It’s a tome grabbed at random, in the hope that I discover
that book’s name simply by surviving the fire, the smoke, the smashed window, and
the landing. I need a surprise, or a laugh at the inappropriate title, when I stand
up.
2. Asleep in your rebuilt house, you dream of meeting a dead
author. But not in a creepy stalkerish way, so you shoo Mr Poe out of the kitchen.
Instead, you sit down and have cake with which dead author?
For once I accidentally named a living writer. Must try harder.
Dorothy Parker. I know she’s dead – her ashes being a source of much discussion.
3. Would you name six essential items for writers? If, you
know, cornered and threatened with torture.
Cynicism. Doubt. Negativity. Obsession. Rain against the windows.
Persistence.
4. Who’d win in a fight between Count Dracula and Frankenstein’s
monster? If, you know, you were writing that scene.
This fight occurs in darkness, and, come sunrise, Dracula
is nowhere to be seen. Frankenstein wins on points.
5. It’s the end of a long and tiring day. You are still writing
a scene. Do you see it through to the end, even though matchsticks prop your eyelids
open, or do you sleep on it and return, refreshed, to slay that literary dragon
another day?
If the characters have complex names, it’s time to stop typing
and sleep.
6. You must introduce a plot-twist. Evil twin or luggage mix-up?
Luggage mix-up with evil twin in the foreground, but that’s
all camouflage for the real plot-twist. Killer Blancmange.
7. Let’s say you write a bunch of books featuring an amazing
recurring villain. At the end of your latest story you have definitely absitively
posolutely killed off the villain for all time and then some. Did you pepper your
narrative with clues hinting at the chance of a villainous return in the next book?
If the villain is capable of existing far beyond time, then
killing the villain for all time and then some may not be long enough.
8. You are at sea in a lifeboat, with the barest chance of
surviving the raging storm. There’s one opportunity to save a character, drifting
by this scene. Do you save the idealistic hero or the tragic villain?
I save Doctor Jekyll. Hang on…
9. It’s time to kill a much-loved character – that pesky plot
intrudes. Do you just type it up, heartlessly, or are there any strange rituals
to be performed before the deed is done?
I plant a hip-flask in the breast-pocket. A strange place
for a hip-flask to rest. Unless a bullet lodges there at the appointed time.
10. Embarrassing typo time. I’m always typing thongs
instead of things. One day, that’ll land me in trouble. Care to share any
wildly embarrassing typing anecdotes? If, you know, the wrong word suddenly made
something so much funnier. (My last crime against typing lay in omitting the u
from Superman.)
This relates more to the internet than text files housing
chapters. A gremlin lurks on the internet, prepared to strike at will and without
fear of retribution. That little bastard takes my well-engineered statement and
photocopies it, creating two entries I can never seem to delete.
This relates more
to the internet than text files housing chapters. A gremlin lurks on the internet,
prepared to strike at will and without fear of retribution. That little bastard
takes my well-engineered statement and photocopies it, creating two entries I can
never seem to delete.
11. I’ve fallen out of my chair laughing at all sorts of thongs
I’ve typed. Have you?
Some of those thongs are only rude in the minds of the crude.
For that reason, I cannot exhibit those thongs here.
12. You take a classic literary work and update it by throwing
in rocket ships. Dare you name that story? Pride and Prejudice on Mars. That
kind of thing.
All Quiet on the Martian Front.
Vertigo. Hitchock’s movie. Boileau and
Narcejac give us a grand tale about an obsessed character in The Living and the
Dead. Somehow the transplanting of a French tale to an American setting works
wonders for the nature of the obsession.
14. Occupational hazard of being a writer. Has a book ever
fallen on your head? This may occasionally happen to non-writers, it must be said.
My head has occasionally fallen on books.
15. Did you ever read a series of books out of sequence?
Some books have little memory. They can be tackled in any
order. Doctor Who novels, for example. The first one I read was the
first one. Thereafter, my reading of those books was jumbled – though did not suffer
for that. Well, the Doctor jumps about in time and space. Don’t expect anything
approaching chronological order, in the depiction of a time-traveller’s adventures.
16. You encounter a story just as you are writing the same
type of tale. Do you abandon your work, or keep going with the other one to ensure
there won’t be endless similarities?
It’s important to state that there’s no copyright in ideas
– only in the presentation of those ideas. Otherwise there’d only be one
Western. One vampire-werewolf-human love-triangle saga. Hmmm…
17. Have you ever stumbled across a Much-Loved Children’s
Classic™ that you’ve never heard of?
Who decides? Can we say no wrong of certain stories? I’ll
name no names here.
18. You build a secret passage into your story. Where?
Inside the glove-compartment.
19. Facing the prospect of writing erotica, you decide on
a racy pen-name. And that would be…
Studd Manley.
20. On a train a fan praises your work, mistaking you for
another author. What happens next?
I point out that I’m busy driving the train.
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