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The Night I Got Drunk With Pterry
Mar. 12th, 2015 04:31 pmI could start with the day a friend* introduced me to The Colour of Magic, which memory says was in Alexandra Square at Lancaster Uni, saying 'Hey, there's this new author you have to read', but my strongest memories of Terry Pratchett are the three days I spent on a writing course tutored by him at the short lived 'Fen Farm', which from the context would probably have been late summer/autumn 92-ish.
I was a hopeful writer (still am!), Terry already had quite a reputation, so the chance to get on a course with him was something to be snatched up. I arrived at Fen Farm (which, being in Norfolk, had the absense of anything remotely resembling terrain as its most notable geographic feature) to find about 6 or 8 other would be writers, sadly in those not so diverse days all white, and all male but for Manda Scott (the only one of us I know went on to a career of her own). Plus, of course, Terry (this was long before he was Sir Terry), and a BBC reporter.
The BBC reporter was there to do a feature** on Terry for Radio 4's book programme, and, umm, openly admitted not even knowing that fantasy was a genre until she'd been given the gig the week before. Via a chain of unlikely events it had been decided that she would actually stay through the course to see what the whole fantasy thing was about and maybe catch a soundbite or two from us before she did her interview with Terry.
Things I remember: Terry arriving for breakfast each morning having already written the 1,500 (or was it 2,500?) words he urged us to write every day. Walking into Diss with Terry talking about the (first) Gulf War and how it fed into writing Johnny and the Bomb, and realising that for all I came at things from a very different angle (I was working in the defence industry), this was a deeply ethical man with deeply held beliefs. Terry being absolutely charming company, everything that you would imagine and hope for given his writing. Various lines that hadn't made it into the final cut of Men at Arms. A worried look when Manda introduced herself (this would be shortly before the release of Lords and Ladies, featuring the feckless Diamanda). And then he mentioned D&D as one of his influences.
"What's Dungeons and Dragons?' perked up the BBC reporter (who the 'Sloane Ranger' label might have been invented for).
So nothing would do but Terry would run a game that evening to show her and several of the other attendees who didn't know what roleplaying was. So we finished dinner, cleared the table, and brought out the wine.
Out of the eight of us, Manda and I were the only two gamers, but that didn't make much difference as Terry decided to completely freeform it, and the wine flowed and we delved into the dungeon (which I quickly realised I knew from White Dwarf - so opted for a backseat role), the evil was vanquished and we all got roaringly drunk. Memory is understandably hazy, but I remember Terry keeping everyone involved, no matter most of the party didn't have a clue what they were doing and he was running the dungeon from memory; and a very drunken digression from another of the attendees comparing roleplaying with the Tibetan Book of the Dead - no, we didn't understand it either, and I don't think that was down to the wine.
We came downstairs the next morning, divided the number of empty wine bottles by the number of people playing, and clearly none of us should have been standing!
So that was my experience with Pterry, and he may be gone now, but tonight I'm going to open a bottle of wine, sit down with Men at Arms and remember a charming man, whom I treasure having met.
* He went on to run a bunch of the Discworld Conventions, as did his wife.
** And the radio interview? Damned if I can remember!
I was a hopeful writer (still am!), Terry already had quite a reputation, so the chance to get on a course with him was something to be snatched up. I arrived at Fen Farm (which, being in Norfolk, had the absense of anything remotely resembling terrain as its most notable geographic feature) to find about 6 or 8 other would be writers, sadly in those not so diverse days all white, and all male but for Manda Scott (the only one of us I know went on to a career of her own). Plus, of course, Terry (this was long before he was Sir Terry), and a BBC reporter.
The BBC reporter was there to do a feature** on Terry for Radio 4's book programme, and, umm, openly admitted not even knowing that fantasy was a genre until she'd been given the gig the week before. Via a chain of unlikely events it had been decided that she would actually stay through the course to see what the whole fantasy thing was about and maybe catch a soundbite or two from us before she did her interview with Terry.
Things I remember: Terry arriving for breakfast each morning having already written the 1,500 (or was it 2,500?) words he urged us to write every day. Walking into Diss with Terry talking about the (first) Gulf War and how it fed into writing Johnny and the Bomb, and realising that for all I came at things from a very different angle (I was working in the defence industry), this was a deeply ethical man with deeply held beliefs. Terry being absolutely charming company, everything that you would imagine and hope for given his writing. Various lines that hadn't made it into the final cut of Men at Arms. A worried look when Manda introduced herself (this would be shortly before the release of Lords and Ladies, featuring the feckless Diamanda). And then he mentioned D&D as one of his influences.
"What's Dungeons and Dragons?' perked up the BBC reporter (who the 'Sloane Ranger' label might have been invented for).
So nothing would do but Terry would run a game that evening to show her and several of the other attendees who didn't know what roleplaying was. So we finished dinner, cleared the table, and brought out the wine.
Out of the eight of us, Manda and I were the only two gamers, but that didn't make much difference as Terry decided to completely freeform it, and the wine flowed and we delved into the dungeon (which I quickly realised I knew from White Dwarf - so opted for a backseat role), the evil was vanquished and we all got roaringly drunk. Memory is understandably hazy, but I remember Terry keeping everyone involved, no matter most of the party didn't have a clue what they were doing and he was running the dungeon from memory; and a very drunken digression from another of the attendees comparing roleplaying with the Tibetan Book of the Dead - no, we didn't understand it either, and I don't think that was down to the wine.
We came downstairs the next morning, divided the number of empty wine bottles by the number of people playing, and clearly none of us should have been standing!
So that was my experience with Pterry, and he may be gone now, but tonight I'm going to open a bottle of wine, sit down with Men at Arms and remember a charming man, whom I treasure having met.
* He went on to run a bunch of the Discworld Conventions, as did his wife.
** And the radio interview? Damned if I can remember!
