How long have you been writing?
I’ve been writing stories since I learned to write, but I decided to become a writer in 1998 when a friend of mine gifted me his old 486 computer which had word processing software on it.
How many books have you written? Which is your favourite?
11 books bear my name, but I’ve also ghostwritten six others for clients. My next book, Satan’s Choppers which is the third book in the Callumron series will be published in January 2025. Which is my favourite? What an unfair question. Ha ha. It’s like choosing your favourite child. If pressed to name one, I’d probably go for Love Sick Love, which was the most difficult to write, from both an emotional and technical point of view.
What difference do you see between a writer and an author?
It’s pretty fuzzy and I’m not sure it’s an important distinction. In my mind authors are writers who write stories. Writers don’t write stories, but as I said that’s probably a false and unnecessary distinction.
What do you think makes a good story?
The characters; people and relationships. Irrespective of what’s happening or where it’s happening, I’m most interested in the relationships between the characters and their growth as people. So long as the characters are authentic and properly nuanced, I don’t really care about the plot or the genre for that matter.
What is your work schedule like when you’re writing?
I have a full-time teaching job so writing is squeezed in before and after that; early mornings and evenings, as well as Saturdays. I don’t work on Sundays. Over the course of a week, I may get somewhere between10 and 15 hours worth of writing work done.
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I write best when I’m listening to heavy metal music. I don’t need anything else, just those crunching, distorted guitars, thumping bass and drums and screamed vocals. People can’t believe it when I tell them. They wonder how I can concentrate, but I’ve been a headbanger since my teens, so it works for me. It helps me focus. I’m listening to Bullet for my Valentine now, as I write answers to these questions.
Where do you get your information or ideas for your books?
My ideas come from observation. I never know when a new idea will drop but I try to pay attention to life and particularly to people because there is so much inspiration in the ordinariness of life which the more you think about it is much less ordinary than it appears. I’m also a very curious person so sometimes I begin with a question as use the story to figure out a satisfactory answer.
What’s your favourite and least favourite part of publishing.
I’ve been writing for 26 years and am still wandering around in the Forest of Obscurity. My writing is good, so my problem is obviously marketing. I find this part of being a writer both time consuming and frustrating. The best part is connecting with a reader. Someone once told me that a scene on one of my books made her cry. That was extremely gratifying.
How did you come up with the title for your book?
My new book, available in January 2025, is the third book in the Callumron series and is set in Darwin, in the Northern Territory of Australia. All the books in the series feature an interplay between demonic forces and insects, so I chose the dragonfly because it is an emblem of the city of Darwin. Dragonflies have extraordinary aerial ability. No man-made flying machine comes close to it really, but perhaps the closet is the helicopter. Helicopters are known as ‘choppers’ and because the dragonflies are under the control of the Devil in the book, I thought Satan’s Choppers sounded like a cool and suitably ambiguous title.
If you’re planning a sequel, can you share a tiny bit about your plans for it?
The Callumron series will be on hiatus for a little while I am working on another standalone novel in the contemporary literary genre. However, I have a fourth Callumron book planned. It will be set mostly in Scotland, the land of my forefathers on Dad’s side and will feature a battle against a well known and powerfully evil creature from Scottish folklore. Callum and Ande’s relationship will continue to develop as Callum searches for the truth about his past.