An Unorthodox Interview With Derek Landy

Derek Landy is more than just a writer. Derek Landy is a number one, bestselling, award-winning children’s author. He’s written two films, eleven books, one novelette for World Book Day, and has featured in three separate collections of short stories as a guest author. He is currently in the midst of writing the screenplay for the Skulduggery Pleasant movie, and has started writing the first novel in his newest book series. He’s a busy man…!

Author of the wildly popular Skulduggery Pleasant series, Derek has had astronomical fame and success since the first book came out in 2007. Over the last seven years he’s won countless awards including: The Red House Book Award, The Irish Book Of The Decade, numerous Irish Book Awards, and he’s on Oprah Winfrey’s Recommended Reading List.

His Skulduggery Pleasant book series is a brilliantly fun and exciting adventure story that follows the exploits of a 400 year old skeleton detective and his teenage partner in crime throughout the course of nine books. The last book in the series, The Dying Of The Light (shown above), just came out in August and I was lucky enough to bag an interview with the genius himself! Awesome!

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. I present to you, a very unorthodox interview with Derek Landy…

(This is a very PG version of the interview. There was so much funny material I had to leave out because it just wasn’t appropriate for the younger readers, but believe me, I was cracking up. Nevertheless, Enjoy!)

Me: Derek. How does it feel now that Skulduggery is over?

Derek: I’ve been back from touring for about two weeks now and acclimatising to normal life, such as it is, and for the first time I’m looking at a life without Skulduggery. It’s weird and unsettling. I feel glad that I managed to do what I wanted to do. I feel happy that I didn’t fumble the ball at the last moment. You write a nine book series and unless the final book is up to par, then what’s the point of the other eight? I’ve read plenty of series where it starts off brilliantly and then it flatlines. I don’t think Skulduggery did that. I think we went out on a high note. I’m proud of the books.

Me: What are some of your favourite reactions to the end of Dying Of The Light?

Derek: I’ve gotten used to releasing a book and then watching the anguish, heartache and the heartbreak when I do horrible things to people’s favourite characters, and now it’s just standard. It’s never less than enjoyable, but it’s standard. With Dying Of The Light my favourite reaction is the reaction to the twist at the end. You think it’s going one way and then it spins. The reaction to that, the screams and the wails, is brilliant. Readers have taken selfies of themselves in tears, and then once they realise what I’ve actually done… I can hear their curses from here. It’s lovely. The amount of stories I’ve been told about readers getting to a certain chapter near the end and slamming the book closed, throwing it across the room, not picking it up again for a few hours or even a day or two, because they’re so distraught and tormented by feels. But then eventually they do pick it up again, because they have to finish it, and then they realise what I’ve done, and then they hate me even more. I love it.

Me: And how do you compare those reactions to the ones you got after Death Bringer when the big secret was revealed?

Derek: The reaction to that revelation was uniform. It was shock and it was dismay. It was disbelief. It was as if each reader got to that point and they got a punch in the chest. They had to sit down and absorb it, and go “what just happened?” They had to revaluate everything they thought they knew. That kind of twist is very effective, but it’s deadly serious. There was no one reading the twist in Death Bringer and laughing about it.

Whereas the reactions to some of the things in The Dying Of The Light, absolutely some of it was shock, some of it was “I can’t believe he did that” and heartbreak, trauma, all very fine and expected. And then there are some twists that make you laugh, and make you grin, and make you curse me in a nice way. The twist in Dying Of The Light is me playing with the reader because I know the reader. The online presence, the online community of Skulduggery readers is extraordinarily vibrant as everyone knows, so I keep tabs on the forums, and the comments, and the blogs, and Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook.

I saw theories, and people guessing and projecting what they thought was going to happen in the final book, and it becomes a very tricky tightrope to walk to give them what they need, but not to give it to them in a way they’d expect. Book nine was all about me navigating that tightrope, and I think I pulled it off.

Me: Did Dying Of The Light have any other possible endings?

Derek: Yes.

Me: Can you tell us?

Derek: I can’t really. I didn’t know until I wrote it what the ending was. I knew what the last scenes were, and what the last chapter was, but I didn’t know exactly how it ended. My options were: happy ending, sad ending, tragic ending, traumatic ending, funny ending. I chose the ending I chose because that’s where the story and the characters were going. The readers expect certain things, because they know how bloodthirsty I am, and they know how merciless I am. I know they know that. They know that I know they know that. It’s a massive loop that never ends, and so you just try your best to give them a totally natural and organic ending. Not to change it to spite them. It has to be natural. It has to be the only ending you could possibly imagine, and the only way you will know that as a writer is when you finish it and you go “ah, so this is how it ends.”

