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Lauren Beukes is using her word power

Do not be fooled by her blonde hair, blue eyes and ability to throw together a decent outfit. Lauren Beukes is a Geek. Yes, with a capital “G”. A few years ago, that would have been considered an insult but, today, thanks to people such as 30 Rock’s Tiny Fey, comedians Patton Oswalt and Dara Ó Briain and movie star Vin Diesel, being geek is quite chic.

Beukes is part of a wave of 30-somethings who grew up in the 1980s – a decade technologically backward enough that classic books by the likes of Enid Blyton, Beatrix Potter and AA Milne were still considered standard kids’ entertainment, yet futurist enough that children were watching DuckTales and Wielie Walie on television, and playing Super Mario and Final Fantasy on their Nintendo’s.

As such, Beukes has a broad ‘education’ in pop culture, which she has combined with a practised writing talent and workaholic personality to become an internationally lauded author and TV producer.

If you have any interest in the local literary scene, then Lauren Beukes’ name likely has come up in conversation. Her two science-fiction novels, Moxyland and the Arthur C. Clarke award-winning Zoo City, have created a small revolution in our writing sphere, spawning a deluge of books from South African authors writing in genres not traditionally associated with this country: sci-fi, fantasy and horror.

High-quality books by fellow South Africans Joan De La Haye, Craig Smith, Andrew Saloman and Lily Herne (actually the nom de plume of mother and daughter, Sarah and Savannah Lotz) have all followed in Beukes’ wake; and have been described by David Barnett, British author and literary critic at The Guardian, as possibly equal in importance to the Scandinavian crime novel scene that followed Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series.

Beukes is more than merely an award-winning author spearheading a new wave in South African literature. She is a successful journalist (she twice won Best Columnist Western Cape in the Vodacom Journalist of the Year awards), documentary filmmaker and TV producer.

Leadership spoke with this most dynamic of South Africans about her work, her awards and her fame.

Were you always a creative person?

I have been a writer since Standard Five, probably because my parents encouraged it and my mom was really creative: she would always make up stories and we would play games together. The focus was on imagination and making things up. My brother and I would write our own little plays.

Then I found out that Enid Blyton had made a fortune from writing, and I realised that writing was a viable career. It wasn’t the money so much as the fact that it could be done. When you’re a kid, you play at being a doctor or an astronaut or whatever – suddenly, writing was also an option.

I was so excited, and from that moment I knew what I was going to do: I was going to make up stories and get paid for it.

You started out as a freelance journalist, having done work for The Hollywood Reporter, Marie Claire, Elle and Cosmopolitan. Did you find that kind of work stifling, given your aspirations?

No. As a freelancer, you have to maintain a balance. You have to be realistic about things as well. You can’t act like you’re only going to be the star journalist and only work for overseas magazines because overseas magazines have never heard of you; they don’t know who you are. You have to build your way up.

Being a journalist, you have three things that count for you: great ideas, great writing and meeting your deadlines. If you tick those boxes, you can write for anyone.

You also have to build up a name; and as a freelancer, there’s a balance to it. Freelance journalism work is not all glamour. There are really boring, awful stories as well, but I think they made me a better writer. I often had to do stories like “The Best Western Cape Small Conference Venues”, and that was pretty rough stuff. The skill there was learning to make that exciting for myself and also make it exciting for my readers: finding a way of making this interesting, finding the one detail about a small conference venue that would make it intriguing.

When did you transition from writing for print, to writing for television?

In 2005, Maverick (a non-fiction book about extraordinary South Africa women, itself long-listed for the 2006 Sunday Times Alan Paton Award) came out and I was struggling with writing Moxyland, my first novel.

My then-boyfriend Matthew Brown (the two have since married and have a daughter) was approached by a producer who told him the SABC was looking for an animated TV show and he wanted Matthew to direct. So he asked Matthew whether he knew any good writers. And Matthew said, “Well, actually, this girl I’m dating is pretty good.” So that’s how that happened.

And the result was URBO: The Adventures of Pax Afrika. That was quite a groundbreaking show: not only because it was a South African first, but also thanks to its mature storytelling approach.

We never got high ratings, probably because the SABC moved our schedule around a lot. But we actually did 104 episodes in total. It ran for three years because the SABC just kept ordering more episodes.

It was great because it gave us a chance to experiment with different stories, and we got to deal with a lot of issues that were relevant at the time. We got to speak to kids about the Aids crisis at that time -- the whole garlic and potatoes versus antiretrovirals thing.

The work we did on that led to some work for Disney. We did a show called Florrie’s Dragons, and we produced a season of Caillou (based on the books by author Christine L’Heureux and illustrator Hélène Desputeaux). It was great.

So when did you go from being Lauren to being Lauren Beukes?

Oh God, I don’t know. I think it was after I won the Arthur C. Clarke Award because, suddenly, people who had never paid attention to me before were into me. I was getting all these requests from the media, who had blatantly ignored me before and weren’t really into what I was doing. Suddenly, everyone thought I was amazing.

And was that something you wanted for yourself: the fame, the recognition, to be a superstar?

I had the stars in my eyes – and it is amazing. There are all these opportunities. I have a huge book deal. I’m working on a new book called The Shining Girls (about a time-travelling serial killer). I’m doing a comic-book miniseries for DC Comics, and there was some TV stuff.

But it can be awkward. And it creates self-doubt: am I as awesome as these people think I am? I think the most important thing, though, is not letting it turn you into an asshole. The fame isn’t what’s important – the work is what’s important.

Would you rather not have the fame?

I like the publicity, I like talking to people, I like doing these kinds of things, but it does become overwhelming. When people see me as – it sounds so vain – “Lauren Beukes” as opposed to just Lauren, I don’t always know how to deal with that. It’s very gratifying to know that someone has connected with your work, but I’ve had weird encounters with strangers. It’s weird when someone you don’t know is excited to see you – that’s a very weird thing.

So what motivates you as a writer?

A deadline. Moxyland took four years to finish. I messed around a lot because I did anything I could to avoid writing. As a journalist, I learnt how very important deadlines are. The work gets done because I have a deadline.

It’s the same with my new book, The Shining Girls. I signed a contract and I have a deadline, and that’s all I want in the world because then it’s not just “oh, the creativity is off” and “I need to feel it” and “the muse is not with me today”.

It’s creative work, and I think writers need to look at it more as work and less as art. It is definitely coming from a creative place, but the best way to do that is to sit in front of your keyboard and write. And if it’s crap, you just keep writing. Tomorrow, when you look at it, you may find only one sentence that works, but at least you have something as opposed to nothing.

The biggest lie writers tell themselves is that they have to be inspired; no, you have to do the work. It’s like being an athlete or a pianist: you have to practise the skills every day.

What if it is the biggest pile of nonsense you have ever written?

Even if it’s the biggest pile of nonsense you’ve ever seen in your life. Because at least then you can look at it and figure out why something didn’t work and you can learn something from it. You can’t learn anything from a blank page.

You have many projects going on at the same time. Other than the new book The Shining Girls, you mentioned a comic book series for DC Comics and TV development deals. There are also rumours of movies in the works. Do you feel overwhelmed?

It’s amazing to have all these opportunities, and it is a bit frustrating. You wonder: “Why now? Why couldn’t you have asked me this three years ago?”

But another important thing I learnt as a freelancer is how to say no. Also, you shouldn’t say yes because you think saying no means they will never deal with you again. If it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, then you have to say no to some other stuff. You need to know when to say no and walk away.

Zaid Kriel

Photograph: Lauren Beukes on stairs, by Casey Crafford

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