AUTHOR INTERVIEW

Pat Black speaks to Jack O’Donnell, the author of Lily Poole.

Pat Black: What real-life events inspired Lily Poole?

Jack O’Donnell: The start of Lily Poole is pretty much how it happened. I went down the shortcut to sign on the buroo one morning. It had been slippy and had been snowing. I got to this bit of the road where a primary school boy stood frozen, not sure whether to go forwards or backwards. I guess if I was writing a novel I’d say he was greeting. He might well have been, I can’t remember. I took his hand and took him down to St Stephen’s school. He gave me a great line, ‘big people don’t understand’. There’s a book in there somewhere.

PB: You’re a prolific short story writer. Apart from “it took longer”, how different was the experience in writing a novel?

JOD: I guess we all do the same things. We write short stories and then novels. I don’t do anything different. I write short stories and some of them turn into longer stories. Lily Poole like most of my other stories is a collection of short stories packaged as a novel. It’s a novel by deceit.

PB: This story plays with the ideas of second sight, tying in with Scottish mythology. Is Lily Poole a ghost story?

JOD: Lily Poole is a ghost story. But only if you believe in ghosts.

PB: Tell us how Unbound works.

JOD: Unbound works by crowdfunding. Unbound is a publisher and they were looking for material. ABCtales were looking to make some money, so they offered them some potential clients. Luke Neima, who is now with Granta, was reading my first-draft stuff, and he put my name forward. I wrote about it here.

https://www.abctales.com/story/celticman/unbounders-away

https://www.abctales.com/story/celticman/unbounders-away-2

https://www.abctales.com/blog/celticman/jacks-big-day-out-dalmuir-library

What that means is until they get the money up front they won’t publish your book. It’s like when you used to get a Provie loan and went to pick up your new jacket and Doc Martens from Dees. But you need to have paid for them in advance. It’s an old/new idea. I fucking hated it. What you end up doing is shaking down everybody you’ve ever known for money. I must admit to cheating and giving the book to customers that pledged and in return I’d cut their grass. Sssshhh, don’t tell those that pledged and I never cut their grass, but got a signed copy instead.

PB: What’s next for you?

JOD: I’ve not really got any writing projects lined up. I just write stuff. I’ve been trying to sell the last novel I wrote to publishers. Trying to get an agent. But that’s not really writing. That’s the business of writing, which is something completely different. I’m currently writing the follow-up novel to the unpublished novel I can’t get published, which is pretty stupid in anyone’s language. And I was thinking about looking again at one of my first drafts of Bill and the UFO, which is more a kid’s book, about angels that disguise themselves as aliens to fit in. Well, it’s not really about that. I can’t really remember what it’s about, but I got kinda fond of not remembering it as it was.  Sometimes I surprise myself and realise some of the stories I’m reading I wrote. That’s worrying, too. Some of the first drafts are terrible. Well, most if not all. I can’t remember all of Lily Poole, but there were multiple drafts.

Most of my first-draft stories or poems go up on ABCtales. I also blog on ABCtales and Wordpress: https://wordpress.com/post/odonnellgrunting.wordpress.com/3622

But I’m word blind in the sense that I can’t spot the difference between what I’ve written and what I think I’ve written. It’s a bit like laughing at your own jokes. Only other people can tell you, ‘honestly, they’re not funny’. Fellow writers at ABCtales are too polite to say it’s crap. I’ve got to tell myself it’s crap, but just get on with it. That’s what writers do. Well, I think they do. The next time I meet a writer I’ll ask him or her.

Read our review here.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

Pat Black inteviews DA Watson, the author of Cuttin’ Heads.

Booksquawk: It goes without saying that music is the lifeblood of Cuttin’ Heads. What music scenes fed into the idea behind the story?

DA Watson: Well the whole idea for the book has its roots in blues mythology, specifically the legend of Robert Johnson, but a lot of the scenes in the story are directly lifted from my own experiences playing in bands. Rather than a specific genre, I tried to make the story more about the live music scene in general, the scene populated by all those unknown bands you’ve never heard of, what that life is like, and what the musicians who live in that world want to get from it. In terms of genre, other than country. Really I just tried to squeeze in a nod to every kind of music that I have a liking for. In that way, I like to think it has a bit of a punk rock ethos to it!

B: It’s a very west of Scotland book, particularly strong when it comes to Glasgow. How did you find rendering the place in fiction? Did you find yourself having to stay away from cliché?

