Here we go again...

[martinlivings]

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me!"
2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will post the answers to the questions (and the questions themselves) on your blog or journal.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5.When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.



1 - What would you really like to achieve with your writing career?

Contentment. But then again, isn't that the death of creativity? Nah, just to make enough money to make a living from it. Almost as unrealistic as being the next Stephen King, I know, but I can dream, can't I?

2 - What book has had the most influence upon you?

God, I have no idea where my influences come from. Certainly Stephen King's On Writing was an enormous inspiration in terms of actually knuckling down and doing it. But actual novels that have influenced me? Not a clue. Maybe those cheap paperbacks I used to buy from the deli around the corner from my house, Fungus and Cannibal and Snowman and the like.

3 - What book would you have liked to have written?

Fungus and Cannibal and Snowman and the like? ;) Nah, the only book I would like to have written is the next book I want to write. Whatever that is! Maybe my long-gestating crime thriller, Mister Phoenix.

4 - If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be?'

I wish I was younger, healthier, independantly wealthy, and living in a nice maisonette in Camden. Oh wait, one thing? Umm... well, let's go with the Camden one!

5 - What has been the happiest moment of your life to date?

The day my first story was accepted? The day it was published? The day Carnies was accepted? The day I first held a copy in my hands? Nope, none of those. November 23rd, 2001, the day I first met Isabelle in the flesh. Hands down, too easy.

Comments

[stephen-dedman.livejournal.com]

In the immortal and immoral words of George W. Bush, "Bring 'em on!"

[martinlivings.livejournal.com]

1. WHat was the big breakthrough for you in your writing career? Was there a moment when you realised that you'd crossed a line, and that you'd gone from a hobbyist to a capital 'w' Writer?

2. Now that you own a bookshop, thus controlling both the beginning and end points of the writing process, have you considered starting a publishing house and cutting out the middle man entirely?

3. If you could live absolutely anywhere in the world, where would it be? Discuss.

4. Due to unexpected mutation, you suddenly have a superpower. Which would you like it to be, and which do you think is probably most appropriate for you?

5. Beatles or Elvis?

[stephen-dedman.livejournal.com]

1. I've made that mistake a few times - in the 80s when I began regularly selling to FGU; in 91, when I sold four stories to F&Sf; in 97, when the advance for Arrow Cutting and a package from the public service enabled me to quit my day job and write full-time. All of these successes, sadly, were ephemeral: FGU folded, I've never sold another story to F&Sf, and the only novel I've had published since Savage Gods was a tie-in in a series that also seems to have ended.

2. No. I'm crazy, but not that crazy. I would only consider it if I had enough money left over that I could publish books that I really wanted to see in print, regardless of profitability.

3. It would depend on my income, and the availability of healthcare for Elaine... but if I didn't have to worry about those, then either Oxford (lovely city, and convenient to Europe, with the only real problem being those appalling British winters), San Francisco, Toronto, or Seattle.

4. Teleportation. Can't you tell by the way I was so indecisive about question 3?

5. Beatles. No contest.