The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Tuesday, May 08, 2018

Beelzebub's Birthday


Twenty years ago today, after the opening paragraph dictated itself to me out of nowhere in particular, I started writing Beelzebub. It wasn't my first attempt at a novel, or even the first completed attempt having been preceded by several miscarriages and at least two stillbirths; but for all its borrowings from William Hope Hodgson, James Blish and others, it was the first that didn't feel like a laboured imitation of one or more better writers. Being a genius at the time, I naturally jumped in with only the sketchiest excuse for a story; hence the birth-pangs of the first draft, which lasted until the end of August and which, when I had to stop inventing delightful details and start trying to pull everything into some sort of shape, very nearly killed me. Beelzebub remains the longest work I've ever written; longer even than my latest, which has two more point-of-view characters and a somewhat wider geographical scope. Anyway, if you need a better reason than VE Day to raise a glass or a devil, please feel free.

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