Molly Moon Stops the World (30 page)

YOU should try it sometime. The chances are if you just read this book, then you could be a writer, too. And if you start now, just imagine how good you’d be by the time you are the ripe old rusty age that I am.

Writing is actually a bit like cooking. I go around collecting ideas like a cook collects ingredients. Then I take them home and put them in my writing kitchen. Sometimes they get put in a pot on the back burner and aren’t used for a long time. Other times, I leave the ideas to marinate and sometimes I use the ideas when they’re fresh.

Do you ever get stuck when you’re writing?

Like all cooks I sometimes have disasters in my word kitchen. I sometimes write gunky rubbish. What I hate the most is if a piece of writing bores me
as I write it.
YUCK. It makes me feel absolutely sick just thinking about it, as sick as a ninety-year-old grandma might feel on a roller coaster.

What do you do when that happens?

If ever I get into the gunky rubbish zone when I’m writing, I stop and do something else. At the moment, doing something else consists of:

Most of the time though, I really enjoy writing. I enjoy pushing my imagination and seeing what crazy ideas it can come up with. Just before I go to sleep I think about the story that I’m working on and I imagine being where Molly is, and it is lovely to practically be there as I float off into sleep. Sometimes I even
dream
what should happen next in a story. It’s amazing when that happens.

Have you ever been hypnotized yourself?

Before I wrote
Molly Moon Stops the World
I was exhausted. I had only just finished writing
Molly Moon’s Incredible Book of Hypnotism
and I had a new baby (Lucas) to look after, too, but I had promised my publisher a second book. I started to worry that I wouldn’t be able to think of an idea for it—so worried that I eventually decided I would go to a hypnotist.

“Please help me stop worrying,” I said to the hypnotist, after I’d sat down in her comfortable blue chair.

“I can’t stop you worrying,” she said, “but I can put you in touch with the creative side of yourself.”

That sounded all right, I thought, and so I let her hypnotize me.

It was lovely. Like a mind massage. Even thinking of it now makes me feel all relaxed. Yawn, yawn.

After she’d taken me deep into my mind I felt wonderful. I felt so full of ideas that I could hardly wait to get home to start writing. Isn’t that funny? So, if ever you feel you can’t do something, relax. You can.

Will there be another Molly Moon book?

Yes! I’m working on it now. In it, Molly travels to India and meets a supreme hypnotist—someone even more powerful than Primo Cell. I traveled to India to do research for it.

I
F YOU LOVE Molly Moon, you might also like these ten books that Georgia loves:

1. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
   by Roald Dahl
   

   I love books where nasty characters get their just desserts. Dahl has his readers foaming with anticipation before the horrid children in this story are tested and start to fall. Set in an ultimate location that’s run by one of the craziest genius characters in literature, Dahl creates the perfect venue for funny accidents. Brilliantly imagined and really fun to read.
   

2. The Golden Compass
   by Philip Pullman
   

   Pullman is a fantastic storyteller and this book sucks you in like a strong current. The world he creates and the magical creatures and logic in it are absolutely irresistible. I had wonderful dreams while reading this book—it was as if by reading it, some part of my dreamworld was unlocked.
   

3. Holes
   by Louis Sachar
   

   A small gem of a book set in a detention center where the aim is to turn bad boys into good ones by making them dig holes every day in the hot sun. It is a simple story, plainly told, and set in a very sparse venue, yet the characters and their fates are completely compelling.
   

4. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
   by Mark Haddon
   

   This is a great story about a boy who finds a dead dog near his house. The grown-ups around him shrug this event off, but the boy, Christopher, sees it as a murder. Christopher is a boy with Asperger’s syndrome. He doesn’t think in the same way as you or I do and the world looks very different to him. The author explains Christopher’s view of the world brilliantly, and the story that emerges is both funny and very moving. It is also impossible to put down. After reading it, you feel that if you were to meet someone with Asperger’s syndrome, you would understand them much better.
   

5. A Little Princess
   by Frances Hodgson Burnett
   

   A riches to rags to riches story set in a very realistic Victorian London. The heroine is sent to boarding school as a pupil but, when her father dies, is forced to work there as a maid. It is a lovely story about friendship and right winning out in the end, but what I like best about it is the way the characters show their true colors when Sara Crewe is down on her luck. I love extreme characters in books and here, the bad characters are really hateful and the good characters completely lovable.
   

6. Kensuke’s Kingdom
   by Michael Morpurgo
   

   This is a brilliantly imagined story and the reader cannot fail but be transported. A boy is shipwrecked and ends up on an island, where he meets an old
   Japanese man who’s been there for years. It’s the sort of desert island story that makes you want to go there immediately and get down to fishing and cooking on open fires.
   

7. Father Christmas
   by Raymond Briggs
   

   I loved this book so much when I was seven that I wrote to Mr. Briggs. He wrote back and sent me a funny hand drawn picture of Father Christmas. I still enjoy the detail and humor in his characters and illustrations.
   

8. Walk Two Moons
   by Sharon Creech
   

   A wonderful children’s book with a really elegant twist at the end. The end is so poignant that it made me cry. It’s always slightly peculiar to be moved to tears by a piece of fiction, but Creech draws her heroine so well that one cannot help empathizing with her and being really touched by her story.
   

9. Sophie’s World
   by Jostein Gaarder
   

   Gaarder weaves a clever web here: Sophie’s story keeps you turning the pages and the riddle of what is going on keeps you hooked. While you’re at it Gaarder feeds you the history of philosophy, weaving life’s big questions into Sophie’s story so that all her experiences are relevant to the ideas being discussed. The result is a very thought-provoking, stimulating read, and you finish it feeling more intelligent than when you started!
   

10. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
    by J. K. Rowling I still marvel at how Rowling took an old idea that so many had tried to breathe life into and worked wonders with it. I really enjoyed discovering her world of magic and I liked her original, clever take on how things really work in the world of witches and wizards. A pleasure from start to finish.
    

M
OSS HUMMUNS R so stupid that thay don’t reelize that cleva dogs, like myeself, can tttype. Hear I am siting at Molly’s tipe riter. I’m nooot saying it’s easy, it reelly isn’t—as you can see I hav
alrudy
made wun spellin mistake but sew would you if you had paws lik mine and had to stab at eech key with an claw. Wich reminds me I reelly must get to the pooodel parla. The one in Brirsville isnot the best in the werld but there is a luvly collie there called Shakespeare hoo I ulways hav a good chin wag with. And a tale wag too. He ulways nos egsactly what’s been gowing on in town. And of corse I need updating becus thes days I ulways seem to be awuy. I missed the anual Brirsville dog show, wich Shakespeare organized, and there was The Big Eet competishun too. Bertie the bootcher’s dog won that. Evryone thinks Bertee is so lucky as he gets fyne meet evry nite.

I must say, life has changed since Molly and Rockkee cam proparly into my life. I feel like the luckyast pug in the werld. Of corse you pugs reeding this will feel that yoo are the luckyast pugs in the werld too, and I’m not saying your pets arenot nise but you no how it is. You ulways think your own pet is the best.

I’m glad to be abel to be heer to tipe this as I have had qite a few close shavs as thay say and I don’t meen fer shavs, my fer is short enuf. I must say Molly dus pick em. Her advunturs I meen. And sum of the things we
hav had to do!@£$%^&*()_+ (that is good fun dooing that on the tiperiter) First it was Nokman, and he had me in that filfy van and then that dingee bak room where I had to pee inside. I neerly died becus he didnot feed me or give me water. I sumetimes wonder how I manajed to forgiv him. Well he’s a harmles old fello now ulthow I do think he smells a bit. And then thare was holywood caling me. I cood have been a huje name. But who needs that balony? A slise of balony is nise but who wants it for brekfast, lunch, and tee? Wun moovie was enough for me. O the times I’ve beeen thru. And what abowt what happened in India? O I forgot, Molly hasn’t finisht werking on that wun yet. It was veree scaree. The werse yet. So scary. With a orrible scaly man thare hoo sed evrything back to frunt. Frack to bunt. He was so big I neva seen a persan sew big. I ulmost went bald from the shok of it. Shakespeare wood hav bean suprizd when I next went to the parla!@£$%^&*()_+!

Mollee has a helpa—a perzan she gos to hoo rites her storees down for her for you to reed—well I fink har helpa has neerlee finushed the storree of our Indian adventa. Did I say it all hapunned in Indya? Well it did and whut an udvunture it wus! And whut smels thare wer thare. All you dogs owt thare hav got to go to Indya if eva yoo get thu chunce.

Now I betta go or I will miss having a snuggel wiv Mollee befor she gos to bed.

Love to all of yoo dogs reeding this and to any peepel hoo r reeding too.

If thare r anee cats reeding, wutch owt thares a dog behind yoo. Only jjoking. Haa haa!@£$%^&*()_

WOOOOFFFPHPHH … that meens goodbuy in dog. Best wushes from yor frend—if yore the sort of person I lik—

Petoola

H
ELLO, EVERYBODY OUT there—This is me, Molly Moon.

I’ve decided to drop you a quick note because everyone else seems to be doing it and also I’d like to make contact.

First of all I hope you like the author who I chose to write my memoirs.

I almost didn’t get around to recording my life but it has turned out so extraordinary that I eventually realized I should write it down for posterity and for you to read. I bumped into Georgia Byng in Briersville, where there was a Literary Festival … you know the sort of thing—it’s where the writers come and talk to people about their books and how they write. Well, I got into a conversation with Georgia about my life and she thought it would work best told as a novel, instead of a memoir. She said it would sound more suspenseful that way. I thought that this sounded brilliant.

I also hoped that a few books about my life might bring some other time-stopping hypnotists out into the daylight, although the likelihood of this is slim as timestopping hypnotists are sadly almost extinct.

However, out of the hundreds of thousands of children all over the world who read these books (which have been published in America, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Norway, Finland, Latvia, Sweden,
Denmark, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Romania, Lithuania, Croatia, Poland, Russia, Spain, the Basque Country, Catalonia, Portugal, Hungary, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Thailand, Indonesia, Korea, Japan, and China), there may be a few plain hypnotists. So, here off the top of my head are a few hypnotic tips.

1.
Always be aware of where you hypnotize people. I could write a long list of where you should be careful of hypnotizing people, but I’ll just write a short one and you should get the idea. Be careful of hypnotizing underwater. The refraction of the water can do funny things to your hypnotic eye glare and people can think they’re hypnotized by the water and not by you. When they think they’re hypnotized by the water, it’s really tricky as they do all sorts of weird things. They want to sleep in the water for instance and they want to keep drinking it. They go into water nymph mode and it can be really embarrassing for them. Be careful hypnotizing people
near
water, too. I hypnotized a big woman in the swimming pool in Los Angeles because she was saying how much she needed to do some exercise, but couldn’t be bothered. I thought I’d do her a favor and make exercise really easy for her. But when I hypnotized her she fell over backwards and her head went under. It was terrible—she nearly drowned. Rocky had to help pull her out and we had to put her into the lifesaving position. Boy! Was she heavy! Her makeup had smudged all over her face and she coughed up a bucket
of water. At least she survived. But, phew, that gave me a shock.