Me: You just got back from your tour. You travelled the UK, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia, how was it?

Derek: It was fun. Exhausting. I’m not the biggest fan of tours.

Me: Why’s that?

Derek: I don’t like being away from home. My family go, “Oh look you’re going first class! Everything is being paid for! You stay in lovely hotels! You go to London and stay in top hotels! You go to Sydney and Perth! You’re travelling around the world and your publisher is paying for everything! It’s wonderful! It’s marvellous!” but they don’t understand that it’s not. It’s airports, hotel rooms, book shops, malls and libraries. You meet so many people they blur into one, so at the end of the two weeks you’re going “Where was I? Who did I meet?” but the fact is, if it was just that amount of pressure and just that hectic all the time I wouldn’t go on tour.

But the upside is such an upside. The upside of being on tour is that you get to meet the readers. It sounds amazingly corny, you know, “I want to meet the readers, I want to connect with the readers,” but that’s what I want to do. After a book I want to see their faces. I want to sign their books and interact with them. If I had the chance to meet my favourite writer when I was a kid, or a teenager, or in my twenties, I would have killed for it. I’ve always looked on the tours as a way to thank the readers.

It’s not for me. It’s not about publicity, and it’s not about selling books. It’s the part of the year where I actually physically thank the people for reading the books. It’s worth it.

Me: Can the readers be comforted with the knowledge that there might be a Skulduggery movie coming out at some point?

Derek: Emphasis on the word “might.” I’ve been promising this for years. I’ve been promising this since 2007 when the first book was out. It’s been in various stages of development since then. The fact is, making movies is an extremely uncertain business. As it stands, I’ve just signed a new movie deal, I’m writing the script and the studio is very enthusiastic. They’re very positive and they love the script as it is.

I’m writing the second draft and everything is looking good, but I said this five years ago. You can never be sure of anything in Hollywood. Everything can look absolutely rosy and positive, and still nothing might happen. There literally is no way to tell. If we’re lucky, we’ll get a Skulduggery movie and the readers will have another outlet to obsess over, and get weird and freaky about.

Me: At this moment in time what is more important? What are you focusing on more, the movie script or the next book series?

Derek: I’m giving both of them equal levels of importance in my head. I feel the pressure more for the book than the script. The movie, if it happens, is a team effort. I would love to stay on as writer for the entire thing, but I’ll be happy to just stay on for as long as I can. I may be replaced as screenwriter at any stage, and that’s the risk you take when you make movies.

But I know what I’m doing when it comes to screenplays and I know I’m good. I know the book and I know the world very well, so I don’t feel the same level of pressure for the script at all, because I feel comfortable with it. I’m confident writing Skulduggery. The new series though, that’s where the pressure is. I’ve got to come up with something new, and yet appeal to some of the same people. The pressure is on that one, that’s the big one. I know Skulduggery like the back of my hand, but with this new book series I don’t know it at all.

Me: Can you give us any details on what the new book is about or give us a title?

Derek: I can’t give you the title. It’s about a sixteen year old girl whose being chased across America by a pack of demons. It’s horror. It’s three books long. I don’t know what age group it is, I’ll know that when I finish, but by the sound of it, it sounds like it’s for a slightly older age group than Skulduggery. I’m sure my publisher would like me to stay within the same age group because it’s a good age range, and obviously I’ve found success there. Eleven to thirteen is a vibrant age group. It’s just huge, and you appeal to so many others, above and below that age range. It’s a lovely range to hit.

I don’t have a clue about any of this, obviously. I just write the book and then I’m told who it’s aimed at. That’s the marketing side of things. While I expect they’d like me to stay within a very lucrative target audience, it’s really not even up to me. It’s up to the book. It’ll be whatever it is, it’ll be for whoever it’s for. There’s nothing I can do or say about it. I can’t change it because it is what it is, and it’ll probably be for a slightly older audience.

Me: If it does turn out to be for a slightly older audience, and the older Skulduggery fans pick it up, how accepting do you think the Skulduggery superfans will be of new stuff?

