IMAGINE spending years slogging your guts out on your dad’s farm – with no idea about crops or any inclination to find out. Then, all of a sudden, a name pops into your head and before you know it you’ve written a best-selling novel, sold the movie rights to the guys who make the Harry Potter films, and made pots of cash in the process.

Well that’s exactly what happened to Dubliner Derek Landy, whose unorthodox idea to write about the adventures of a smartly dressed skeleton detective called Skulduggery Pleasant has completely changed his life.

“I don’t know how or what I was thinking about beforehand,” Derek says. “The name just appeared and with that the character came.

“It was startling, it has never happened before and unfortunately it hasn’t happened since, but it was genuinely like he arrived fully formed. If the name hadn’t popped into my head I’d still be working part-time on the farm.

“I was out there for six years, eight hours a day, in the rain and mud and freezing cold. While I was working away, my mind would be free to think about plots then when I got back in at night I’d write really fast to remember it all.”

Like anyone who has had a life-changing experience, Derek’s gone a little crazy; and he’s channelled this into shopping on eBay.

“I love movies and all the paraphernalia that goes with it,” he explains. “When I eventually got some money in, it was a chance to surround myself with everything I adore. I’ve always had two holy grails when it comes to movie memorabilia and in the past year I’ve managed to snag both.

“The first one was an original pulse rifle from Aliens – it is absolutely fantastic. And I’ve been a lifelong Superman fan so I now have hanging up in my new house an original cape worn by Christopher Reeve in the first two movies.”

Derek has already been inundated with friends coming round to see his purchases and, so far, no-one has been disappointed. “My house is decorated with original movie posters as well as all the toys,” he adds. “I was showing a friend around and he stopped in the middle of the room and said ‘yep, this is indeed the silliest house I have ever been in’.”

Silly or not, Derek has moved into his dream home just outside Dublin, where he’s surrounded by tranquillity and a short walk from the beach. Here he has completed Skulduggery Pleasant Playing With Fire, the second book in what he hopes will be a nine-book series. And he is just about to start editing the third.

But his flow could soon be interrupted when the bright lights of Hollywood come calling. Having sold the rights to Warner Pictures, he has already written a draft of the film version, and started dreaming of his preferred cast list.

Derek says: “Things are proceeding well, we have a director – I can’t tell you who but he or she has made two or three well-known films. It might be made as soon as the end of this year, but then again it could be 2010 or even never.

“I am, however, cautiously optimistic. This is the really fun time of everybody having a wish list. The producer, director and myself, everyone seems to want Johnny Depp as Skulduggery. I’d say it would be a cross between him and Liam Neeson.”

Derek’s list also includes Angelina Jolie, Charlize Theron and Jessica Biel, while the part of Skulduggery’s 12-year-old sidekick Stephanie “would be one of those big nationwide casting thingies. On the Skulduggery website, I get emails all the time asking if they’re having auditions yet.”

While Skulduggery has an inherently dark element, set in modern-day Dublin but with a hidden underworld of evil killers, Derek also enjoys delving deeper into the world of horror.

Having grown up devouring books by the likes of Stephen King and watching every Hammer horror he could find, Derek has since written several horror film scripts including Boy Eats Girl, a flesh-craving zombie creation starring none other than Samantha Mumba.

What is it he loves about the horror genre?

“Horror is so much fun,” he laughs. “People say it’s cathartic as you watch them and get scared but you know that no matter how bad it gets, at the end of the 100 minutes you’ll be walking out the cinema or turning off the DVD and it will be the real world again.

“And people like to be scared. It’s perverse and warped that we would actually subject ourselves to extreme, uncomfortable emotions and reactions but as a species we are inherently warped so horror kind of suits us.”

But don’t get him started on Paris Hilton and the Scary Movie brigade. “I don’t watch them because they are not funny at all. In the 1970s, spoofs were funny but not now. And every spoof these days has something about Paris Hilton, who it’s fair to say I am not a fan of. Whenever a film is spoofed you know it is time to move on.”

For now, Derek has to end his chat with fresh and head off for some book-signing sessions, but we couldn’t let him escape without finding out what he will be spending his cash on next.

“I need to buy a few shelves but other than that I’ve reached a plateau,” he laughs. “But I’m sure by the end of the year I’ll be scaling another height of ridiculous memorabilia and movie props.”