DW: Not really. Again, it was really a case of write what you know, and the setting of Inverclyde where the band are based is where I grew up and still live, so hopefully what people read is what the place is actually like. I guess the ned character in Ross’s first chapter is something of a cliché, but aren’t they all? Glasgow was just written “as is” with references to venues I’ve attended and played gigs at like the Barrowlands and The 13^th Note, so it was really just drawing on memory.

B: There’s one crucial element in books about music which is missing – sound. How did you approach the difficult task of describing the noise Public Alibi makes for readers while still making the story accessible?

DW: That was probably the hardest thing about telling the story. It was tricky to stay away from overusing “muso” terms and jargon, so I had to come up with a bunch of similes that would be relatable to readers that don’t have that background; things like Aldo hitting the second overdrive switch on his footpedal, and the tone of his guitar changing like a sports car going up a gear. I liked how that one sounded. There’s a line later on comparing his gently weeping guitar to Gappa Bale’s violin “shrieking like a gang rape victim.” Probably not so elegant, but I thought it got the message across…

B: No more heroes?

DW: Put it this way, Dudley Do-Right characters do my head in, with their unflinching moral compasses! I much prefer the basically good guy who has a dark side and the potential to be a bit of a dick. I just think flawed characters are so much more interesting, and more importantly, real. I think with that type of character, it might be a little harder to really warm to them, but because they’re not perfect, they’re more relatable, and you end up rooting for them all the more. I do anyway.

B: The devil has all the best tunes, but only in music is there the divine. Discuss.

DW: Oooo, good one. I guess if you believe in heaven and hell, which I personally don’t, then yeah, you’d likely imagine notorious nutbags like Jim Morrison and Bon Scott rocking out in The Pit, but then again, were they really evil? They were no angels but I wouldn’t put them in the same bracket as rapists, murderers and people who don’t indicate on roundabouts. That said, I can’t really see them floating about on fluffy white clouds, gently plucking at harps either. Also, there’s been no love lost between the church and music though history. The tritone, or the Devil’s Interval, two notes which combined are the root of blues and heavy metal, being banned by the church a few centuries back, Madonna being excommunicated for her saucy shenanigans in the video for Like a Prayer, Ray Charles being lambasted for daring to mix gospel and blues, creating what we now call soul music, and the outrage metal bands like Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath caused amongst  the cloth. In a non-religious sense though, I would agree that music in its purest instrumental form is divine, as it’s just a combination of tones and rhythms, that can transport you, make you laugh, cry, rage, make your skin prickle and your heart race. Yeah, music can be divine. Apart from manufactured pop bands of course.

B: What’s next for you?

DW: I’ve currently got my fourth novel, a semi-supernatural western, out on submission, and have just started the fifth, which is based on the 17^th century witch hunts which took place in my home village of Inverkip. I’m also appearing at Scotland’s first horror, sci-fi and fantasy book festival, the Cymera Festival in Edinburgh in June, and have a couple of poetry night gigs lined up, one at the aforementioned 13^th Note in Glasgow.

Many thanks to Dave for his time. Read our review of Cuttin’ Heads here.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

Pat Black speaks to David Olner about his novel, The Baggage Carousel. It’s about travel… it’s about romance… it’s about every interconnected positive and negative…

Pat Black: The Baggage Carousel has a lot to do with global travel – how much did you draw on your own experiences for the novel?

David Olner:  I used to go backpacking a lot, back before I sacrificed my personal freedom at the altar of capitalism.  So, all the locations featured in the book are ones that I’ve visited.  Some of the incidents are based on real life but heightened for dramatic effect.  Others are made up, because that’s how fiction works.  How much is true and how much fabricated?  You, the jury, must decide. 

David Olner

PB: How do you think the book portrays modern Britain, and where it’s going as a society? Or to put it another way – is the book Club Tropicana or Sleaford Mods?

DO: I never really thought of The Baggage Carousel as a social document until you highlighted it in your review, and that’s one of the reasons why it’s always interesting to see how your writing is perceived by others.  If anything, given the main character Dan’s demeanour, I saw it as more of an anti-social document.  I just wrote about what I know – life in a small town and the lure of the big world beyond it.  I didn’t have any particular political agenda in mind when I wrote it, but if that’s what people take from the text then it’s fine.  I’m just happy it’s being read at all. 

PB: Tell us a bit about yourself and your writing background.

