I’ve always worn two hats as a writer … it helps to keep the
work focussed and prevents the readers from becoming confused. There comes to a stage, however, where one
train of thought becomes exhausted and it needs to be left alone for a
while. Also, having spent the past
thirty years at the computer, it also seems like a good time to stop (or ease
off) writing and embrace other pastimes – if only as a means to recharge the
batteries.
And I always wanted to be a writer – much to the derision of
the school careers officer – and now, with twenty years as editor of a popular
writers’ magazine and some fifty published titles to my credit, I think I can
safely claim to have fulfilled that ambition and qualify as a professional
author. At the moment, I feel as though
there’s nothing left for me to say on the non-fictional MB&S front although
there are still a couple of ideas on the back burner and am now concentrating
on my first love – novel writing.
My first novel, a modern Gothic offering called Whittlewood was published in 1997 and
still has a modest cult-following, having just been re-released twenty years
later with the re-launch of Ignotus Press UK, along with many of those other
popular titles that have been sold for silly money on the internet during the
intervening years. I have now managed to
complete the first titles in the metaphysical thriller saga, The Temple House Archive (House of Strange Gods, Realm of Shadow, Hour
‘Twixt Dog and Wolf); a cosy-crime series, The Hugo Braithwaite Mysteries (The
Devil’s Door, Sea-Wife’s Walk) and an historical vampire series The Vampyre’s Tale (Spartan Dog) – with plenty more to
follow.
The plan for the future is to restrict myself to completing
one non-fiction title and one novel per year, and concentrate on creating my
Japanese garden and a self-sufficiency vegetable plot for relaxation. What all writers know, however, is that
writing is an addiction and one can never be fully cured of the obsession to
write – so how those plans will fare remains to be seen.
I’m often asked for advice for new writers but this is
extremely difficult to impart since we all approach our craft from different
viewpoints. I spent twenty-years as a
creative writing tutor during those magazine-editorial years, but the only real
observation I can make today is that it’s got to come from inside you. There are thousands of competent writers out
there but those that can always be relied upon to keep on publishing are those
who have the passion in their soul for the language and the written word. For it is that passion that keeps the ideas
flowing; the odd phrase that suggests a whole novel; an experience that
triggers an avalanche of sensations as in Proust’s madeleines that conjure memories produced by putting
conscious effort into remembering events, people, and places.
Over the years I’ve met many who have produced their first book
and then rest upon their laurels while constantly talking about the next – this
success is the culmination of many years of writing but the second never comes
easy. Often the completion of a first book
has sucked the writer dry of desire and creativity – and we may have to wait
several years for the second; or there may be others but they lack the fire and
enthusiasm of the first. Writers are
born not made, since their creativity is forged in the fires of the imagination
or, as Oscar Wilde wrote: “Yes: I am a dreamer for a dreamer is one who can
only find his way by moonlight and his punishment is that he sees the dawn
before the rest of the world.”
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