I do believe there is art in the ordinary and that good writing will help us find value and maybe meaning in the everyday.
Would you please tell us a little about your writing process?
I have not written enough yet to have much to offer but thus far I make notes in my book; ideas and snippets of dialogue and circumstances I want to explore, even dreams I’ve had. Once I’m at my laptop writing and developing them, a kind of flood happens and it’s often tough for me to stop writing to do other things or chores. I’m not a romantic about it but the stories almost do write themselves. Not well initially. Often even rework can’t save them. But the few that do read well to me I can’t stop tweaking and rephrasing over the next days or weeks– its not that productive but somehow at some point the tweaking stops and the next idea sets off down the same track.
How do you believe a writer improves? Practice? Mentors? Reading everything? Attending festivals?
I’m a novice writer but even so I sense writing is as much a craft as it is an art. And that the craft of writing is best taught but the art relies on more holistic and deeper sources within us writers as people. It is lived. We should celebrate both the craft and the art as celebrations of ourselves.
What motivated / motivates you to write?
That’s a real mystery. I’m not particularly extrovert. I do not believe I’m smarter than anyone else. But I do believe there is art in the ordinary and that good writing will help us find value and maybe meaning in the everyday. I think we need that right now and it’s what I’ll try to do.
What is the best piece of advice you have received? Or, what is the best piece of advice you would offer an aspiring writer?
I have just finished a collaboration with 20 other authors to jointly write a novel. Part of the process involved my first interaction with a UK based editor. I learnt tough lessons (basically about how crap my writing could be) but seeing my work through the eyes of a very determined editor was highly educational. It reminded me of two hands clapping: It needs both writer and editor to be well matched and confident. The commercial imperative should not overwhelm our ideas and willingness to experiment but equally what we write has to be read – not every recipe should end up a smoothie but most do need some cooking!!
Who would you say are your literary forebears? Who have you learned the most from?
I am a Scot living in New Zealand. I read Robert Louis Stevenson, Somerset Maughan, and my late father’s uncle who wrote under the pseudonyms Peter Dawlish and Lennox Kerr: Beautiful calm story tellers. These authors tuck stunning pearls of humanity in gentle almost banal stories. I’d like to learn do that too. I’m also very drawn to Richard Brautigan and the retention of childlike joy in his writing, it’s both serious and very silly.
Would you mind sharing a photograph of a part of your bookshelf (or your library) that is meaningful to you? What makes it meaningful to you?
My home in New Zealand looks out over the farm I run with my wife Kate. The space and the quiet suits my writing process well. My bookshelves as you might expect are like the wrinkles on my face. Deep and numerous. They tell the genre alleyways we’ve stumbled into, the prolonged themes and subjects we’ve enjoyed. Literature is wonderful, a constant pleasure through life. Bad books you can start but are not obliged to finish. The good ones you can read again and again each time learning more. Our huge picture window reflects a vast open landscape on one side and a much bigger internal universe on the other. The photos are of my triplet sisters and me as babies. And the other stuff, bits and bobs Kate and I have acquired on our many travels together.
Author Biography: I am a 65 year old company director living in New Zealand. Writing to me now is as necessary as exhaling. Its the second phase of creative breathing and my way of emptying lungs ready for the next breath.