DO: I reside in…well, in a small town.  It’s in East Yorkshire.  I lead a pretty monastic existence there – devoid of sexual intimacy but with plenty of wine.  I work the nightshift in a kitchen warehouse and cower from the sun during the day.  I started writing The Baggage Carousel years ago, used to chip away at it when I had time, honed it with the help of other writers on an online forum (I’m sure you know the one I mean, Pat) and subbed it out when I couldn’t do any more to it.  I had some sparks of interest from agents, but nothing that ever caught fire.  When I’d exhausted all possible lines of enquiry, I shelved the MS and started writing another book.  

Somewhere down the line, I was contacted by Nathan O’Hagan, a writer I knew from the online forum.  He’d gone on to become a published writer and told me he was setting up his own indie press with another author, a hirsute fellow named Wayne Leeming. Nathan and I had admired each other’s work on the website and, when he found out I hadn’t got my book placed, the two of them offered to consider it for the new roster they were building. 

And…wallop…now it’s a book, a tangible thing you can hold in your hand, or wedge under a wonky table leg.  So, the message here is this: never delete any of your work and never consider it done with – you never know when its time might come. 

PB: Tell us what’s next for you.

DO: My next book will be a period romance entitled Minnie the Cigarette Girl Has Been Deemed Obstreperous.  Nah, just messing, it’s called Munger – another dark comedy, this one centring around a sex-tourist coming undone in Thailand. It’s already written and awaiting rejection. Beyond that, I’ve recently started a new project, which will be more in the dystopian/YA vein. I wanted to try something different, something less murky that my mum wouldn’t be embarrassed to pass on to her Book Club.  

At this early stage I don’t really know how it’ll work out.  It might well be terrible, but it’s always good to try new things. 

PB: Obliterati Press are quite new – tell us a bit about them.

DO: They eat cat food. 

The Baggage Carousel is available now. Read our review here.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

Pat Mills has done it all in comics – 2000AD, Judge Dredd, Nemesis the Warlock, Slaine, Flesh… He’s the British Stan Lee for my money, still working at the sharp end.

Alongside artist Kevin O’Neill (they both worked on Nemesis, Ro-Busters and the ABC Warriors), Mills has moved into novels with Serial Killer – the first in a quartet set in the world of British comics from the 1970s onwards.

Here, Pat Black speaks to Pat Mills about life, the universe and 2000AD.

Booksquawk: The references to real-life elements in the UK comics industry in the 1970s and 80s made me chuckle – Angus, Angus & Angus, Fleetpit, etc. Do you miss that world?

Pat Mills: A lot. It was so ridiculous and funny. Today's comic world is a humourless place. So it was fun to recreate the "Comic Life on Mars".

B: Serial Killer is merciless when it comes to poking fun at the war-themed comic strips. You helped to change the game by writing different/more realistic war stories, particularly Charley’s War. What were your feelings about that genre back then?

PM: Before Battle and Charley's War, war stories were often ludicrous. Sergeants Four, for example, in Jet where an English sergeant, a Scottish sergeant, a... well, you get the idea!... tied knots in tank barrels with their bare hands. Sigh!

B: Do you think all those comic titles disappeared in the 1990s as a result of changing times, new technologies and squeezed markets, or were there other forces at play?

PM: Comic pros today largely subscribe to this view. That way they don't have to try again. It's complacent nonsense. The truth is - we all of us got it wrong, we neglected the mainstream readers, and especially young readers and paid the price. That's too painful for most to admit.

But the proof is - Marvel and DC survived the 90s... Games Workshop - which started same time as us on 2000AD are a high street name... French comics are as strong as ever.

The forces at play were a slavish love of elitist and sophisticated fandom in preference to the normal reader in the street.

B: Bearing the above in mind, do you think there’s any way forward for new comics catering for today’s kids?

PM: Absolutely. There's always a way, if it's something you want to do. But it's more a matter of preference. There's no desire to appeal to kids. Although they'll sometimes pretend to.  Most professionals would rather appeal to 40-year-old collectors. Kids are much harder to work for - as I cover in my second book Be Pure! Be Vigilant! Behave! 2000AD and Judge Dredd: The Secret History. That's why I like the challenge, but I'm in a minority.

Everyone seems to forget - comics started with kids! And where are they now? Gone!

B: I see there’s a collected edition of classic Hook Jaw on the way – it’s top of my Christmas list. We also saw a new version of that old favourite, recently - do you like what they did with it?

PM: I think there was a Titan new Hook Jaw book which I didn't read good reviews about. The collected original Hook Jaws I wrote the intro for. It delivers!

