Ten Questions Part 1

A week or so ago, I asked people to e-mail me questions that they wanted to have answered. Here are the first ten ...

1) When did you start writing?

It's more like, when will I stop writing? It's been something I have done for as long as I can remember there being a me. It is only recently that most people have become aware of it.

2) Why do you write?

The comedian Simon Munnery tells the story of being at the Colorado Comedy Festival and seeing Robin Williams waiting to go on. It's a much longer, funnier story than that but I will reduce to one little bit. Seeing Williams pacing up and down nervously, he asks him, "You're a millionaire, aren't you?" The great Robin Williams confirms that he is. "So why do you do this?" asks Munnery. He reports that Williams stops to consider this and says, "Yes, that is the question."

I am not Robin Williams but I think that there is something about all creative people that drives them on to keep doing whatever they do. I cannot imagine not writing.

3) What are you working on at the moment?

I wrote a full novel in 2010 but have rewritten a lot since then and had it rejected by a growing number of publishers. I started a couple of others but I am well over halfway through one with the working name 'Seaweed & Politics'. It came about when a friend and I were on holiday in Northern Ireland and we were introduced to a business where you could pay to bathe in seaweed. It was during the Scottish independence referendum campaign and I thought about combining the two - a comedy set in a seaweed bathing hotel in Wales during Wales's own referendum on independence. It grew from there.

4) Where do you get your ideas?

All sorts of places - sometimes observing people, sometimes hearing other people's stories, sometimes obscure jokes and ideas. I remember reading that Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie would write the TV comedy show 'The Goodies' by taking a list of ideas and simply combining them and looking for unexpected links. I like the idea of putting ideas together that do not seem to fit and seeing what happens.

5 )Do you have a favourite short story?

From the 'Cheese Market of the Future' collection - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cheese-Market-Future-Other-Stories-ebook/dp/B01EIM4QHS - ... I like them all. Rereading it recently, I remembered how much I love 'The Book Had Other Plans'. It's a story about how an inanimate object - a book - could have its own thoughts and ideas but what I really like is the parade of characters - from the brother and sister at the beginning who are mourning their Dad through to the boyfriend at the end who has all the willing to impress his girlfriend but just can't quite manage it.

6) What else would you like to do with your website?

I'd love to put music on it. Actually, I'd like to do a whole album and I am looking into it.

7) Why 'a hatful of rainbows'?

I thought that rainbows were pleasant and magical and a hatful was about the right amount of them. There is not enough that is pleasant and magical on the internet.

8) When do you find time to write?

A lot of it is done on train journeys - I write on the way to work in the morning and on the way back, with occasional bits of tidying up done in the evenings or weekends.

9) How would you describe your writing to someone?

Badly. I like to think of it as like reality, but with a twist. It's funny and strange but it also makes you think.

10) When will you be publishing something new?

Before the end of the year. In the meantime ... buy what is already available! :)