1: Thank you so much for being here, Graeme. First up is the obligatory question. When did
you first begin writing?
I first began writing at school. I hated it. They told me what
to write (never what I wanted to), how long it was supposed to be and then told
me the result was rubbish.
Mostly they were right J.
Later (much later – I was about 20, around the time I finished
sanding down a cave wall in what would one day be Lascaux, ready for a local
painter to get working), I got into PBM. That’s Play By Mail gaming. Players
wrote ‘turns’ – a few paragraphs or so – about what they wanted their
characters to do, sent them to a Games Master, who mixed them all up and sent
back the results. Rinse and repeat.
I used to send, um, a bit more than a paragraph or two. Say, twenty
pages a turn. Per game. Per week :-)..
Flash forward some few years, skip over the Jurassic period
(exciting at times, mostly boring, lots of running screaming
‘mummmmmiiiiieeeeeee!’) and get to, oh, about 2003. I was in an online game (we
had these computer things then). I’d been waiting for this game to be released
for, oh, a year or so. I’d spent six months developing a back story for the
character I was going to play (a dragon - he’s still there). I bumped into
another player who wanted some help with something similar. Just a page or so…
Four years later, we’d written a book together :-).
Some people who bought it said it was rubbish. They were
probably right.
Some people who bought it said it was great. They were probably
right too. For them.
The rest is history. Or the future. Or both. I developed a severe
inability to stop typing, and my wife got new earplugs.
I tend to hammer keyboards :-P.
2: What inspired you to write?
Remember those Role-playing games? Well, back in the days when I
still had hair, I was still using paper and pen in a deep, dark dungeon. The
Play by Mail thing (that’s like Lord of the Rings Online, but with really,
really bad server lag). I’d write twenty pages a week about the deeds of
someone like Ibrahim Yunus, Grand Vizier of the Hiyiros and part-time poet.
Then I’d post them off to the mysterious Game Master and await the results. By
post. Along with a whole mess of other people, trying to make sure they got
what they wanted and I – or Ibrahim - didn’t. Then I realised I was looking at
new games before they were released and spending perhaps six months inventing a
‘someone’. A real someone (as real as an invented someone can be) with real
history, with real virtues and real flaws.
Kind of like you do for a book.
I got it. Eventually. I knew I liked playing those games, but
what I really loved was making the ‘someones’. So I still play, but now I make
a lot more ‘someones’. Someones like Segorian the Idiot. Like Charlie the
ferryman turned trucker. Like - like a whole load I haven’t made yet.
But I will.
3: What do you like the most and least about
writing?
What do I like most? I like starting. Not having the first idea
where I’m going, but going there anyway.
Yes. I admit it. My name’s Graeme, and I’m a pantster :-).
What do I like least? Finishing. Finishing a book, at least.
Once it’s done, once my wings have folded from that particular flight of fancy
– the book sort of dies. Oh, there’s the whole new truck of work if it’s
supposed to go out on the street – beta readers, edits, more reads, more edits,
polishing, more edits – but the flying? That’s not really flying time.
I like flying :-).
4: What do you for fun and relaxation when not
writing?
I’m still an online gamer - If you know Bard
Elcano, you know me. If you know a grumpy old dragon called Sephiranoth, you
know me. If you know a tall, dark, handsome but brooding vampire, charming
witty and brilliant - we never met. That's someone else :-). I cook – nobody’s
died yet. I write things that aren’t the things I write to put on the street
(if you asked what, I might have to say the p word, and that’s really not a
good idea :-P). I build the occasional web site and sometimes write computer
code. Sometimes (a lot less sometimes) the code even works :-P.
5: Which authors do you like to read?
Phew. How long have we got :-P.?
See, when I was about ten I was reading around fifteen books a
week. My mother actually had to talk the local library into letting me into the
adult sections because I’d read everything in the other bits three times over.
These days? Draws breath….