B: How did you and Kevin approach your collaboration on the novel?

PM: Kevin and I wrote a sitcom together which was greenlit by a BBC producer (Gareth Edwards - Spaced) but then turned down for being too niche.  So I adapted it to include in the novel with further contributions by Kevin.

B: Give us a flavour of what’s in store in the remaining parts of Read ‘Em And Weep.

PM: Book One: Serial Killer covers the Battle years.  Book Two: Good Night, John Boy I'm just writing covers Action and the start of 2000AD (in fictional form).  Book Three:  2000AD years. Book Four: Misty era.

The protagonist, the Liquorice Detective, searches for his mother's killer as well as creating comics. There's one scene in Book Two - adapted from the sitcom - where he faces a hostile media presenter who hates his comic Aaagh!  It could well remind readers of the famous real life scene where Frank Bough (before the scandal about him broke) tore up a copy of Action live on BBC TV.  Only the outcome in our story is funnier!

B:  What’s your next project in comics?

PM: I've been so busy writing Be Pure... my second text book, I haven't had much chance to pursue comic projects as well.

Certainly I need to finish a serial I've started with Simon Bisley - featuring Joe Pineapples and Ro-Jaws from ABC Warriors and Ro-Busters.

Read our review of Serial Killer here. 

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

Booksquawk interviews Martine McDonagh, author of Narcissism For Beginners. We talk teenagers, narcissism, weird cults, crowdfunded publishing, and designing the greatest t-shirt ever (in our opinion, and almost officially the nation’s, too).

Interview by Pat Black

Pat Black: It seemed to me you were taking a lot on with the character of Sonny – adopted; raised in the US; a former addict; just 20 years old. How did you approach the character?

Martine McDonagh: Well, naturally he didn’t arrive fully formed, or I might have been more inclined to shy away from the challenge! When I wrote the first draft of NfB, Sonny wasn’t in the picture at all; he came along when I realized his father, the Guru Bim wasn’t sufficiently three dimensional as a character to carry a novel. Developing the third dimension would have diminished him as a narcissist, who at the most extreme are typically two-dimensional characters, and so Sonny was born, the child of narcissistic parents.

Martine McDonagh

As I’d already imagined and built the world Sonny would be born into in my first draft, who his parents were, where and how they lived and who with, the main task really was to work out how those characters in that world might interact with and affect Sonny growing up. I did a lot of reading on the subject and drew to some degree on my own experiences. Emotional and material neglect seem to be common features of narcissistic parenting and the children of narcissists are generally considered to exist to serve the perceived needs of the parent. To his Guru father, Sonny is a possession, an extension of himself, who has to be stolen back from his mother and returned to his rightful owner. Once that’s been achieved, Sonny is allocated an alternative and completely unsuitable ‘mother’ and left to find nurture where he can and develop some resilience to all the dysfunctional stuff that’s going on around him. It’s only in teenage, when Sonny is in a place of relative stability that he crumbles and gets into all kinds of trouble and has to use that resilience to fight his way out of it.

At the start of the novel, Sonny doesn’t remember or doesn’t know much about his more distant past, and believes that unless he unravels the truth, his transition into adulthood will be hampered.

Once I decided to write him in, Sonny really just seemed to grow organically out of the story; but he couldn’t just be a victim of circumstance, he had to develop a personality and voice of his own as he unravels his own identity. Most importantly, I wanted him to have a sense of humour so that he could always lift himself out of despair and it took me a while to get that right.

PB: Was the cult of Bim a comment on how gullible we are, or how manipulative people tend to get on in life?

MM: A mix of the two, I think, but perhaps more about the latter. Narcissism has become a bit of a buzzword in the past couple of years, with the explosion of social media and Trump’s election to president, but I first became aware of narcissistic personality disorder about 15 years ago, after my father died, while reading Alice Miller’s The Drama of Being a Child and trying to make sense of my own childhood; in particular my relationship with my mother. For a long time prior to that I’d been interested in people who set themselves up as gurus, and after reading Anthony Storr’s Feet of Clay: A Study of Gurus the two subjects collided. One of the central questions about gurus is how on earth seemingly rational, intelligent people can be persuaded to follow, sometimes even to their death. Storr says that the guru’s absolute conviction of his own authority can make children of us all.

PB: Was it difficult to get inside a modern teenager’s head?

