www.morpheustales.com What is your proudest moment as a writer? I’ve had a succession of them: getting my first story acceptance, the first time I was invited to contribute to an anthology, the first time I had a story picked for a ‘best of’ anthology, my first novel getting published… the point is to keep looking ahead and trying to focus on what hill you want to climb next. You should never have had your proudest moment; that should still be to come.
Spindly Men are an old legend in certain parts of Lancashire: when the night wind blows on dale and fell, the Spindly Men come up from Hell. They’re hideously thin and tattered figures without faces, and if they touch you, you’ll see Hell. And it will kill you. That’s the legend, anyway. But the reality’s worse than that; you’ll have to read The Faceless to find out what it is. What is the most important thing when becoming a writer? You need a very strong work ethic, which has to go hand in hand with an almost religious commitment to and belief in your own work. At the same time, as I said above, you need to be your own harshest critic as well as taskmaster. Oh, and did I mention the nearimpossible balancing act of being thickskinned enough to handle bad reviews and rejections while staying open enough to feel everything to the full?
Are you disappointed with any of your work when you look back on it? On the whole, no, apart from a few very early stories, most of them thankfully unpublished. There’s always time, though! What's the best piece of feedback that you've had from your audience? Never ask me to pick a ‘best’ or ‘favourite.’ I’m hopeless at them and you get very long lists instead. (You’ve probably noticed this by now.) Although my first fan letter - from Mark West, now a pretty well-known writer himself - has to be a strong contender. Michael Marshall Smith was my favourite writer at that time, so being told I’d written a story that was similar to but better than one of his was praise indeed.
Do you write for a particular audience, or for yourself? I think Stephen King put it best: to please others and to please myself. The second part, though, is the most important; otherwise the work is hollow and the praise meaningless. What do you like to do when you’re not writing? Go out walking. Watch DVDs. Listen to music. Go to gigs. Spend time with my girlfriend. Luckily, she’s a writer, too. It
Your latest novel The Faceless is out now; who are The Faceless (or the Spindly men) and why are they so terrifying? Are they terrifying? If so, thanks! The 43