Derek: When the last Skulduggery book was released and I was talking about the next series, I was expecting a lot more “I don’t want a new series! I want Skulduggery! Give me Skulduggery!” but I didn’t really get any of that. I got a lot of “I’m really glad it ended on a high, and now I’m really looking forward to what’s coming next!” I didn’t expect that kind of eagerness, and that kind of trust.

They just want — especially the older ones — they just want something new. Whenever I tell people it looks like it’s going to be more horror and less adventure, they just get excited. In Armageddon Outta Here, the biggest story that I get feedback from is Get Thee Behind Me, Bubba Moon, which is a horror story. It’s unlike any other Skulduggery story. It’s not as funny. It’s horror. It’s dread. There’s an adult main character. It’s full on, older audience horror. I think they’re suddenly very eager to see what I have in store for them. I go “now I’m writing a horror book” and they seem eager and that’s so nice.

Me: Does it feel like you’re leaving old friends behind, saying goodbye to the Skulduggery cast?

Derek: It does. I’ve been writing Skulduggery since 2005, that’s nine years. I know Skulduggery and Valkyrie so well. I know the supporting cast so well. Writing the Skulduggery books was never a hassle, it was never a problem. I would always just settle right back into it, because it is like meeting up with old friends. It’s like continuing conversations you had a few months ago, and you just pick it up again and go on. So I’m very grateful to these characters and I’ve got huge amounts of affection and loyalty to them, because they’ve changed everything in my life. I owe them everything.

Me: And then you kill them off, naturally.

Derek: I’m really horribly mean to them. I don’t know what that says about me. As I writer I miss them. Writing this new series without Skulduggery, and Valkyrie, and Tanith, and coming up with an entirely new cast of characters is hard. I’m writing a new book, whereas none of the Skulduggery books I saw as new books, they just felt like one big long book, one big long adventure, one big long story. I don’t have that. I don’t have my friends anymore. I can’t trust my characters anymore. Before I would sit down to write and I would trust my characters to approach my story outline and make it better, and flesh everything out. It’s not me, it’s them. My friends will do this, my friends will make this a good book. Now I don’t have my friends anymore and it’s up to me again.

Me: Who is your favourite Skulduggery hero, villain, and idiot, and why?

Derek: My favourite hero is Val. She’s obviously the main character. If I didn’t absolutely adore her I couldn’t have written the books. She’s very special to me. She’s very, very flawed. Over the years I’ve gotten comments from people going “I just don’t like Valkyrie. She’s not nice. I don’t like how she treats Fletcher. I don’t like how arrogant she is. I don’t like this and that” and I’m like “Yeah that’s the point.” It’s as if everyone expected the main character, because she’s a girl, to be perfect. To be beautiful, and flawless, and nice, and lovely, and that’s what everyone expects. And then they’re confronted by the reality that Val is a real girl. She is arrogant, she’s narcissistic, selfish, self-centred, just like everyone is.

No one is completely bad, no one is completely good. No one is selfish all the time, no one is self-centred all the time, no one is arrogant all the time, but they’re just facets of who we are. It’s always been interesting to talk to people or to hear from people who’ve just been confronted with the fact that just because this is the main character of a book it doesn’t mean you’re going to get a nice person, or a complete cookie-cutter kind of character. She will be flawed. Val has always been my favourite good guy.

My favourite bad guy is Darquesse, because she’s awesome. She is so much fun. She’s just a wonderful psychopath in every sense of the word. She so much fun to write because there is no malice. She’s evil, she’s merciless, and she’ll kill you and the entire world, but there’s no nastiness there. She’s just doing it because she wants to. There’s a kind of innocence about her, and that’s a lot of fun to write, especially after you write bad guys with an agenda. Serpine, Mevolent, Vengeous, Scarab — these people have agendas. They have their own motivations, and so from their own point of view, they’re the good guy. But Darquesse isn’t the good guy, and she doesn’t fool herself into thinking she is. Darquesse is pure impulse. She’s the unrestrained part of us all — if we didn’t have a conscience, if society didn’t block us off and stop us from behaving one way or the other this is how we’d be. We’d be carefree and wonderfully violent, in a lovely way.