Tom Holt, Jim Butcher, Guy Gavriel Kay, Terry Pratchett, R. F.
Delderfield, J. B. Priestley, Steven Brust, Craig Shaw Gardner…
I could go on. Well, and on and on and on and on… but most
people already know I can do that. Go on, I mean. So I’ll try not to :-).
6: What’s the one thing you’d most like people
to know about you?
Not much. I don’t think readers (I’d say ‘people’, but I keep
hoping most people are still readers, even if not mine. Yet :-P) need to know
much about the writer. I’ll chicken out and say ‘I’d like them to know they
like to read what I like to write.’
7: Tell me about your current novel, where I can
find it and your website/blog.
My website (Writing the Bright Fantastic) and blog
can be found at
I tend to post blog entries as near once a week as I
can, generally about whatever writing related madness has crossed my mind
recently. As to current novel - hmmm. There’s more than once answer to that. My
‘current’ anything tends to be the one or more I haven’t finished yet :-).
The one closest to being available (to be published
in 2012 by MuseItUp Publishing) is ‘A Comedy of Terrors’.
CoT tells the tale of Segorian, Court Idiot to Queen
Sonea of Peladon. He was hired because he has the sort of face nobody ever
remembers. That’s important. It’s his job to be blamed for anything that goes
wrong, and be exiled-for-life. In a Queen’s castle, wine spilt
down the wrong dress can lead to a declaration of war. So someone unimportant
has to be blamed for it, and that’s the Idiot. He’s the Idiot that did it, for
any value of ‘it’. Of course, as soon as he’s exiled-for-life out of the castle
gate, he uses his back-door key and sneaks in. To wait for next time.
But that's not all the job. Someday, something really bad will happen. Really,
really bad. Badder than a bad thing on a very bad day with extra badness. So when
when the world’s about to end (or the washing up won’t get done – whichever
comes first), who you gonna call? No, not them. They haven’t been invented yet.
You call the Idiot, so you can risk someone nobody will miss if things don’t
work out. And now Peladon has a case of dragon.
But like I said. The dragon may be the easy part. Segorian has woman trouble,
and he’s the only person in the castle who doesn’t know it. Because to
Segorian, women are an open book. The problem is, he never learned to read…
8: Do you have any tips for
aspiring authors?
One thing I totally agree with is something Piers Anthony once
told me (OK – that’s name dropping. He generously agreed to a very short
interview on my site once :-P). He said:
‘write if it is in your heart to do so,
but don't depend on it for money.’
The other thing I would say is something Doris Lessing (not
many writers of Science Fiction also have a Nobel Prize) once said. When asked
if she knew why she was so successful when so many others were not, she said
(and the quote isn’t precise) that the only difference between her and the
others was that she didn’t give up. Didn’t quit. Didn’t stop writing.
Smith’s Second Law (I didn’t write it, but I stole it and
made it number 2) says:
2:
If you can’t win, change the victory conditions.
That’s really it. If you write for money, if you write to be published,
you’re setting yourself up for failure. Not to be a bad writer, but simply because
it’s a packed industry right now that’s averse to taking risks on new writers.
On the other hand, if (as Mr Anthony said) you write because that is what you
have to do, I guarantee you’ll win with every word you put down.
And you may get the other wins too :-).
9: Do you base your
characters on real-life people?
Well, I’m male and married, so I’m
well qualified as the basis for a Court Idiot :-P.
I’d say no – but it may be yes. I tend
not to create ‘characters’, but build them as I go (I already confessed to
being a pantster and not a planner :-) ) from foibles and traits they develop.
Though those traits and foibles may be from people I know or think I know.
10: Where do you get
your ideas and what inspired you to write this book?
I’ll assume you mean ‘A Comedy of
Terrors’ for now. ‘Road like a river’ is a different story, and not even under
review as yet – though I have a large pile of form rejections :-P.
As usual, there’s a story in it.
