Questions from Writewords

I have answered these questions for the Writewords website

Tell us all about your writing background-
Freud sat behind his couch because he didn’t want his patients staring at him. I feel the same way about my writing. I’m not keen on reading it or talking about it. I will always talk about it if I’m asked though because I want to find an audience for it, although you will notice that my answers to these questions become increasingly uptight.

Most of my writing gets chucked in a box and stays there. Queer Fish in God’s Waiting is the first sensible thing to come out of that box.

I’ve only finished two stories before, my University dissertation – a short story called Hedley Had An Erection – and another short story for the Manor House Book Club, A Pocket full of Cheese and a Garden full of Trees.

Other work besides writing; ie. Editing, dramaturgy, tutoring, and how it works for/against your own writing
There’s truth in literature, art and poetry, say, just like there’s truth in a conversation at the pub, a fight at a wedding or gossip over the garden fence. My other work is advertising and PR, which, like the journalism I did before it, can only pervert the truth. That’s not to say it works against my writing. If I didn’t have my day job to compare it to, it probably wouldn’t be as enjoyable. As Aldous Huxley said, it’s in relation to their opposites that things have significance to us.

How, when and why did you first start writing?
I went to an ordinary primary school in Macclesfield with one teacher you could’ve described as creative, Mr Whale. He’d chalk the word WHACK in reverse on a sawn-off cricket bat, for example, just before he smacked your arse with it to spell the word on your pants. I remember one parents’ evening where he told my mum and dad that my marks for writing were off-the-chart because I did so much of it.

So I started young, and I do it because I like it.

Who are your favourite writers/influences and why?
I can’t say that I have favourites. There are plenty that I like, but when I decide to read a book it rarely has anything to do with the author. Today I chose Brick Lane over Willard and his Bowling Trophies and A Sort of Life, for example, going for an author I know nothing about over two who I enjoy because I felt like reading something contemporary.

Regarding my influences, I’m like a cushion, I carry the impression of the last person to sit on me.

Here’s a list of five books I’ve ready recently that inspired me.

Big Sur and The Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch by Henry Miller
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
One People by Guy Kennaway
Blindness by Jose Saramago
The Thought Gang by Tibor Fischer

How did you get your first agent/ commission/publication?
I was recently complicit in a lie about this, putting the publisher’s decision to publish Queer Fish in God’s Waiting Room down to the Next to Hemingway stunt (people took photos of the book inside bookstores for my blog). The truth is less interesting. I played 5-a-side football with the publisher, told him about the book, he read it and offered to publish it.

What’s the worst thing about writing?
I’m too enthusiastic about writing to consider the worst thing about it. I’ve heard talk of the tyranny of the blank page, the famous writers’ block, but Van Gogh said why should a painter be afraid of a blank canvas, a blank canvas should be afraid of the painter. I thrash every page I write on until it submits.

And the best?
There’s a very small space between the page and the end of your pen – that’s where you’ll find the best thing about writing.

Tell us what kind of response you get from audiences/readers and if/how this affects/influences your writing
I once read at The Poetry Cafe in Covent Garden and the audience, who, to be fair to them, weren’t expecting a prose reader, looked at me, to quote Bill Hicks, like a dog that has just been shown a card trick. There are lots of terrible words and offensive ideas in my book and I chose to read them.

I don’t write to please, how could you, but I always hope to entertain, and it disappoints me when I don’t.

What was your breakthrough moment?
About ten years ago I went to Hawaii for several weeks and it was there that I found the confidence to speed write, to just chuck-out all the thoughts in my head without panicking or breaking for up to 3 hours even if it what I was writing was private or gibberish.

What inspires you to write?
Emptying my head of conflicting thoughts.

Do you have a writing routine? A place that’s special?
No.

Do you address particular themes or issues in your writing?
I’d rather not discuss that. That’s for the reader to decide.

Where do you get your ideas from?
From my friends, from other books, and from things I see on the streets.

Any tips for new writers?- things you’ve learned and would like to pass on?
I don’t believe there’s anything else you can do but read a lot, write a lot and hope for the best.

What would be your dream writing job?
A dream job? I’m not 12. Who writes these questions?

What’s next for you?
Another novella: Phoney Tony, Plastic Lasagne and The Uncertainty of Friendship.

Have you got a website/event coming up that we can let our members know about?
www.next-to-hemingway.blogspot.com