And my favourite idiot is Scapegrace. You didn’t see that coming, you didn’t see his evolution coming. I didn’t plan it. I didn’t have any idea about incorporating it into the main storyline. It just happened, and along the way he’s just gotten more and more fun to write. And then it got to the point where I’d go, “Right, I’ve got my storylines, I’ve got my plots, I’ve got my characters, now how will I put Scapegrace in?” and then I just do. I don’t care if you like him or not, he’s just a character who is a perfect example of the characters living beyond the writer’s expectations.

Me: Are you excited to be starting something fresh?

Derek: Yes. At the moment it’s work. Writing Skulduggery was all fun, this new series is work. I’m not allowing myself the same kind of indulgences that I had with Skulduggery. There’s no wise-cracking, there’s no huge big fight scenes, it’s just horror. It’s serious stuff. There’s fun and there’s jokes, but there’s no Skulduggery-like character, and because I don’t have that, suddenly this is work. It’s weird to write a book and for it not to flow naturally because I’ve been doing it for so long.

Me: The character Valkyrie is based off one of your real friends, Laura. In your new book are there going to be any characters based off anyone you know?

Derek: No. I based Val off a real person because I needed a real person. This was my first attempt at writing a book, and as a new writer still learning his trade I needed all the help I could get. I don’t need that anymore. I’m now entirely comfortable writing whatever it is that I choose to write. I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to that kind of thing. I don’t need to, so probably not. Skulduggery was the perfect place to put in people I know, like Gracious O’Callaghan, and Donegan Bane, and Maybury, and all these people influenced by friends of mine. I also took the opportunity wherever possible to include readers, just drop in a reader or two. But that’s it, that’s over. Skulduggery was the place to do it, it won’t be happening again.

Me: You just had a birthday last week. How was that?

Derek: It was a milestone. It was my 40^th. I still can’t quite reconcile that I’m now forty. I’m forty. It’s just weird. You never quite think that you’ll get to what you once thought of as middle-aged. You always think that these milestones will always be ahead of you, but they won’t. You’re going to hit them and suddenly they’re going to be behind you. My next milestone is my 50^th. Jesus. That’s just scary. I just thought of that right there. My next milestone birthday is my 50^th. It’s in ten years’ time, fair enough, but still. Wow, that’s depressing.

But I got to my 40^th, and I went to lunch with a friend of mine, who’s also a writer, and she was saying isn’t it wonderful the fact that, yeah I’ve reached forty, but so many people reach forty and they go “What have I done with my life? I’m doing a job I hate. I can’t get that promotion. I’ve got this work, and that stress, and this anxiety. My life hasn’t worked out the way I wanted. I don’t have my dream job. I don’t have this, I don’t have that,” and I don’t think any of that. I have my dream job.

I’m a writer and a successful one. If you hope to be a successful writer you’re an idiot. It’s so unrealistic. It’s so farfetched. And yet here I am. I’m one of the people it happened for, by pure chance. So yeah, I’ve reached my 40^th birthday, but I’m not thinking to myself “what have I don’t with my life?” I’m not thinking, “I don’t have my dream job.” I’m thinking, “I’ve made it! Whatever happens from now on, I’ve made it. I’ve impacted the world. I’ve changed people’s lives. No matter what happens to me my books will always be out there,” and that’s a lovely consolation to turning forty.

Me: Did you think you’d be here ten years ago?

Derek: Ten years ago I was just writing Skulduggery. Writers are a very special breed of people. They like to delude themselves. If you’re a writer and you’re not published, or you’re a writer and you’ve yet to break through, or catch your break, or make it big, or even if you just want to be a writer, if you’re in school and you want to be a writer, you’re going to delude yourself. That’s what we all do. If you have a few books out and no one bought them, you’re still deluding yourself, because the chances of you making it are remote.

I was thirty and I was deluding myself, and I made it. Writers delude themselves until they make it a reality. And that’s just the lucky ones. There are other writers who will delude themselves and not make it. But I was one of the ones, just like every other writer out there, who deluded himself into thinking I was going to make it, and that I was going to be successful, that I’m going to be able to write for the rest of my life, no matter what level of success I’m at, that I’ll be able to write because that’s what I want to do, and that’s what I’ll do. I won’t have to get another job, I’ll be able to write to support myself. Even when I was thirty, as I was writing the first Skulduggery book, before I had my book deal, I was deluding myself into thinking I was going to make it. And I did.

Me: You recently just did the Ice Bucket Challenge, can you tell us about the charities you donated to?

