The inspiration behind Mallory Vayle and the Curse of Maggoty Skull – a blog by Martin Howard

Last month we were absolutely delighted to have published Mallory Vayle and the Curse of Maggoty Skull– a super funny, super spooky MG for budding horror fans written by author Martin Howard. Today we are very excited to be sharing a blog from Martin, himself, about his inspiration behind Mallory, Maggoty and wigs!

Over the years I’ve written quite a few books but Mallory Vayle and the Curse of Maggoty Skull feels like the first: Day One of my writing career. I’ve never been so excited to see a book land.

It’s the tale of a young girl who discovers she has the dark and mysterious power of necromancy. With the help of a very talkative skull — Maggoty — Mallory must learn how to use her strange magic to save the ghosts of her parents. First, second, third and most importantly it is — I hope — a simple blast of deliciously spooky funny. The kind of story I would have pounced on as a kid. As a writer, I bury the issues deep. They’re there if you want to look for them but other writers cover the meaningful topics of the day much better than I ever could and with much greater understanding.

It’s also about wigs.

I mean, come on: wigs. They’re the funnest thing ever and kids these days don’t read enough about them. Wigs, right?

I do love wigs but my inspirations for this book stretch right back into the mists of time. Really want to know? OK, then I’ll do something that I rarely do in public and bare a little soul. The deeply buried issue in Mallory Vayle revolves around self-acceptance — understanding there is no such thing as “normal” — and that is something that resonates strongly for me. I was bullied as a child, which was rubbish, but it had some unexpectedly positive knock-on effects. First came books: the greatest route from reality ever devised by humans. I devoured them. We lived not far from the greatest second-hand bookshop in the world (it was the same bookshop Terry Pratchett used as inspiration for the library of the Discworld’s Unseen University) and I spent every Saturday morning there, usually coming away with highly inappropriate reading material. By age ten I was hooked on proper grisly horror. My parents rolled their eyes and let me read whatever I wanted.

As well as books there was the funny.  When we were sweet, apple-cheeked children my mum and dad used to let me and my sister stay up late on a Thursday night to watch Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Wow. What a way to mess with your child’s developing mind. “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!” And then — mwah-ha-ha-ha-HA — a few years later I discovered horror movies, too. Back in the day, Channel 4 used to play all-night back-to-back horror marathons on a Saturday night. My parents had no idea I was up long after they’d gone to bed watching slick-haired vampires stumbling through cardboard graveyards; severed limbs crawling out the freezer; sixties state-of-the-art werewolf transformations.

Those were my things: books, horror, funny. As I got older I became a goth for a bit but I never really got the glum, brooding thing because there was also Douglas Adams and Sir Terry and Blackadder and … you get the idea. Not a very good goth.

So, that’s where it comes from — a well-spent childhood of escapism. But why Mallory and Maggoty? I wish I could tell you. I was just sitting in the garden one day when a green-eyed skull turned up in my imagination, announced his name — Maggoty — and hasn’t stopped talking since. He really is quite annoying. Wigs wigs wigs. Sheesh. I was writing other stuff at the time but the gobby little toad just would not shut up, and so I made a friend for him — Mallory — and the rest is, well, Mallory Vayle and the Curse of Maggoty Skull. Both of them are me, really. Mallory is the unsure kid who likes books and would like to feel “normal”. Maggoty is the idiotic, outrageous, please-just-shut-up-now part of me that comes out for friends and family.

It feels like Book One of my writing journey because — more than anything else I’ve ever written —  it contains everything I love: magic, funny, horror. There are other talking skulls out there, I know. Other spooky castles. Other lightning-filled midnight skies and cackling villains. But the thing I learned from watching all those black-and-white movies is that it doesn’t matter if you use the same props or the same sets so long as you do something different with them. Mallory Vayle and the Curse of Maggoty Skull is — I hope — a little bit different. That’s what I was aiming for.

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