When’s dinner time for an Inuit?

 

I read a lot about the Inuit people of the Arctic when I was researching SONG HUNTER: living in the frozen North, the Inuit have had to overcome the same sorts of problems that faced Neanderthals during the Ice Age.

The Inuit all have conventional homes nowadays (though they may shelter in igloos when they’re out hunting) but some customs persist from before they moved into settlements.

 For instance, there’s traditionally no dinner time in an Inuit household. A piece of cardboard will be put on the floor of the house, a chunk of probably raw and perhaps frozen meat will be placed on it, and anyone who’s hungry is free to cut themselves a hunk.

 If you’re not hungry, then there’s no particular obligation to eat.

 To me, a life without meal times is as alien as purple cheese and space suits.

Gosh, though, but that sort of thing doesn't half make you think.

 

Do you have to be mad to be an inventor?

 Well, of course you do.

 Inventing something, whether it’s as an artist or as a scientist, involves thinking about things that aren’t there.

 And that’s pretty much a definition of madness, isn’t it.

Of course that doesn’t mean that inventors all wear straws in their hair, or make ape-noises at the neighbours, or sing love-songs to the daisies.

 No.

So I suppose that, on the whole, we'll have to put inventors down as part-time nutters.

 I think that most of us would be quite happy with that.

STOP PRESS

Today SONG HUNTER has had the very great honour to be chosen as The Times' Children's Book of the Week.

The Times' website is behind a pay-wall, but the novelist, critic and journalist Amanda Craig says:

'As in her prize-winning novel Cold Tom, Prue is brilliant at weaving stories about the clash between species, and this is her best yet...Mica's feelings for Bear, and her frustrated creative intelligence and courage make this book thrilling, involving and convincing.'

Gosh. You know, I'm tremendously thrilled, myself.

Where do ideas come from?

 Like every writer, I'm always being asked where my ideas come from.

 It's a fair question because a work of art can seem miraculous, even a bit god-like (though not, unfortunately,  to those who know me).

 But a work of art isn’t a miracle. It doesn’t work like that. Not for me, anyway. It’s more like building bridges.

 These bridges are important in SONG HUNTER.

 In the book my heroine Mica finds out how to make bridges, and they lead her to a new world of her own creation.

 But would you trust your weight to a bridge made by a teenage girl? Especially if it seems to be made out of nothing but discontent and mist?

 Mica’s family are frightened and threatened and do what they can to put a stop to Mica’s new ideas.

 But once Mica has discovered those bridges then she can no longer bear to stay on the safe side, even though they stretch out across chasms of danger...

Brains: not just for thinking.

I think I've already mentioned that reindeer brains, eaten raw, are a good source of vitamin C.

Well, when I say good I think I probably mean generous. Personally, given the choice, I'd go for the lemon meringue pie any day.

Anyway, brains are useful not only as a source of vitamins, but for preserving hides, too. First you have to scrape all the meat and fat off the skin, and then you rub the hide all over with a nice cold slimy handful of brains.

My Neanderthal people in SONG HUNTER spend a lot of time preparing hides. The information about how to do this came mostly from American hunters’ blogs. It seems to take a lot of care, and a long time, and it’s dreadfully smelly, especially if you’re based somewhere hot, like Arizona.

I’m sitting here at my computer wrapped in a fake fur throw; and I'm feeling extremely grateful for polyester, myself.

What do you mean, Adam and Eve never met?

 

 No, it’s true. All humans (and that means you) are descended from just one woman and just one man, but they missed each other by thousands of years.

 No, really, it is possible. It happened like this.

 Imagine a band of humans, the only ones in the world. There are only three women in this band, and, as the fates decree, only one of them has grandchildren.

 That soon means, of course, that everyone in the world is descended from a single woman.

 Thousands of years later, humans are again reduced to a very few individuals. There are only a couple of men in the world, and only one of them has grandchildren.

 That soon means, of course, that everyone is descended from one man.

 It also means we’re all very, very, very lucky to be here.

 Aren’t we, cousins?

The Science of Fiction: visiting someone else’s world.

 Visiting someone else’s world? That’ll take some imagination, that will.

Luckily it needn’t necessarily be your own imagination: it could be a painter’s; or a musician’s; or a novelist’s.

 What’s it like to be a Neanderthal? What’s it like to see the winters getting colder and the animals fewer?

Is inhabiting another world a sign of madness?

And what if madness is your only chance of survival?

Is a mad you, really you?

 Those are some of the questions I've long wanted to explore.

And that's why I wrote SONG HUNTER.