Derek: I donated to the Irish charities for motor neurone disease, for cancer and for autism. It took me more than three days to do it so I decided I would do a big one, and I’d donate to three causes. I’ve got a little four year old niece who’s autistic and she’s just a bundle of unfettered joy to be around. Nothing gives me more pleasure than seeing her smile and laugh.

Me: Halloween will soon be here. Do you celebrate it?

Derek: I used to when I was a kid. When I was a teenager I didn’t because I lived in the middle of nowhere, and going out and dressing up never really appealed to me. And nowadays I still don’t. I don’t have any trick-or-treaters calling round to the house. I don’t partake. I think when my nieces are older and they actually realise what Halloween is then it’ll be fun. Then it’ll be a family thing again, the same as it was when I was a kid. I’m looking forward to that. Of course, every one of them dresses up as a princess every day of the week anyway, so Halloween isn’t really going to make much of a difference to them.

Me: What are your top five Halloween movies?

Derek: If I wanted to terrify someone who’d never seen a movie in their life I’d sit them down and I’d make them watch: A Nightmare On Elm Street, The Thing, The Ring — the Japanese version, not the American one — Poltergeist, and I would end the night on a funny note and I’d go for Evil Dead 2.

Me: Christmas is coming. Last year you made the Twelve Days Of Christmas video. Is there a Christmas fan project for this year?

Derek: No.

Me: Oh great.

Derek: I didn’t expect that to take up so much of my time. I’d never edited anything before, so I had to teach myself how to edit using YouTube, which it fine, it’s easy, but not when you’re learning. It was a massive undertaking that I undertook naively without any idea how many videos I’d be getting sent by people. I’m glad I did it, but I won’t be repeating it.

Me: What are your top five Christmas movies?

Derek: The Nightmare before Christmas, because I just love it. My second favourite Christmas movie is Die Hard. My third favourite is Lethal Weapon. Fourth favourite Christmas movie… Love Actually. I love that film! Richard Curtis is hit or miss, but there’s just something about that movie I adore. And I don’t have a fifth. Maybe Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Or Gremlins. Or Batman Returns.

Me: Mortal Coil was set at Christmas. Any particular reason why?

Derek: I think everyone expected each book to be set a year apart, but they weren’t. Some were set six months apart, four months apart, nine months apart, thirteen months apart, and each book only lasts for a few days, so I could choose any time of year to set it. I actually wrote Mortal Coil during a very heavy snowfall. There were just a few weeks of very wintery weather, and I said “This is it. This suits it,” and it was nice to set something at Christmas. You get to make your feelings clear about certain traditions, which is nice.

Me: How does Skulduggery normally spend Christmas?

Derek: Saving the world. He usually gives Val the day off if he can, but evil does not sleep. Evil doesn’t take Christmas off.

Me: Evil doesn’t let Skulduggery have a roast turkey?

Derek: No. Evil does not do that. Evil is mean.

Me: What if he invited Evil round for Christmas dinner?

Derek: You would have to get Evil a very good present, because Evil is spiteful. But hey, if you do, and you get Evil drunk, you’re in for a fun evening. Charades! Evil is great at charades!

Me: There are a few purposefully unanswered questions left in the Skulduggery books — are you ever going to answer them?

Derek: Yes. I was approaching the end of The Dying Of The Light and I realised I had hadn’t answered this, and I hadn’t resolved that, or explained this, and I made the decision that I wouldn’t. If I had to shoehorn in a reason or explanation, or an answer or solution, then it’s not natural, it not organic, and it wouldn’t fit into the story. I wasn’t too upset about that. I wasn’t preoccupied about he fact that I never said what Dusk sensed in Valkyrie’s blood. I never got to say what Rue’s power was. I never got to do a lot of things, but I wasn’t worried. I think what I will do, is on the anniversary of the publication of The Dying Of The Light, on my blog, I’ll answer one question every year.

Me: You’ll be popular.

Derek: Every year if there’s something in the series that you feel is unresolved, or are dying to know, and want me to explain, then check in on the blog once every year and eventually I’ll get round to you.

Me: What’s your favourite secret you’ve yet to reveal?

Derek: What Dusk sensed in Valkyrie’s blood. That is huge. I thought it would be a part of the series, and it turned out, no, it wasn’t.