MM: Well I’ve no idea how well I’ve managed that, but it definitely helped to have been a teenager myself, albeit more than a few decades ago. I grew up expecting to have died in a nuclear holocaust by the age of 35, which I don’t think is so different to the anxieties and issues that teenagers have to contend with now: climate change, unemployment, increasing infantilisation through lack of independence, and of course the prospect of being wiped out in a nuclear holocaust, which appears to be back on the menu.

As the single parent of a son now well into his twenties, I’ve spent a lot of time in the company of teenagers and as the manager of numerous bands over the years, I’ve spent more time than I probably should have enjoying the tour van banter of young men on the road. While I was writing NfB, I lived with friends in Redondo Beach whose teenage son was a brilliant source of inspiration. My own son, who was living in LA at the time, was also a huge help and we spent a lot of time in cafes eavesdropping on teenage conversations.

PB: The book was part of an unusual publishing initiative. How did it come about?

MM: Quite early on in this project, I realised I didn’t want to continue working with my then agent, so we parted company, and rather than take on the distraction of looking for a replacement, I decided to keep on writing. When I’d finished, I researched which publishers would accept submissions direct from authors – it didn’t take long, there aren’t many! – and decided to submit to one or two of them before embarking on the exhausting process of looking for another agent. I’d already started writing the sequel to NfB and wanted to keep the momentum going.

Unbound is a crowdfunding publisher who behaves in the same way as any other trade publisher (trade publication is through Penguin Random House) except that once a book has been accepted by them, the author has to crowdfund the production costs before it can be published. Having come from the music industry I’ve always found the publishing industry in general to be a wee bit elitist and closed, and I liked that Unbound was doing things differently and having considerable success and industry acceptance as a result. I think the theory of having a band of grassroots supporters behind a book who will champion it after publication is brilliant, even if it doesn’t always work out that way in practice. Anyway, I submitted to Unbound, they accepted it and off we went. Not that it was easy, I found the crowdfunding process quite stressful, it’s not in my nature to ask for support, but I got there and I know other authors who’ve managed that side of it really well. I’m very pleased with the end result in terms of production values and the quality of the finished product.

PB: What are you working on at the moment?

MM: I’m now writing the third draft of the sequel to NfB, set 21 years later. It’s been slow going because of other work commitments, but I’m getting there and hoping to finish it by the end of the summer. I’m also thinking about and collecting snippets of information around an idea for another novel, but I’ve no idea when I’ll get stuck into that, because I’m starting to think that Sonny’s story might actually be a trilogy.

PB:  I heard a rumour you were behind the design of an iconic piece of pop culture art connected to one of the best-known British bands of the 1990s. Is it true, and if so, care to comment on how it came about and what it means to you today?

MM: I’d shy away from using the word ‘design’ as I’m definitely no artist, but yes I drew the James flower motif, when I was the band’s manager, initially to brighten up a boring poster and then used it in various t-shirt designs. To be honest, it means very little to me now, but I was pleased that it came second (to Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures) in a BBC6 poll of iconic band shirt designs last year; it’s always nice to get some credit for something you’ve done, even decades later!

Read the review of Narcissism for Beginners here.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

Booksquawk interviews Evangeline Jennings, author of the roaring compendium of revenge, Riding In Cars With Girls. We chat about feminism, Doctor Who, Ellen Page in Doctor Who, X-Ray Spex and taking Donald Trump for a ride.

Interview by Pat Black

Pat Black: Riding In Cars With Girls references a Drew Barrymore movie, but its tone couldn’t be more different. Which of the current crop of young actresses would be your ideal FemNoir leading lady?

Evangeline Jennings: I know she's flavour of the month, but it's hard to look past Millie Bobby Brown, Eleven in Stranger Things. I don’t know if you saw her in a show called Intruders but she was absolutely fantastic as Madison, a child possessed by an immortal serial killer. In four or five years, she'd be perfect.

I also think Elle Fanning has something special. I could see her doing great things as a lost and vulnerable woman with a gun and a knife.

I don't know if they're "young" anymore, but I would like to see Bonnie Wright and Evanna Lynch play something really dark together. I'd be delighted to write that for them. And Kristen Stewart was born to play a relentless revenge demon.

PB: Reading this book brought it home to me how attitudes have changed towards LGBT people, even in the past 20 years. This is especially true in British entertainment. In Doctor Who at the moment, the Doctor’s current companion is gay, but it’s NBD; a simple, even minor component of her character. This would have been unthinkable in the same show in its initial run. In Emmerdale or Brookside a couple of decades ago, and particularly in EastEnders in the late 1980s, the tabloid press had that winning blend of salivating/becoming enraged at the idea of gay men and lesbians in popular entertainment. Do you think this progress is a boon to the stories we see in Riding In Cars With Girls, or a hindrance?

