Exclusive! COSMIC Author Frank Cottrell Boyce’s Space Thrill Ride

Tuesday, 1/19/2010

Exclusive! COSMIC Author Frank Cottrell Boyce’s Space Thrill Ride

Cosmic A childhood desire to venture to the Moon inspired Frank Cottrell Boyce, the best-selling author of Framed and Millions, to write his latest novel COSMIC. The award-winning author brings us a funny and touching story of the many ways in which grown-upness is truly wasted on grown-ups.

In Cosmic, Liam has always felt a bit like he’s stuck between two worlds. This is primarily because he’s a twelve-year-old kid who looks like he’s about thirty. Sometimes it’s not so bad, like when his new principal mistakes him for a teacher on the first day of school or when he convinces a car dealer to let him take a Porsche out on a test drive. But mostly it’s just frustrating, being a kid trapped in an adult world. And so he decides to flip things around.

Liam cons his way onto the first spaceship to take civilians into space, a special flight for a group of kids and an adult chaperone, and he is going as the adult chaperone. It’s not long before Liam, along with his friends, is stuck between two worlds again—only this time he’s 239,000 miles from home.

Boyce recently sat down with Walden.com to discuss the new novel:

You were a successful screenwriter before you became an author. How did you become interested in writing children’s books? How different is writing a screenplay versus a novel? Does one format come more naturally to you?

I’d always wanted to write a children’s novel but when I had the idea for Millions I wrote it as a screenplay because writing screenplays was my job - I knew how to do it. It was only when Danny Boyle told me it would make a good novel that I had the courage to do it. Sometimes you need a shove from someone you trust and admire.

How has the great success of having your first book, Millions, win the Carnegie Medal as well as being adapted into a successful movie, affected your approach to writing?

Well now when I have an idea I write it as a book and not as a screenplay - which is much, much, much more fun. The other thing about the books is that you get to go and read them to people and that’s great because when you’re standing in front of a massive crowd of children, you very quickly learn which bits are boring and which bits are funny. So hopefully you learn to avoid writing the boring bits!

Do you recall the origins of your latest novel, Cosmic, in your imagination?

Yes. My son had a very good friend who used to call for him everyday. Then we went to live in France for a year and when we came back this friend had had a MASSIVE growing spurt. He was like a giant, mutant version of himself standing in the doorway blocking out the light and I thought, that’s interesting. How would that feel?

Liam, the main character of Cosmic, shares many perceptive and humorous thoughts about fathers and children. Florida is also convincing in her celebrity obsessions. How do you think you are able to get inside the minds of pre-teens so well?

I’m not sure that I’m really inside their minds. I think they’re just good characters. I take a lot of things from people I know.

Is space travel a personal interest of yours, or did you have to do a lot of research for Cosmic? Did you try any Space Camp- like training activities?

Every single man my age is obsessed with space travel because when we were young we all really, really believed we would go to the Moon. We thought we were living in the space age. I wake up every morning thinking, where is my jet pack?!

Without his experiences playing video games, your protagonist, Liam, would not have been as successful in his adventures. Does this mean that you think online role-playing games such as World of Warcraft teach kids valuable real-life skills? And does it mean that you are a gamer?

I’m not really a gamer. I have a really good friend - Sam - who is. He showed me how it worked and I sat with him and I was fascinated. Sometimes if you don’t do a thing yourself, you see things that people who do it all the time don’t see. For instance I don’t have a mobile phone and I’m always putting them in stories. People who do use them sort of take them for granted.

Is Cosmic an intentional homage to Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? While very different, both stories have a crazy, wonderful contest and some clueless, terrible parenting.

Thank you for noticing! Yes I stole from Roald Dahl. I think it shows I have great taste!

How do you keep up with your seven children and writing? Do you work from home?

I do work from home and the children are home-educated so the house is noisy all day. Noise is creative! Also because they’re there it means I can’t sneak off and watch TV. Or play Warcraft.

Do any of your kids ever accuse you of stealing personal details from their lives for your characters? Have any of them ever been mistaken as people much older than they are, as Liam was?

No. All my children are small and young-looking! I consciously avoid writing about them because they would kill me if I did.

Do your kids help at all in your editing process?

Yes I’ve got one boy who really likes to read what I’ve written. Though lately he’s got a bit uppity and taken to adding his own gags while I’m not looking.

There is a lot of humor in your books but also some serious subjects such as fatherhood and religion. Do you find that humor helps to communicate serious or difficult subjects?

It’s the other way round for me. I want them to be as funny as possible but I think real comedy needs to be about something important. Also stories are important, aren’t they? They should always be about something that’s important to you.

Totally Cosmic Adventure at NASA

To celebrate COSMIC, Walden Pond Press and Space Center Houston present the TOTALLY COSMIC ADVENTURE AT NASA SWEEPSTAKES. One lucky family will be selected to go on a VIP Behind the Scenes Tour of NASA and SPACE CENTER HOUSTON.

During the two-day event, the winners will walk in the footsteps of America’s astronaut heroes: see the astronaut cafeteria, space vehicle mock-up facility, mission control centers, space environment training facilities, simulators and research laboratories.