Me: Your next series is a trilogy. With the way you reveal your secrets in the Skulduggery series, when you have to wait six books to find out the big twist, in a trilogy will you be able to reveal things in the same way? Are you limited with just three books?

Derek: No, but then, the new series is not like Skulduggery. It’s a lot more immediate, especially the first book. It’s a lot more straight forward. It’s a chase. There are good guys and bad guys. There’s hiding, fleeing, dying, and screaming. With Skulduggery I was spoiled, because most of the characters were over 400 years old. They have so many secrets and so many hidden motivations, whereas in the new trilogy you’re not going to have that. You’re not going to have those centuries of rivalries and secrets. It’s just a different way of approaching it. A different way of writing. It’s a different sort of story.

Me: Will you miss the freedom of not having nine books in a series? The freedom to make one a horror and one a whodunit?

Derek: I don’t think so. Skulduggery was the perfect series for me, and the perfect series to start with, especially. It was everything I needed it to be. The new series is different. It’s a lot more limited in scope. You’re not saving the world, you’re saving one girl’s life, and in the context of the story that’s just as important as saving the world.

Me: What are you looking forward to most in the New Year?

Derek: Getting a new book out there. Seeing the reaction to that. 2015 will be my first non-Skulduggery year, so it’ll be weird and unsettling. I’m looking forward to people reading it. It sounds obvious, but there’s a lovely feeling that comes when your book is out there and people are reading it and discussing it. I’m just curious to see how it’ll do. I’m not in the slightest expecting it to be as big as Skulduggery ended up being. It doesn’t matter how big your last series was, your new series will not be as big. That’s a fact of writing. It’ll take time to build up its own readership. There will be a lot of Skulduggery readers picking it up because they’re loyal to me, and they like Skulduggery so they’ll give this new one a go. It’s going to take a while for the new series to reach the same level because it’s going to have to build its own momentum and find its own followers. I’m very curious to see how it’ll do and the reaction it‘ll get.

…

And then we moved onto the lightening round…

Me: Favourite colour?

Derek: Black! Blue? Black? I don’t know, is black a colour? Or just the absence of colour? Blue/black!

Me: Favourite song?

Derek: Famous Blue Raincoat, by Leonard Cohen. Maybe.

Me: Favourite animal?

Derek: Dog.

Me: Favourite Disney movie?

Derek: The Avengers!

Me: No, animated Disney movie.

Derek: Beauty And The Beast.

Me: Your guilty pleasure?

Derek: I don’t have one. None of my pleasures are guilty.

Me: You can only eat one thing for the rest of your life — what is it?

Derek: Food.

Me: What kind of food?

Derek: Roast chicken. Or pizza. Or a cheeseburger.

Me: If you were a chocolate bar, what would you be?

Derek: A chocolate bar.

Me: Yes, but what kind?

Derek: A Crunchie bar. Because I crunch when eaten.

Me: Your happiest memory?

Derek: The look on my mum’s face when I told her about the book deal.

Me: Kiss, marry or kill: China, Tanith, and Darquesse?

Derek: Kiss China, marry Tanith and kill Darquesse.

Me: Kiss, marry or kill: Billy-Ray, Scapegrace, and Lord Vile?

Derek: Er… kiss Billy-Ray, marry Scapegrace and kill Lord Vile.

Me: You’re stuck on a deserted island. What movie book and film do you bring?

Derek: The book I’d bring would be ‘How To Build A Raft’. The person I’d bring would be Bear Grylls, so I could cook him and eat him. And to make sure I did it right, I’d bring the box set of Hannibal.

Me: If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

Derek: Teleportation.

Me: To get off the island?

Derek: Yes!

Me: Who would win in a fight, Skulduggery or Batman?

Derek: Batman.

Me: Who would win in a fight, Lord Vile or Voldemort?

Derek: Lord Vile.

Me: If you weren’t a writer, what would you be doing right now?

Derek: I’m a fully qualified bodyguard, so probably that.

Me: The most important thing you’ve learnt from your career as a writer?

Derek: Brevity!

(And lastly, the final question…)

Me: One motto you always live by?

Derek: Walk tall and carry a big stick.

…

And there you have it! My exclusive interview with the one and only Derek Landy! The number one, best-selling author! The legend! The hero! The Golden God! How did I ever get so lucky to get such a prestigious interview with such a great and powerful man…?

Oh yeah. That’s how. He’s my BAE.

Ahem.

Laura, out!