Which is the worst of the seven deadly sins?

Gluttony, sloth, envy, wrath, lust, pride and greed – January is a time to get a grip on bad habits, but what do they look like in your life? The Deadly Seven author Garth Jennings confesses the monsters he holds within

I have written a book called The Deadly Seven in which an 11-year-old boy called Nelson has the seven deadly sins extracted from his soul and turned into monsters. These monsters are an odd, noisy, smelly, clumsy and ridiculous bunch, each one reflecting a part of Nelson’s soul. A different person would create different monsters, for instance: A very kind doctor who rides a bicycle, raises money to save Pandas and helps old people across the street would probably produce a delightful crop of creatures, but a cruel person who likes nothing more than smashing your windows, stealing your bike and laughing if you fall over on your face would yield a nasty gang of monsters.

I’ve been thinking about what kind of monsters I would produce. What are my seven deadly sins like? As I answer these questions, you might think about your own answers and imagine what your monsters might look like… email your ideas to childrens.books@theguardian.com.

1. Gluttony: The sin of stuffing your face!

I’m not a religious person but I‘m all for saying grace before dinner, for I am TRULY thankful! I love pretty much every kind of food there is except offal (have you ever eaten tripe? Oh my goodness, it’s like eating a rubbery nightmare!) But I will eat everything else and what’s more, I will eat it faster than you. I know we haven’t met, but I bet that if we ever had a meal together you would be on your third forkful and suddenly drop your cutlery in surprise. “Where has your food gone?” you’d say and I would just shrug and blush. It’s like a magic trick although I am not aware of doing it and I’m certainly not proud of it. I just get carried away and I can’t stop myself. The trouble is, I get hiccups. Especially when I eat peanut butter on toast. I scoff it so fast that I start hiccuping like a fish out of water. Friends of mine live on a farm and keep their food, especially leftovers, in a larder. My dream is to have a larder – a whole room dedicated to food. I confess to having sneaked into that chilly little room when no one was looking and eating some of their Christmas leftovers. I could even hear my hosts outside asking where I was. If they are reading this – I am very sorry. I can now admit to being the one who ate all the pies.

2. Sloth: The sin of laziness

When I was 11 years-old, I could be incredibly lazy. I would pretend I needed to go to the loo to avoid having to clear up the dishes at the end of dinnertime, I would hide if I knew my parents needed help clearing up the weeds in the garden, smear my teeth with toothpaste to make it appear I had cleaned them and even in school I would secretly read books about making films instead of listening to what the History teacher was saying about crop rotation. To be honest, I’ve never been very good at doing things I don’t want to do, even if they are quite easy. We had the best dog in the world but for some reason I found walking him to be extremely boring. I’ve never told my mum and dad, but I would often just cross the road with the dog, sit on a bench with a packet of Malteser’s while the dog sniffed around the place, and then when it seemed like enough time had passed, walk back to the house. I still leave my clothes on the floor because for some reason putting them away is just too much effort (although I like to arrange them so it looks like I just melted and left my clothes behind in a man-shape. This drives my wife mad.) The thing about being lazy is that you need plenty of time be lazy, and with so many children and so many things to do at work these days, I just don’t have the time anymore.

3. Envy: That ugly and pointless thing we call jealousy

In my early 20s I was obsessed with Steven Spielberg and I was extremely jealous of the fact that he had directed Jaws at the age of 26 and I was nowhere near doing anything as good as that. For heaven’s sake – Michelangelo was in his 20s when he took a big lump of stone and carved it into the statue of David and all I’d done was make some quirky music videos! My jealousy for what my heroes had achieved was like adding rocket fuel to all my ambitions, it got me up early and it made me work late, but it was also to be my undoing. I got so stressed that I became very sick and bed ridden for 8 weeks. Glandular Fever was my body’s way of saying, “All this jealousy is a complete waste of energy and until you work this out we are shutting you down, fool!” (My body talks to me in the tone of Mr T from the A-Team.) Being made to lie in bed forced me to rethink things. I realised I was actually very jealous of a lot of people. Rock stars, filmmakers, writers, painters, even my own friends who seemed to do what they wanted to do without all the effort I felt I had to put in. I was wrong of course. Making anything is NEVER easy but since I can never completely lose my jealous streak, the best I can do is keep in its proper place (which is under the sink with the tin foil and cleaning products.)