EJ: Maybe the true measure of progress is I feel free to say I'm thoroughly unimpressed by Bill in Doctor Who, and mildly cynical about the showrunners' motivation in creating the role. If they want to impress me, they need to cast Ellen Page as the next Doctor. Unless they can swing a return for Matt Smith, because I'm Eleventh Doctor for life.

To return to your question, I find it hard to think of it in either way - a boon or a hindrance. If I'm anything, artistically, I'm one very small teeny-tiny part of the same progression in society. When I was young and first discovering who I might be, I found some strength and inspiration in books by authors such as Val McDermid, Mary Wings, and Barbara Wilson. It's marvellous that today's me can get the same and more simply by turning on a show like Supergirl, or pretty much any of Shonda Rhimes' mega shows.

Of course, as you imply in your next question, we all have to resist the current pushback by the tiny-minded tyrants of the world, be they in a mega-church, the White House, or next door.

PB: The book’s retinue of destructive, abusive and ultimately useless males seems prescient in terms of today’s geopolitical climate. If I’m being kind I’ll exclude Theresa May from that. Do you see any redemption for men in your fiction?

EJ: No. All men are contemptible bastards.

More seriously, the political climate in Texas has been years ahead of what's happening now on a national and global scale. Yay Texas. And yes, it has definitely inspired much of my writing. But I do write sympathetic male characters from time to time. For example, I've written a YA fantasy – unpublished, Percy Jackson meets Lord of the Rings - which has a teenage boy as its hero. And there are many decent men in my Trumpocalypse saga, Burning Down The House. But when you're writing about the more extreme problems faced by girls and women - abuse, trafficking, domestic violence - it’s often hard to find a positive role for a man. And when you have hate-filled fascist theocrats and their enablers abusing us on a global political scale, it’s often hard to want to.

One thing I will never do is write a Taken - great though it was, not to mention successful - where a big strong man comes along to rescue the poor ickle girl. That's not in my blood.

PB: Perhaps this is a two-part question. If you took a road trip with Donald Trump, what car would you drive, where would you go, what is the top song on your playlist, and what would you do when you get there?

EJ: Since the so-called president is such a fan of white supremacists, I'd like to introduce him to the grand old Texas tradition of chaining a man and dragging him for miles behind your truck. If that’ not technically a roadtrip, then my car would need restraints and a very effective gag. We'd drive to the Grand Canyon, and full-on Thelma-and-Louise it into eternity. With Pence, McConnell, and Rupert Murdoch in the trunk. Or maybe I could use the bus from Speed? Think of the fun we could have filling all those seats.

I honestly can’t imagine Trump or any of those people ever enjoying music - although on second thoughts, I could maybe see Trump as a Jagger wannabe - so I’d handcraft a mix to show them what they've been missing, and we'd go over the edge to “Oh Bondage Up Yours”.

Incidentally, if the FBI is watching, at this point I'd like to make it clear that I'm exercising my first amendment right to indulge in poetic self-expression, and not actually threatening your leaker-in-chief. Or anyone else for that matter. Unlike so many of the evil orangutan's rabid fans, I don't even have a gun and if I did, I'd be more of a danger to myself than to the most corrupt, dangerous, and yet ridiculous man in the world. But, you know, her emails.

PB: Tell us about what’s current for you, and what’s next.

EJ: Jail time probably. Failing that, I'm writing fantasies. I've finished a Gamesy-Thronesy novel which is probably the darkest thing I've ever written, and I'm starting out on something which might turn out to be a New Adult Urban Fantasy, whatever that means. Crime. Magic. The Bible. Modern London. The End of the World. Let’s say it’s Modesty Blaise’s daughter meets Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon and kicks the shit out of him.

Read the review of Riding in Cars with Girls here.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

Booksquawk interviews G R Jordan, author of “Crescendo!”

Interview by Hereward L M Proops

Booksquawk: Tell us a little bit about yourself.

G R Jordan: My name is Gary Ross-Jordan, writing under G R Jordan for my fantasy series, and as well as putting pen to paper I’m also a Coastguard, an archer and a Dad of four. This all keeps me extremely busy especially as at my age life has only just begun. I live in the Northwest of Scotland on the Isle of Lewis, keeping chickens amidst the marauding winds.

