Mike Wilks: The inside picture

Artist, designer and illustrator Mike Wilks lives in a world somewhat different to the one the rest of us inhabit. His is a world of colourful, fantastical and surreal tableaux mined straight from his imagination, images which he has shared in his paintings, designs and illustrated books, including the bestselling The Ultimate Alphabet and The Ultimate Noah's Ark. Now, from the minimalist calm of the converted London pub where he lives, he has poured his imagination into his debut novel, for readers aged 10 and above.

Mirrorscape is to be the first of three books featuring a young artist apprentice named Mel, his friends, evil guild The Fifth Mystery, and Mirrorscape itself‚a world in which paintings become real.

According to Wilks, his inspiration came from close to home. "The novel is basically autobiographical. I went to art school when I was 13, and so does Mel. Going from that enclosed world [of my previous school] where you're the best boy in school at art, to getting a scholarship [to art school], where you're the worst, you have to grow up very quickly. That's where the genesis of the idea came from‚although my time at art school was not nearly as exciting as Mel's.

"My paintings and books are all my inner world. The novel is supposed to be an imaginative adventure story. It's Robert Louis Stevenson on acid. [I wanted to create] the excitement I got when I first read Treasure Island or Kidnapped‚that danger that pulls you through a book and makes you want to keep turning pages.

"My favourite part of the book is the idea of the Mirrorscape. From a small age, whenever I went to an art gallery and looked at a picture, I almost believed that what was in the picture was real and that I was looking through a window into another world.

"I was surprised that the characters came alive, that they started having a dialogue with me. There was also a surprise in how it all fitted together. Somewhere at the back of my mind, deep in my subconscious, the story was already there and I was just writing it out, retelling it.

"I had to do some changes. The Fifth Mystery was much more brutal in the first draft and the violence was more explicit than it is now, and it was suggested that it would broaden the appeal if I toned it down. In a way, because the violence is less explicit, it makes it worse, because the reader imagines it worse than it was originally. I also had to invent my own swearing, which adds to the otherworldliness.

"I enjoyed writing so much that I would like to do more of it‚but, of course, you can only do writing if it's going to be published. It's not like a painting, where you go out and you only have to find one person who likes it for it to be successful. With a book, you have to find thousands who like it. But writing is such a joyous thing, to get up and to make your imagination come alive. It's wonderful."

Mirrorscape (Egmont, October, h/b, £12.99, 9781405227308)