go to university in my family. I am the first writer as well. My dad is a retired policeman, and my mom works for a glass-processing company. She is health-and-safety manager, and my stepfather is a plumber. I have four half siblings, one from my mom's marriage and three from my dad's marriage, so we are kind of scattered.
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Writing a novel is like knocking on a door that will never open. You are so desperate to get in, you will say or do anything. You feel: please take my novel.
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It is a strange world, Oxford - quite claustrophobic. I was often glad I was only there for eight weeks at a time.
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I am never not thinking about stories. 'The Bone Season' is 90% of my brain - 10% is interacting with the rest of the world.
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I do take this insane pleasure in world-building. I get the world in my head, but I have to make sure everyone else gets it.
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