Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
Mahalo – young jedi checking in. Somewhat listless, I reached the conclusion aged 22 that writing was the only viable course of action and vocation I could take. It was the only thing I felt passionately about and could do reasonably well. Left England, moved to Spain, chose Ibiza.
While in Spain I wrote a screenplay in a rural villa with a cockney called Steve, who was twice my age. Ibiza is a beautiful island, but while the Ibicencan lifestyle catered to my taste for excess, I knew I had to see more of the world and had a vague suspicion my health would begin to fail me if I stuck around the Balearic isles much longer, so I promptly bounced in the middle of winter to Thailand. The intention was to write a documentary being filmed on a Muay Thai camp in Phuket, but the videographer in question who’d invited me had to leave due to family troubles on my sixth day. Southeast Asia was cheap and exotic after Latin Europe, and far cheaper than Ibiza, and besides, I needed a break from narcotic hedonism for a while so I purposely missed my return flight from Bangkok, deciding to stay on in Thailand.
Scraping by on freelance copywriting, I also worked as a martial arts reporter across SeA and then a year-and-a-half after moving there, heard that Steve, with whom I’d completely lost touch, had died. I remembered our old film script, which I’d neglected. The realisation I was wasting my (admittedly sun-kissed and tropical) life hit hard, not to mention failing to live up to the ‘writer’ moniker I’d completely unjustifiably given myself in Spain at 22, so I novelised our old screenplay into the alternate history epic “Jackboot Britain”. I spoke to some interested agencies about publishing it but grew impatient, and self-published with Amazon (e-book) & Createspace (paperback). In only six months or so, it has sold thousands of copies, with fifteen hundred free promotional downloads. I’ve been lucky.
Since then I moved to Bali, Indonesia with three of my friends, who’ve set a successful Mixed Martial Arts gym up, and I have written two more novels. Like Jackboot, they’re self-published. Unlike Jackboot, they haven’t sold. But, every mistake is a lesson. Peaks and troughs, as the old cliché goes! Even Charles Dickens and George Orwell weren’t celebrated in this field until posthumously. At 26 I’ve got four full decades left to leave a mark, provided I don’t die an unexpected and presumably horrible death in my 20s or 30s. Either way, I’ll Keep The Aspidistra Flying.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The last one out was “The Acid Diary: LSD, Thailand & The Heart of a Heartless World”. As is probably self-evident, it deals with spirituality and existentialism in the form of a novelised (fictional) account of a holiday a friend and I took in a secluded hippy enclave in Ko Pha Ngan.
My latest is a return to the first; “Jackboot Russia”, a sequel to the alternate history “Jackboot Britain”.
“Jackboot Spain” is also in the works, along with a handful of other novels and novellas I’ve got on the back-burner.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
My second and third novels (of three currently published) were written on one single Microsoft Word document. Just with basically a notes page or two, then that skeleton fleshed out, and before long I was just typing away in long sessions. “Kings of the Jungle” and “The Acid Diary” were thus a rather quick exercise in speed typing. Regarding the latter though, it’s gotten good reports from the few who’ve read it! And I do mean “the few”.
For serious topical matter though – Jackboot Britain, Jackboot Russia, Jackboot Spain – and anything with multiple concurrent storylines, I tend to treat it a bit more methodically / cerebrally. You can’t treat genocide, scientific racism and military occupation with the same ebb and flow as when novelising acid trips in a Thailand hippy community.
I *did* write a book whilst tripping on LSD, if that counts as unusual? Hardly an endorsement of the lysergic acids though, as it sold less than ten.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
George Orwell and Aldous Huxley for their insight and wisdom into the human condition circa the first half of the 20th century, and their understanding and enunciation of the nature of power, influence and dictatorship and those who seek it. Huxley’s understanding of the world continues to bear relevance now, half a century after his death, not to mention his pioneering writing on psychedelic drugs. Orwell was a habitual truth-seeker who experienced imperialist/capitalist, fascist and communist tyranny first-hand in his remarkable life, and it made him the literary titan that he was; that, and a great deal of personal fortitude and courage.
Beyond them, William Shakespeare enunciated the key truths of our human condition and provided moral and ethical comment of a nature that no cult, creed or religion ever could. A special and one of a kind writer, the likes of which we’ll possibly/probably never see again.
Orwell, Huxley and Shakespeare are special to me, but there’s tons of others whose work I appreciate. Charles Dickens, Seb Faulks, William Blake, Tolkien, J.K Rowling, Alan Moore… too many to name.
What are you working on now?
“Jackboot Russia” – a sequel to my alternate history epic and debut novel “Jackboot Britain”.
It will be followed up with a prequel, “Jackboot Spain”.
My third novel “The Acid Diary” will get a prequel of sorts with “The Mescaline Diary”, due this year. Goody gumdrops.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
As of now, AwesomeGang, of course.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Keep writing. Use criticism or failure to drive you. Enunciate what is important to you; tell the stories your soul wants to share. Don’t just phone it in, or do it for money. Do it for love. Shine on.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
“Don’t quit”
“Be a writer”
“You can do it”
“Be an energiser not an energy sapper”
“Never give in to astonishment”
“Act like it’s natural”
Too much to list. Most of the above either came from my mother, from my godfather Simon Clifford or from my brother-from-another-mother Andrew Leone.
What are you reading now?
“On The Road” by Kerouac. Charming old tale of cross-country travel in the States. Makes me thankful to have spent years in Latin Europe and Southeast Asia while still in my early twenties. Too many young people don’t get out in time to truly live. There’s nothing worse than the death of hope.
Also re-reading Beevor’s “Stalingrad”, Preston’s “The Spanish Holocaust” and some Hitchens polemics.
What’s next for you as a writer?
A skyrocketing supersonic supernova of a career? Ropes parting, doors opening, handshakes proffered? Joining *The 27 Club* next year? Posthumous fame á la Dickens and Orwell? Tomorrow never knows, does it.
For the time being, “Jackboot Russia”, back to Bali, “Jackboot Spain” and thence on to lighter topic matter. Travel and transcendence, psychedelia and the stuff of the sun-kissed.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
*Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia”, to remind me of the human condition, of war and of Nietzschean values and betrayal even in the midst of an egalitarian and just movement of the people.
*Orwell’s “Keep the Aspidistra Flying” (Animal Farm and 1984 would be unnecessary on a desert island, and besides, Homage to Catalonia has those bases covered to a certain extent. Huxley’s “Island” misses out too)
*Faulks’ “Birdsong”. Always loved that one.
*Tolstoy’s “War & Peace”, just because I’ll be on a desert island and I need something weighty. That, and the fact he’s brilliant.
Just a shame I can’t read him in his own language, much like Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Oh, or that. Getting there with castellano too, I’ll take a Spanish edition.
If it were top ten, Don Quixote, Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and the first, fourth and seventh “Harry Potter” books by J.K. Rowling would go with me, and any one of Huxley’s. “Lord of the Flies” would be funny in that situation. But no way I’m getting stranded on a desert island without at least a few thousand books, a lifetime’s supply of tabs and a Peruvian Torch cactus. It’s inconceivable. Not happening.
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