I Did This and Then I Did That: Freelance Tips from Martin Chatterton, writer of ‘The Tell’ (Guest Post)

Today’s edition of my Spotlight on Australian Authors Series has a slight international twist as it features a guest post from Martin Chatterton.

Bio

Martin Chatterton was born in Liverpool, England, and has been successfully writing and illustrating for over thirty years. He has written dozens of books for children and illustrated many more, collaborating with a number of illustrious authors along the way, including several British Children’s Laureates.

His work has been published in fourteen languages and has won or been shortlisted for numerous awards in Australia, the US and the UK. As Ed Chatterton, Martin writes crime fiction, screenplays and historical fiction and several of his books are in development with various TV and film producers. Martin is also well known as a children’s performer and tours globally. In 2017 Martin gained his PhD and is currently working on an animated feature related to his doctorate. After a period spent living in the US, he now divides his time between Australia and the UK, where he is a partner in a media production company.

***

I Did This And Then I Did That

I’m not really a yoga guy. Which will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me. But I have been a freelance writer, illustrator, designer, performer and producer since 1983 and the one necessity for surviving as a freelancer is a flexibility light years beyond anything a yoga master (a yogi? Guru?) could possibly attempt without serious injury.

I started as an illustrator out of art school in eighties London after getting my first job drawing a bendy alien and thought, yep, that’s me, I’ll be an illustrator and draw bendy aliens for the rest of my life. I was pretty decent at it at a time when the money for drawing bendy aliens was good (like, really good).
After about 10 years I saw that although the money was good, the actual praise was mostly going to writers. At the yearly Puffin parties on the rooftop gardens in Kensington (glory days!), illustrators were gently, but firmly, shown their place. Writers were the stars . . . so I became a writer, inveigling my way in through the back door.

Around that time, I also noticed – after a mere ten years in the business, I’m quick like that – that graphic designers were making good money too. I was, technically, a designer so I opened a design company with a lecturer friend with whom I was doing some uni lecturing and had a desk and job title (Creative Director) and everything. And so it went on.

Over the past decades, without consciously having any big plan, I take on new roles, or, at least, try to, in the same way other people change cars. I’ve written and shot TV ads, become a public speaker/performer at festivals and schools around the planet, shifted ‘sideways’ into being a crime writer and then taken another detour into screenwriting and IP development. I formed a company in Vancouver to try to get an indie feature film off the ground. I’ve written songs with a Genuine Aussie Rock Star.

Last year I formed a media production company, Hungry Head Productions, in the UK to develop some of my backlist books along with a number of other projects as animated series or specials. We’ve had backing from the British Film Institute for our latest project and, as I write, we’re trying to persuade Daniel Craig (no, really) to voice one of the characters. So yes, yoga.

***

The Tell by Martin Chatterton is published by Penguin Random House Australia ($16.99). To buy a copy of the book, or any of Martin’s previous novels, click the below image. To find out more about Martin Chatterton, visit his website.

Keep an eye out for my Q & A with Martin Chatterton, where we talk about all things writing, freelancing and working from home.