How we unleashed our own creative monsters by Andy Jones and Olaf Falafel

October 12th 2021

Andy:

It took me a long time to fully unleash my own creative monster. Well over 30 years. I worked in an advertising agency – writing adverts for magazines and radio, and commercials for TV. It was a great job – I was being paid to make stuff up, to daydream and to write. But everything I wrote I wrote for someone else – a car company, a biscuit maker, a burger restaurant. And while all of this was creative and fun, the stuff I was writing didn’t feel like it was mine. I wanted to write something that told a story instead of sold a product.

So why didn’t I just get on with it? Well confidence was part of it, I suppose. The thought of writing a story was scary to me – what if I couldn’t do it? What if it was rubbish? So I made excuses and continued writing adverts for baby food, peanuts, newspapers, breakfast cereal.

Then something wonderful happened – I hurt my back and needed an operation on my spine. It meant I couldn’t get to work for a while. So I stayed at home and read books. But the urge to do something creative was still there and I didn’t have so much as a radio advert to work on. I was bored and frustrated. But I still had my laptop computer.

So one day (once upon a time, I suppose you could say), I turned my laptop on, opened up a blank document and started to write. Before I knew it, an hour had sped by and I’d filled a page with words, with characters, and, guess what … a story. Was it any good? Not really. It was a little clumsy, and the ending was kind of obvious. But it was a story. It had my name at the top, and there wasn’t a biscuit, a car or a cornflake anywhere to be seen.

I’m tempted to write ‘the end’ here, but it wasn’t an end, it was a start. I only wish I’d done it sooner.

Olaf:

I was in the middle of promoting another book of mine and I’d set myself the task of visiting 100 schools in 100 days (because I may be certifiably insane!). Andy rang me with the elevator pitch for Unleash Your Creative Monster and I knew straight away it was something I wanted to get involved in.

I already knew how much kids loved drawing – I’ve also got two daughters aged 10 and 12 who fill sketchbooks with weird and wonderful characters at an alarming rate. But what I’d also noticed on my school visits, was how much children liked to give their characters names, and backstories, and favourite foods, and friends, and missions – basically some of the fundamental building blocks of story writing.

Andy explained to me how the ‘Creative Monster’ from the title would be unique to every child, almost like a spirit guide who was on hand to provide inspiration when needed. This got my creative juices flowing and I immediately picked up my own sketch pad and started filling it with loads of different monsters.

My own personal mission for this book was to inject as much fun into it as possible. Because the book is filled with loads of advice, lessons and tips, to some kids it might seem like learning (which as we all know is completely uncool!). I wanted to mask any whiff of this book being educational by filling it with as many stupid cartoons as possible. I like to think that by including things like aliens called Susan, giant walking ice creams, robotic snails, hundreds of monsters, and a higher than average bum-count, I’ve succeeded in my mission!

Unleash Your Creative Monster is published by Walker Books and is out now.

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