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Did you always want to be a writer?
Probably not, but when I was 10 I produced a tiny local newspaper just for our household. It had a massive readership of 3; my brother, sister and mother, and I would spend hours designing the masthead that I would copy from some highfaluting London Daily, using those big old curly and complicated letters. Then I'd write the entire content, printing it out by hand for the family to read, all my own journalism, important stories such as the cat had a cold, or the next door neighbour had sworn at my brother, all world shattering stuff. They sometimes produced a laugh or two, I remember that, so I guess the creative urge was hidden there somewhere.
Do you have any advice for young writers?
Always write about what you enjoy. If you like it a lot, the chances are that others will like it too, and if you are enjoying it, you will stick at it.
Are you working on anything now?
Yes, two things. A text book on online financial trading and a novel about high flying business, and murder, and drugs. Just another normal day in the land of highflying business to which I once belonged.
What is your working environment like?
I sell books as well as write and publish them. There are now over 9,000 books in my house and they are everywhere, under the bed, in the kitchen, garage, you name it. It must drive Annie wild, though if truth be told, some of them are hers. So if you see a picture of slight untidiness in your mind, then you have it pretty much spot on.
What's the best piece of advice you ever had on writing?
I loved Stephen King's book "On Writing". His best advice is, and I go along with it big time: If you haven't got the time to read, then you haven't got the time to write. Make time; find time... to do both.
What authors have influenced you the most?
Of the old writers Charles Dickens for sure, and Thomas Hardy who is the local hero round here. I live in Dorset in England and his legacy is everywhere. Of the modern writers I guess John Grisham, Robert Harris and Lee Child would all be in there somewhere.
What are you reading right now?
I have just finished a book called Stillwater by William F Weld. It's about the flooding of the Swift River valley in 1938. I liked the rural connections and general feeling of the book, and I have just started a book called Seven Up by Janet Evanovich which is a kind of thriller, but the humour in it is simply amazing. I don't think I have laughed so much for ages and anything that can do that must be okay.
What was your favourite book as a child?
Don't laugh but it was Rupert Bear. It used to give me terrible nightmares because he was always getting involved with some kind of sea monster. I loved those Rupert Bear books and I have still have some of them today. I confes I still read the Rupert Bear cartoon on the Daily Express and how weird is that?
What is the one book no writer should be without?
Unquestionably, a darn good dictionary, and the bigger the better. There is no spellchecker on earth that can ever tell you the difference between PEAL and PEEL and BELL and BELLE and MORNING and MOURNING and TEE and TEA and TO and TOO and TWO and so on and so many others.
How does your spouse/significant other feel about your writing career?
Significant other? Good phrase! Annie encourages me at every turn and I am grateful for that. Mind you she makes teddy bears and writes books for them. I photograph them cavorting in the flowerbeds, pictures that might at some point be used as illustrations in her books, so it is something of a joint effort.
If your book, "Drift and Badger and the Search for Uncle Mo", was ever turned into a movie, who would you like to play the main characters?
Tee hee! Great question. Drift is an orphaned red deer fawn, he's starving and frightened and alone in the forest when he bumps into the Badger, who kind of adopts him. So if you know any young deer or badgers out there who are also potential Oscar winning actors, then please let me know! I guess it's more of an animation kind of movie (definitely NOT a cartoon!) so who to play the voices? Perhaps Mel Gibson or Robert De Niro for the Badger, (Always go for the best, I say!) while the deer fawn, may be Leonardo Di Caprio, or some other younger guy, perhaps you might know someone better than me? How about that guy who plays the vampire?
What's your favourite (or least favourite) book turned movie?
I like all the Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy movies, Great Expectations with John Mills, and Tess, (Of the D'Urbervilles) especially, both of which I can watch time and again. Of the least favourites, the picture made of John Grisham's The Painted House simply was not as good as it could have been, or should have been. Don't get me wrong, it was still a decent film, but The Painted House is, in my opinion, the best book JG has ever written. It is one of his few that has no lawyers and courtrooms, and the movie could have been a real heavyweight piece of cinema making. There is still time. Perhaps someone out there will re-make it and give it the appropriate weight, gravitas, it deserves, and that probably means budget. The book is well worth a read by the way, quite moving in places.
What is your favourite word?
Strange question. "Ironmonger", don't know why, it just trips off the tongue; and "Ubiquitous" too. I remember when I was a kid asking my mother "What does ubiquitous mean?" I can still see the picture on her face as the question marks flew away from her head. What does ubiquitous mean? I am not telling you, but it seems to pop up all over the place.
What is your least favourite word?
When I was a young kid I went to school in Scotland. Every morning, first thing, we would have a twenty word spelling test. For each word we spelt wrong we would receive a blow from the strap across the hand, the cat o' nine tails we called it. I was pretty decent at spelling and would get 17 or 18 right most days resulting in 2 or 3 strappings every morning. On the other hand my brother was hopeless at spelling. We didn't know it then but he was probably dyslexic, although I don't think that word existed back then. He would only get 3 or 4 correct. Consequently he would receive every morning 16 or 17 lashes from the strap. I was 5 and he was 9 at the time, I kid you not, you couldn't make it up. Poor John went the whole term and I don't think the swelling on his hand went down once. It seems like something out of a Charles Dickens novel now, but there it is. It happened. Spelling for the terrified! What's more as a special bonus, if we ever used the words GOT or NICE in our written work we were rewarded with an extra blow for each time we used them. So still to this day I never write GOT or NICE, (or at least I try not to!) so they must be my least favourite words, oh and TAXMAN of course... that goes without saying.
Where do you get your ideas from?
Ah, that old one. Going back to Stephen King, he wrote that this was the thing he was most often asked, and he kidded everyone that he subscribed to the Central Bureau of Ideas (something like that) and they sent him a monthly newsletter containing lots of fresh ideas every month, and he just picked out the ones he liked best and re-worked them over. Lots of people believed him, apparently. Where do any ideas come from? Ideas for songs, writing, music, any of them, often they just come out of the blue; and thank goodness for that. My best ideas seem to appear first thing in the morning when I am still lying in bed in that half way stage between life and sleep, and if I am lucky, some of them I actually remember. May be it has something to do with the brain being refreshed at that early hour, who knows?
Are you planning to write a sequel to Drift and Badger?
Funny you should ask that! I have just begun to draft out that very thing. Have a few good ideas, leastways I think they are good. Hope you do too, if and when they ever make it into a finished book.
Thank you very much.
You are most welcome.
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