I’ve always written poetry and told stories from very young but it has been the past few years when I have decided to put things out there for public consumption with a dream that one day my passion can also pay the bills. With that in mind I produced a poetry book, “Four Life Emotions” to get to grips with self-publishing and followed this up with “A Darker Shade of Light” a collection of short Christian allegories in the style of H.P Lovecraft (Not sure anyone has had that sort of mix before!).

Having learnt a great deal from these experiences, I set about putting together a full length novel and was successfully crowdfunded. The fruits of the crowdfunding is “Crescendo!” of which I am extremely proud but I haven’t sat back on my laurels with the second Austerley and Kirkgordon novel “The Darkness at Dillingham” in its final production stages. I also write slightly less weird material and hope to be releasing the tentatively titled “Hook, Line and Sinker”, a tale about mermaids coming to an island community which looks at exploring the variety of views and lifestyles by the peoples’ reactions to these creatures. Of course there’s plenty of action and fun on the way.

Like most of my counterparts, I’m no expert on this writing journey but the experience of composing and then pulling a book together has been fantastic and I am now immersing myself in understanding how to share and promote a book and myself. This writing life isn’t all easy but it is a lot of fun!

Booksquawk: Do you have a particular routine for writing?

G R Jordan: I genuinely don’t which is contrary to most of the advice given on how to write. But there is a good reason for it – life as a husband and Dad of four. My wife has her own business, my kids age from aged ten to 6 months and I am a shift worker, operating on quite diverse and non-routine shifts. So I will grab whatever time I can throughout the day. Be it travelling, late at night, early morning, meal breaks at work or whenever, I have developed the habit of just sitting down and writing. That being said my favourite thing to do is to go to a coffee shop and sit down with my tablet. Noise doesn’t bother me but I do think a good latte is an appropriate partner for writing. I write at approx. 1000 – 1500 words an hour (pretty good but no express train) normally writing novels of approximately 60,000 words. Once the first draft is written I print it off and read it in a hard copy, pencilling any changes. After a second draft I usually let my beta readers see it before giving it a third draft. After that the editor gets involved. The book then gets knocked back and forward and we end up with the final cut ready to be made into a book.

Booksquawk: What are the Austerley and Kirkgordon novels about?

G R Jordan: I like to say the premise that the series is based on is “When you see the Darkness, do you run to it or run from it?” Hence we have Austerley, university professor, shambling oaf and complete genius when it comes to anything occult, weird or otherworldly. Not only is he an expert in these matters but he is constantly sucked into their world often risking others to know more.

Beside him is Kirkgordon, former bodyguard, man with a questioning faith, wary of any danger and who has had his life messed up by accompanying Austerley on an ill-fated trip to explore some of the Darkness (after finishing “Crescendo!”, I wrote their back story in a short story entitled “Footsteps” which is a tribute to Lovecraft’s “The Statement of Randolph Carter” and available online and in the hardback version of “Crescendo!). Because of his faith and belief in a form of decency, Kirkgordon struggles with Austerley’s outlook and actions, whilst also feeling compelled to protect him. This allows me to write some of the most fun dialogue as they nip and pick at each other and also give some outright abuse. The novels have many connections to myths or worlds both created and from our human past and present. In “Crescendo!” Lovecraft’s mythos is used extensively but there is also some Russian mythology. And sometimes I just throw in some of my own, after all I need to let my mind go nuts too sometimes. But the novels are also about action and adventure. I aim to provide an entertaining rollercoaster of Austerley and Kirkgordon being put through the mill with good connections to ideas and fantasies known and unknown.

Booksquawk: Austerley and Kirkgordon are a great double-act. Did you take your inspiration any buddy-cop / unlikely partnership movies?

G R Jordan: I don’t remember ever thinking about a particular partnership but I have watched / read about a lot of partnerships and seeing the dynamics. If you are going to base your books around a duo you need to make sure that there is plenty of internal conflict. With Austerley and Kirkgordon I write mainly from Kirkgordon’s viewpoint because Austerley has to remain a curiosity. Kirkgordon’s family troubles, job dissatisfaction and trouble with strange people I think we can all understand. But Austerley is something else. Discovering and understanding Austerley is a key component to the stories.

Booksquawk: “Crescendo” moves at quite a frenetic pace. Do you have any good tips for authors struggling with pacing in their stories?

G R Jordan: Pacing really depends on what you are trying to do and is greatly affected by how you write. What is it you want to have your reader do? In the A & K world, Kirkgordon is always out of his depth, bemused by all this weirdness. As it’s written from his point of view then my readers need to feel that. And so I gallop along hoping that it will all make sense at some point.