4. Wrath: “Grrrrrrrr!”

If I were a country I would be a small island covered in coconut tress, Howler Monkeys and have a whacking-great volcano in the middle of it all. I love my job, my friends and my family and as long as there is tea around I tend to be fairly positive, but if you catch me at the wrong moment I can explode. Not that my head comes off or anything, but I can boil into a raging crazy person over the silliest thing. Here’s just one example. I have four sons, the most delightful human beings I have ever met, but the time between breakfast and getting them to school is when they can drive me round the bend. Leo is the worst. I mean, this boy is extraordinary but he has NO CONCEPT OF TIME! I’ll be about to leave with everyone when I look around and say, “Where is Leo?” But I know where Leo is. He is in his room. He hasn’t even changed out of his pajamas. He is having a deep conversation with one of his toys. “That’s adorable!” you cry and of course you are right, but you have no idea how stressful it is at 8.25am with everyone else waiting outside. Most of the time I can take a deep breath and deal with it like a sensible adult, but sometimes I pop and all the words come out of my mouth like exhaust from a formula one racing car. Does it do any good? Nope. Does Leo speed up? Of course not! It’s useless and the only result is that I feel like a lemon and call out my apologies as we run like headless chickens to school. But seriously Leo – please speed up!

5. Lust: Uncontrollable desire for someone, or in my case, something…

When I was 11 I was consumed with desire for… my neigbour’s life sized Darth Vader mask. I’m not joking and I’m sure he knew how I felt and he only put it on his windowsill to taunt me. I would gaze up at it, imaging the life that mask I would have together. “It should have been me,” I would say to myself. One thing was for sure; I would have never left such a beautiful thing on a windowsill. I would have worn that mask every moment of my life. One day, I became so overcome with desire that I asked my mum to ask my neigbour’s mum if I could borrow it. And it worked! The mask was mine for 24 hours. First of all I just stood in the front garden with it my hands, getting to know it and marveling at the extraordinary design. My God it was beautiful. The Darth Vader mask and I spent a glorious day together. I even ate with the mask on which meant pushing little bits of food up in the gap of the neck. I perfected my raspy breathing and my mum agreed I sounded almost exactly like the real thing. And that night I tried to sleep in it but it was a bit uncomfortable so I had to make do with putting it on the pillow next to me. The next day I woke and put the helmet straight on but it wasn’t the same. It smelt pretty bad and it had made a lump on my head from where the plastic had been rubbing against my skull. The affair was over. I drew a picture of it before giving it back to my neighbour, but shall never forget the fling I had with the Darth Vader mask. My first true love.

6. Pride: You look fabulous!

I was a very, very late developer. While everyone else was getting a man-voice, sprouting armpit hair and moustaches (not the girls) I remained as squeaky and smooth as a dolphin. It’s actually a shame I wasn’t into swimming as I would have cut through that water like a torpedo. When my body finally woke up to the fact that I was now 16 years old and needed to look the part, it started growing at an alarming rate and I grew very quickly and awkwardly. My knees would lock as I stood up and creak like the deck of a ship, my massive gums had sprouted giant teeth that were going the wrong way and needed to be covered in braces that were always getting caught on my lips at just the wrong moments, and my clothes (shiny baseball jacket, MC Hammer-style trousers, a Prince Sign O’ The Times heart-shaped badge on my sleeve, a bum bag around my waist and Reebok trainers that could be pumped up to give your feet that extra hug they needed) didn’t seem to help reset the cool balance. Now I am as old as the teachers were at my school, my hair is turning grey and my trousers get tighter every year so it’s probably just as well that from a young age I had to put my pride into the things I made rather than the way I looked.

7: Greed

I hate to admit that on Christmas day I often got the blues after I had unwrapped my presents. No matter how amazing or thoughtful my presents were, there was a little part of me that was sad not to be opening another gift. I felt terrible for admitting it. The things I had been given were wonderful. An alarm clock you could stop by clapping your hands. A science kit that you could build a radio with. One year I got an amazing radio-controlled car. I remember taking it for a spin around the park and it went like a rocket. And then it ran out of power and as it did, I felt a gloomy cloud descend. That was it. No more presents. You see, my expectations for Christmas were always impossible to live up to. It often took me a day or two of hanging out with the family to stop wishing for more and I remember once stacking up my presents and apologizing to them for not being grateful enough when I first met them. Greed is a very sneaky trait and can make even the nicest person behave disgracefully. Look at all those crazy people on Black Thursday! I used to direct all the PG Tips commercials with Al and Monkey. They were always great fun to make but I confess that at the end of one shoot I found a huge stack of boxes of tea bags. I love tea and I suddenly had a rush of excitement – I would take as many boxes of tea as I could – FOR FREE! MINE!! ALL MINE!!! HA HA HAAA! It was only when I got home and opened the trunk of the car that I realised how shamefully I had behaved. I could drink 100 cups of tea a day for the rest of my life and still have enough left to last until the world ended. Greed made me behave like a crazy person, but do get in touch if you need any tea.

So what your monsters look like? Email us on childrens.books@theguardian.com to let us know. Are you under 18 and not a member of the Guardian children’s books site? Come on in, the water’s fine.

Garth Jennings’ The Deadly Seven is published this week!

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