Interview With Author Richard Bass
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I have written a total of 7 books now over the past 15 years.
I started off writing non-fiction books with a friend, where we would answer questions about a different topic during each chapter. These found an audience and did rather well, so we tried our hand at writing fiction books together, which was a great experience.
A lot of time went by with me sat on multiple unfinished books, when I spoke to my friend Bex about my dream to write a comic and sell it at MCM Comic-Con. She has worked on many comics and is an incredible artist. Her immediate reaction was to suggest we make one, which became Nyaegling.
Nyaegling has been an absolute whirlwind for me.
We did a Kickstarter together with 3 friends and raised over £10,000 to fund creating copies of each book. Then as per my dream, we went to MCM Comic-Con in London together and had an absolute blast selling copies in person! We’ve since sold at several more events and I’ll never get tired of the experience!
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Nyaegling was initially born out of the discussion around my dreams of creating a comic that was good enough to sell at Comic-Con.
We started discussing what we would like to create and agreed that Fantasy would be a fun genre. Bex has a huge talent for drawing Catgirls and so it was an obvious choice to base the story around a Cat (who we named Tabitha) on an adventure with their best friend, a Mouse we called Nyx.
I wanted to start things off with a small focused journey that expands into something bigger as Nyx and Tabitha progress.
We gave her the initial task of retrieving an antique sword that had been taken from her during an ambush that sees Tabitha locked in a cell atop a tower at the start of the book.
The sword is important and carries a lot of history within it, so I thought about which swords I was most aware of as a fan of the Fantasy genre.
In the story Beowulf, he is gifted Naegling to help him fight various beasts, including a mighty dragon.
I quickly realised that combining this name with the common ‘Nya’ sound that Anime Catgirls are known for saying in place of ‘Meow’ we could create an ancient and powerful sword that borrows from one of the UK’s oldest fantasy stories.
I’m very proud of the story we created and i’m excited to revisit the world in future to build on Nyaegling’s legacy.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I find it extremely useful to text myself ideas and notes which I can then type up when i’m at my computer. So my phone has a ‘ME’ contact listed, where the messages are all massive paragraphs of story beats or lists of plot points, questions and things I need to untangle.
During the writing process for Nyaegling we used Google Docs a lot to enable us to leave comments and break everything out into specific panels and pages. Alongside this I have spreadsheets that lay out each plot point, each character’s journey through the story, important items and so forth.
We also put together a document that details all of the lore and world history, as this was beginning to confuse Bex if I kept referring to things that I had vaguely mentioned a month ago and never noted down since. She quickly put together a format for me to lore dump into and then we have tidied it bit by bit, answering any lingering questions she had, so that we can keep things consistent throughout.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Of course, Beowulf has had a huge impact here in terms of naming the sword and thinking about some of the staples of the genre that had to be considered.
Alongside this I grew up loving Enid Blyton’s ‘Magic Far Away Tree’, Stephen King’s ‘The Dark Tower’, ‘Animals of Farthing Wood’ by Colin Dann and more recently ‘Mouse Guard’ by David Petersen.
Bex’s artwork under the name ‘Schnumn’ was also a huge inspiration for me and it was a huge honour to work with her. She is a wonderful friend and my life is immeasurably better for knowing her.
What are you working on now?
I am midway through the next book for Nyaegling, but that will likely see daylight in 2027 as Bex is working on her passion project which looks amazing.
I am also three quarters through a book that I hope to finish within the next year if I can! I’ll be sure to update when it’s ready.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I am hoping it’ll be Awesome Gang! Beyond that I use social media, my gaming podcast, Tiktok and YouTube to try and spread the word far and wide. I hope that one day i’ll be able to do this type of thing full time and spend my days building epic worlds for people to read.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Keep at it, there are no barriers to entry and you can continue to improve as a writer even while you’re not writing your books. My day job requires a lot of writing, I spend a lot of time writing great long posts on social media. It helps me stay in the habit and then knocking out 500-1000 words isn’t so bad!
Also network, but do it genuinely. Make friends with people that are like you, that are interesting to you, that you can have a conversation with. You will start to form communities and become part of them, before you know it you’ll find yourselves working on projects together. I joined a community created by Bex and have since written multiple short comics, three video games, some poems and I am learning to draw. If you’re surrounded by creativity, it becomes impossible to resist the urge to get stuck in! Discord is a great place to find communities like this. Facebook too.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Its easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
That doesn’t mean ‘do crime’ – haha! It means don’t worry about what other people think. If you have an idea and it doesn’t quite go to plan, do you need to apologise to anyone for that? Probably not. But if you do, they’ll accept an apology because you were acting in good faith. But if you have an idea and you ask for permission to do it, will someone stop you? Will you ever know if your idea was good? Don’t ask, just do it and see what sticks. I’ve had some amazing opportunities off the back of just trying things, sending an email, asking a question.
What are you reading now?
I am midway through a Mouse Guard book and It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood. I am also constantly working my way through John Allison’s comics on Patreon. I love the way his mind works and the way he writes is perfect.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I am hoping that from Nyaegling I will be able to build a series and also work with other artists to build more graphic novels. Meanwhile it has given me a push to get my books finished too, I would like to build a larger catalogue and turn this into a full time career.
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?
I think I would struggle with this like most! I’d likely bring along a copy of Hearts in Atlantis as I read it when I was 15 and felt like it changed something in my head. I would bring a copy of Animals of Farthing Wood because I love their harrowing journey to White Deer Park. Alongside these, I would probably bring Nyaegling to keep myself positive by remembering something I’m proud of and lastly an empty notebook (and pencil!) so I can make notes and doodle in the book whenever I have ideas I want to write down. I think I’d be lost without that otherwise!
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