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Uploaded 29/10/03

Modern Author Interview The following interview has been reproduced by kind permission of the interviewer, Richard Smith and the Modern Author Website   Thank you for agreeing to do an interview with us. Not a problem. Thanks for asking.   When did you begin writing and why? It started when I won an essay prize in primary school. It was a Competition organized by Nestle and I won a box of chocolates. I won it the next year too. I think after that I associated writing with getting chocolate, a connection that continues to the present.   Do you think of writing as a vocation, or just something anyone could/should do? I think anybody could do it if they really wanted to, but it's the wanting to that is the key. It's not a high road to fame and fortune or money or chocolate. I have made a living solely as a writer one way or another for about 15 years now and there have been periods when it has been anything but comfortable financially. On the other hand, it has been very enjoyable but that's because I like writing. I meet lots of people who want to be writers, but who say they find writing torture. I can't understand that. My advice would be to find something you like doing. Saying that, I have met some very successful writers who find writing painful so this is obviously only one man's opinion.   What genre do you write in? Fantasy and SF.   Where can your books be viewed/bought? In most bookshops I hope. I even see them in Tesco here in the Czech Republic.   In the Warhammer and Warhammer 40K worlds, which are your favourite groups and why? I like the worshippers of Chaos, but I rarely write about them. It's the rebel in me.   Do the Nordic cultures of the real world interest you, is this why you chose the Space Wolf chapter to write about? Like a lot of boys I was fascinated by Norse mythology when I was a kid. It carried over into later years when I found myself reading things like Heimskringla and assorted sagas. Incidentally, I also once wrote a Viking fantasy novel for a Swedish publisher which was then translated into Swedish. [Demonjägaren (Demon Wolf) - published 1997]   How much research did you have to do to write Space Wolf? Actually very little that I had not already done in the course of my normal reading. I helped write the background for the Chapter when I worked at Games Workshop so I was fairly well clued up on it. All the work was in the original background.   The first person perspective is notoriously difficult to write in, do you usually write in this format (as you did in Space Wolf) and have you encountered any difficulties with it? The fact that the story is told entirely from Ragnar's perspective is quite limiting in a lot of ways. It obviously means that you can only show the reader what he has witnessed, you can't cross cut to show what’s happening elsewhere to build tension and advance the plot and so on. To be honest, it came about this way by accident. The book originally started with Ragnar and his father as primitive barbarians on a sea voyage and was all set to progress like a normal third person view point novel. When I handed in the first section of the book, GW thought it was confusing to the readers that what was meant to be a SF series opened like a S&S novel so they asked for the prologue to be put in, establishing the basic SF setting and the fact that Ragnar was telling the story in flashback. After that was done it would have been cheating to have written the novel from other points of view so I was kind of stuck with the format. It seems to work for this series but I would not do it again.   How much influence does Games Workshop have over the eventual outcomes of your plotlines? It really depends. Most of the time they don't interfere. Of course, if they really don't like the book they can simply not publish it.   What advice would you give anyone thinking about going into writing as a career? Be sure you actually like writing, as opposed to the idea of being a writer. Acquire some other skills so you can make a living if it all goes belly up. Make sure you have some money set aside for the bad times. Get used to living cheaply. On the other hand, if you really want to do it, do it. Don't talk about writing a novel, or plan to write one some day. Start right now!   Have you been tempted to write for any other genre? Detective novels, spy novels and travel books all interest me but fantasy remains my first love.   What is your favourite book right now? Of the ones I have read recently I liked David Gemmell's White Wolf. My favourite book is probably Oliver Twist.   Within your books, is there a character you relate to most? Felix Jaeger. He is just a fairly ordinary guy caught up in fairly demented adventures.   Where do you see yourself in ten years time with your writing? Probably still writing fantasy novels. I really enjoy it.   I saw on your site that you have played Dungeons and Dragons for quite a while. What was your favourite character? Did any of your D&D characters make it into your books? My favourite character of the ones I played was called Ragnar, no relation to the character in the books. He was a very bombastic warrior who was not quite as tough as he thought he was. To be honest, I can't think of any D&D characters who have made it into my books. A scenario I once ran for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay provided the plot for my first Warhammer story Geheimnisnacht though.   Is there anything you would like to add? Can't think of anything off the top of my head!   [ Top ]     [ Interviews ]