If that’s what you want your readers to feel then write like that. i.e. I actually didn’t have any plot when I started. I knew some Lovecraftian mythology, had the idea we would end up on a Scottish island and had a really good understanding of my two main characters. But until I had gotten to writing chapter two I had no idea we were off to Russia, or where in Russia. Similarly Calandra who appears in Russia suddenly developed into a major character. The fun and games begins when you need to hold the whole novel in your head as you get to end and have to pull everything together.

So to sum up, write to what your characters are doing. Are they panicked and confused, then write and plan that way. Do they indulge slowly and take everything in, then put in the extra description and nuances.

Booksquawk: “Crescendo” exists in the same universe as the stories of H.P. Lovecraft. What are your favourite Lovecraftian works?

G R Jordan: I love the “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” unsurprisingly. The whole decrepit feel is amazing and the sense of horror without ever being gory or sick. For me it’s Lovecraft’s best.

“Pickman’s Model” is another favourite, as it has the best kicker I have ever read at the end. Lovecraft’s genius was the punch to the mind at the end of a story. You sit back for just a second and then the actual horror hits you as you put the pieces together.

I have plenty of other favourites but I think “The Horror at Martin’s Beach” is a prime example of the mindless horror that Lovecraft could write which was I think the most terrifying. People for no good reason grab a rope and try to haul in a “something” in the water but get pulled in, hypnotically hanging on until they are dragged to the depths below. No reason given, no explanation. Sometimes when writing we try to explain everything but Lovecraft teaches us that our own minds can dream up far worse things than are ever put to paper.

Booksquawk: Did you find it a challenge to write in someone else’s fictional world?

G R Jordan: Not really. I’m never bound by that world. You need to step yourself in it but always remember it’s your story. I try to build on what went on before rather than go back into it. As A & K is set some time after Lovecraft’s writings, I get to play about with things a lot easier. And if any mythos is not fully explained you can fill in the gaps!

Booksquawk: Although set in the same world as Lovecraft’s works, “Crescendo” is a different sort of novel. I found it leaned more towards the action-adventure than traditional cosmic horror. Was this intentional?

G R Jordan: Totally. It is more Indiana Jones than Lovecraft and like Indiana Jones delves into mythology. One of the main points about the Indiana Jones films (which are fantastic!) is that while they do bring in archaeology and mythology, it is basically a romp and you hold onto your hat while you do it. That’s the sort of adventure I love but I also love mythology and history. Hence to combine them together feels very natural. I am following the age old advice for a writer – write the book you want to read!

Booksquawk: What next for Austerley and Kirkgordon?

G R Jordan: We’re off to the English seaside to a place called Dillingham. Having globetrotted, I decided to challenge myself to remaining in an obscure place and staying there. But there’s still plenty of trouble and some new characters. This time there’s a witch, some ghostly pirates and conglomerated creatures – but scariest of all, a girl becoming a teenager. Dillingham further develops our characters and starts looking at how “off-piste” they will go, Austerley with the Dark arts and Kirkgordon with women. But there’s plenty of adventure, DIY shopping, someone madder than Austerley and a cauldron pouring out revenge and forgiveness. There’s also a third adventure in the pipeline where our twosome go to another world with the stakes at their highest yet for Kirkgordon. All three books come together as a trilogy and will set the guys up for something totally new thereafter.

Booksquawk: A bit of fun - let’s imagine for a second that the movie rights to “Crescendo” are bought by a high-profile Hollywood studio. Who would be your first choices to play Austerley and Kirkgordon, and who would you want to direct?

G R Jordan: I was actually asked by my artist Jake Clarke to tell him who Kirkgordon looked like and I told him, Mark Strong as he has that brooding presence but can also give the action run around a good go. He also seems to play the vulnerable character well as his run in “A View From A Bridge” recently showed.

Austerley is much harder to cast. John Candy playing it really dark would have been good or maybe Robbie Coltrane. If the booming voice went a bit more evil then Brian Blessed might be an option. But really I think Austerley would be better with an unknown actor.

To direct I would have to go with Spielberg as he is a pure genius. I saw Tintin and was blown away by how he got the film to really be an extension of the comic books. By letting someone produce a film of the book I would get quite nervous (although the money would be good!) as my baby would be being dressed by someone else. But I think Spielberg could do it well and faithfully while making it a great movie.

Read the review of Crescendo! here.