Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m 55, from the UK, and my day job is something dull in IT. Although I did once save the Swedish Stock Exchange.
I’m primarily a lyricist and spoken word artist, so although I’ve contributed to something like twenty or thirty albums, I’ve only written the one book so far. The catch is that it’s taken me thirty years and is basically my life’s work, away from music.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
It’s called ‘The Engineering of Coincidence: a scientific explanation of magic” and it is the culmination of my twin lifelong interests of science, and things that current science can’t explain, normally mischaracterised as “supernatural” and “paranormal”. I wanted to explain some of these unexplained things without going on about “vibrations in the ether” and “the gypsies coming from Atlantis” and all that rubbish.
It turns out that current science actually has a few tricks up its sleeve that can make things much more straightforward.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I’m very, very, lazy. This does, however, dovetail nicely with the fact that I need a long time to think about things before coming to any definite conclusions. Which is why this book has taken thirty years to write.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Oh, loads. Sean Carroll, Peter Carroll, Lewis Caroll…
The first books I bought when I started researching this subject were Arthur Koestler’s “The Roots of Coincidence” and Nick Herbert’s “Quantum Reality”. The book that really blew me away though is David Deutsch’s “The Fabric of Reality”. Amazing book.
What are you working on now?
I’m working on my second album. Very, very, slowly. So far, I have a few sketches, an album cover and a title. My first album is called “Confound and Disturb” and this one is going to be called “Press to Exist”.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I’m hoping this one!
So far, I’ve had the best results with Facebook advertising. Amazon is great, but people normally come to Amazon looking for something, and I think they are less open to adverts because of that.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Write first. Edit later. It’s much easier to rearrange and nip and tuck what you’ve already written than it is to write it in the first place. So try and turn off any internal criticism and worry that would normally go through your brain and get the words down. If it turns out to be rubbish, you will have plenty of time to get rid of it. And then write something better.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know”. Especially if you can follow it up with “…but I’m going to try and find out!”
What are you reading now?
Tom Siegfried’s “The Bit and the Pendulum”. It’s about whether information can be considered to be a physical thing. I feel sure I’ve missed something vital about the nature of information, so I’m reading this book to give me an overview that I can start thinking about.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I have a few short stories buried here and there. Maybe I will complete some of the uinfinished ones and put them all together into a book.
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?
“The Wall of Years” by Andrew Stephenson. An obscure science fiction book about parallel universes, and the Saxons.
“The Fabric of Reality” by David Deutsch, for reasons mentioned earlier.
“The Book of the Ler” by M.A. Foster. Another obscure science fiction (trilogy this time) about a parallel race of humans.
Author Websites and Profiles
Robert Ramsay Amazon Profile
Robert Ramsay’s Social Media Links
Goodreads Profile
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