Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m a martial artist, author, and confirmed introvert. I currently live on the Western edge of Canada with a pair of Siamese cats. I originally come from Gibraltar, and I spent my childhood aboard a yacht named ‘Gub-Gub’ sailing around the Caribbean, Southern Europe, and North Africa. I still enjoying wandering around and seeing new places, and if I can do it from horseback, that makes me even happier.
I started writing books during my sojourn in a UK boarding school, and haven’t stopped since. I’ve currently got four books in my science-fiction series published, and I’m planning to bring out my first urban fantasy about a team of vampire hunters based on a yacht in the Tropics out in autumn. After that I’m almost certainly going to go back to work on the next in the sci-fi series, as my characters are getting insistent (I’m a ‘voices in the head’ type of author, much to the frustration of various bosses and acquaintances).
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest book is called ‘Elemental Conflict’, and it’s the fourth in my Cortii Universe sci-fi series, following Khyria’s story as she heads off to the edges of what’s euphemistically called civilised space in a last-ditch attempt to save her sanity and her command.
I’ve been playing with the characters in that series in various forms since I was five or six, and ‘Elemental Conflict’ leads on from a train of events begun in ‘Elemental Affinity’, where Khyria is assigned to support Federal Planets Alliance troops in exploring a society petitioning for Alliance membership.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
That’s a dangerous question to ask a writer; the more writers I get to know, the wider my definition of ‘unusual’ gets…
Probably my most unusual habit is the cat toss. One of my cats actually loves the sensation of being launched through the air, and will jump up on the edge of a desk or table just to get you to gently toss him back at the floor. He hops straight back up again purring like a two-stroke, all excited to go again.
Needless to say, when my hobby involves hours sitting at a desk, we play this game a lot.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Probably enough to send everyone to sleep if I went into all of them here, but I’ll do my best.
Dorothy Dunnett deserves a mention for the most fantastic character development I’ve ever read; she writes the way I hope I will if I ever grow up as an author. Anne McCaffrey, who was my first contact with the varied worlds of science-fiction at the tender age of nine or ten; Jack Higgins, who writes hyper-realistic, gritty thrillers that gave me my preference for practical solutions to problems in my books; and almost certainly Terry Pratchett, whose talent for surgically exposing the nonsense underpinning society has no equal.
What are you working on now?
Currently I’m in the editing, aka pounding sand, stages of my first urban fantasy story, ‘Death is for the Living’. As you probably guessed from the title, it’s a vampire theme.
Most people consider vampires to be a plague from the shadows of the Old World, but before modern borders divided the lands around it, the Caribbean Sea was better known as the Spanish Main.
In the Tropics, the prey comes out to play after dark.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I’m still in what’s politely known as the experimental stage in that regard. Like a lot of authors, I’m perfectly happy in the 50,000-300,000 word range, and utterly paralysed when it comes to trying to write the kind of short, impactful copy that results in hordes rushing off to buy my book.
My favourite method is to join a small but active group of fellow-authors and all work together as a kind of immoral-support group to share tips and cross-promote. I’m still waiting for best-seller status, but I have a great group of people to chat to meanwhile.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Don’t expect to get rich quick. Write because you love writing. Don’t feel obliged to chase the latest trend, and for the love of anything you hold holy, don’t feel obliged to dumb down your work in case some readers may not be able to follow it. If you have a story that grabs them, they’ll find a dictionary if they have to.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Always write a scene from the point of view of the person with the most to lose.
What are you reading now?
I’m working my way through Jack Campbell’s Lost Stars series. I actually enjoy Lost Stars more than the predecessor series, Lost Fleet, mostly because there are no perfect heroes in Lost Stars – they’re all cynical, all with less-than-stellar pasts, and they all expect everyone else to double-cross them at the drop of a hat. It probably sheds some very uncomplimentary light on my reading tastes that I find those types of characters much more relatable than the perfect heroes and heroines.
What’s next for you as a writer?
As my sci-fi characters are mercenary shock troops highly trained in assault techniques, I suspect I’m not going to hold out much longer before I end up working on #5 in my Cortii Universe series. It’s already drafted, but I foresee some major editing work in my future to polish it up for publication.
I’m also working on a Cortii Universe short that started playing in my head over summer, and will probably end up as #4.5 at some point; it takes a side-turning to bring Khyria and Irin Seviki back together for an unexpected summons to Central Worlds.
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?
Faded Sun, by C J Cherryh; Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett; Game of Kings, by Dorothy Dunnett; and The Horse and His Boy, by C S Lewis.
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