|
|
|
How long does it take to write a novel?
|
This varies enormously. I started my first novel, Guardians, in late 1989 and it was published in 1992. I spent most of 1990 actually writing the full first draft. I started the drafts of Joy Ride in 1993 and it was published in 1999. Caught in the Headlights took 6 months to write in 1999, but wasn't published until 2003. The Last Wizard was written in full, in 3 months, when I took leave to work as a full time writer. One project I'm slowly developing has been a project of 5 years so far. It sounds like a trite answer, but a novel takes as long as it needs to take to be written.
|
|
What's your favourite book?
|
Oh, I love so many books I can't really call any my favourite. They vary too, from 'The Jolly Postman' kids' picture book through to The Bible, the Bhagaved Gita and the Q'ran. As a kid, I loved reading 'Commando' and 'The Phantom' and 'Superman' comics, and 'Mad' magazine for satire. If the book featured an animal, I devoured it - Ring of Bright Water, Watership Down, Elsa the Lioness (Born Free), Tiger in the Bush, Greyfriars Bobby, White Fang, Old Yeller, Tailchaser's Song. Australian stories featured in my reading - the works of Henry Lawson and AB Paterson and many others. Adventure and fantasy were favourite reads - The Three Musketeers, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Hobbit, Earthfasts, Magician, Dragonsong and many others. I read plenty of science fiction writers including Ray Bradbury, John Wyndham, Phillip K Dick, Ursula LeGuin, Isaac Asimov. Then there were the socio-political books like Animal Farm and 1984, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird and so on. I've read (and studied) all of Shakespeare's attributed plays. This barely scratches the surface of my favourite reads, but it might show you what I have loved to read so far.
|
|
Does writing pay?
|
Hmmm, well if I was a successful writer on an international scale with popular books, like J K Rowling, I'd say writing is an excellent way to get rich. There are plenty of stories of writers who sell a manuscript for a wonderful amount of money and they live comfortably for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, many writers struggle to make a living out of purely writing, and most (and I'm one) can't even earn enough to be a writer as their sole job. The average income for a fiction writer in Australia, the last time I checked in 2011, varied between $3,500-$12,000 a year. You can get that much on unemployment benefits...
|
|
Why did you choose to be writer?
|
I have opinions and views about the world and people in it, and writing gives me a chance to express to other people what I think and how I feel about many things. Artists and musicians do this and I've dabbled in both forms of expression, but writing seems to almost come naturally to me as a form, so it's what I choose to do.
|
|
When and how did you start writing as a career?
|
I was hooked on writing poetry when I was 8 years old and thought I'd grow up to be a poet. My first publications were in school magazines. Then in 1977, while I was at uni, I had a tiny poem accepted for a FAW/BHP national anthology and thought I'd finally made a break into real writing. But that wasn't the case. I sent quite a few poems to various literary magazines, thereafter, and received rejections. I started posting the rejection slips on my door, as an incentive to persist, but that became too depressing when I couldn't see the door anymore. So I gave up. I did actually write a 40,000 word teenage novel, in pencil, in my twenties, but I never did anything with it.
In my thirties, I started drafting a fantasy novel, but I dropped that project after attending a publishers' workshop at the SA Writers' Centre because I learned how few submitted manuscripts ever made it to print - something terrible like 0.001%. A business friend, Graham Phillips, suggested I submit a concept and sample chapters to Roxarne Burns at Pan Macmillan. I did it, but didn't expect anything - besides, I had only written ten chapters of a concept fantasy novel. On March 11, 1990, Roxarne Burns rang from Sydney to offer a contract for a three novel fantasy series. Just like that. I was stunned, amazed - and shocked because my dream to be a writer was a sudden reality, but I only had 10 chapters of what eventually become 150 chapters across three books! Of course, I accepted, and my writing career was underway. |
|
Which novel of your own work is your personal favourite?
|
That's like asking a parent which child is their favourite - they're all my favourite! I will confess that The Last Wizard is a special novel for me because I created the central character - Tamesan - as a hybrid of my daughters, and the messages in it are messages for them about how they should shape their lives. Having said that, every one of my novels has its special flavour for me.
|
|
Who is your favourite author?
|
It's terrible to say, but I don't have any favourite authors. Because I know how hard it used to be before digital publishing to even get into fiction print with publishing companies, I admire anyone who manages it. There are many, many clever and amazing writers I have read, some hardly known and certainly not famous. As a reader, you have to take risks if you want to really discover the story tellers of humanity. I have had amusing moments when meeting other authors though, knowing that if I was rude/daring enough I could have collected some impressive signatures from people like Raymond Feist, Terry Pratchet, John Marsden and so on, people I've eaten with, or shared time with at conferences.
|
|
Are you influenced by other writers?
|
Absolutely! I remember reading Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers in awe - not so much the archaic writing but just the whole portrayal of the musketeers and the political intrigue set in an historical background. Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Shakespeare's Macbeth, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye - the list of writers whose story-telling skills influenced how and what I wanted to write is endless. Poets like Bruce Dawe, dramatists like Arthur Miller, songwriters like Eminem - almost every text I've read in some way influences me as a writer.
|