I already mentioned the book I
co-wrote. It was published (Print on Demand) by the games company that
eventually commissioned it’s completion – mostly for their players (though it
can be read by non-players – or so they’ve told me :-P). Anyway, my co-author
was interested to see if it might get to a wider audience. So I wrote a Query
for it.
I’d never written a Query. You can
only guess how bad it was :-).
Anyway, I wanted to find out how awful
the Query was (I had my suspicions). So I sent it to a well known Query
Critique site run by a well known Agent. But I wanted to grab her attention, to
get at least her eye. So I wrote a cover email. And I write it in a tone – well,
I used the Idiot persona. I kept it (I hoped) light, amusing – and blamed me in
advance for all its faults.
It worked. She published the Query.
And quite rightly savaged it :-). Tore it to shreds. But – she loved the cover
letter.
So I looked at the Voice, the name
– and Segorian was born.
‘Road like a river’ – not even
under review yet – was different. I was chopping spices and vegetables for
dinner. For some reason an image came into my head of a truck, driving down a
dark road. I knew the driver. I knew what he did. I knew why he did it. I knew
he picked up hitchhikers – and I knew why anybody he picked up was never seen
again.
I wrote the Prologue to Road in
about ten minutes after dinner. It wasn’t a Prologue then. But it niggled me.
So I typed some more…
It’s mostly like that. A concept.
A point in time thought – and lots of late night keyboard bashing :-).
11: What are you currently working on?
I have a sequel to CoT – ‘A Not Summer Night’s Scream’ - part
done (I may even finish it if enough people like CoT :-P). I have a possible
free give-away novella in progress – I wanted to write a main character totally
without sympathetic or positive attributes, then give the reader a reason to
connect with him anyway – but not until the end. Jack Shadow is the result – or
will be. And ‘Road like a river’ is complete and currently undergoing beta
reads/ edits – it’s about a former ferryman who traded his boat for a truck.
Well, maybe a bit more than that :-).
12. Is there
anything else you’d like us to know about you?
I’m left handed, and right footed. The night I was born, both
Aries and Taurus were trying to take over the zodiac. But the result isn’t
their fault – that’s all mine.
My name’s Graeme Smith. I used to work on a psychiatric ward.
Now I write about people who believe in magic and dragons – and who live where
the crazy folk are the ones who don’t. I’d like to thank everybody reading for
giving me these minutes of their lives, and you for giving me the opportunity
to take those minutes from them.
UNEDITED
EXCERPT:
Let me introduce myself. I’m an Idiot.
This wouldn’t be news to anybody who knows me, apart from my mother. She believes me to be an incredible idiot, and would be amazed I’d been able to improve to just 'idiot'. Her view is probably more accurate, as she's known me longer.
If I'm going to be totally honest (a bad habit I’m trying to break), Idiot is but one of my names. To the Elves, I’m 'Oh-god-it-eez-eem-aygayn'. To the dwarves I’m 'Bugger-lock-the-door-and-keep-quiet-he-might-go-away'. To the Halflings - actually, I don't know what the Halflings call me. I can't ask. They have a restraining order, and really good lawyers. With writs. With nails in.
But still, I’m an Idiot. And not unhappy with that. It's a well paying job with no heavy lifting.
Job? Sorry. I can see you're confused. As you can tell, I'm not very good at this. Let me start again.
Segorian Anderson. Royal Idiot. At your service. Well. Not at your service. At the Queen's service. And gods above, every ruler needs an Idiot. Queen Sonea? She has me.
That’s Queen Sonea of Peladon. Or Sonea, Queen of Peladon. I can never remember the proper form. I’ll get exiled for it one day.
No. I'm not the Jester. Not the Fool. I don't wear motley (whatever motley may be) and I don’t tell complicated jokes that nobody understands, giving me an excuse to bash them on the head with a pig's bladder. Besides, that's a different union.
I'm an Idiot.
Whenever something goes wrong, there has to be somebody to blame. When a visiting dignitary has wine spilled down their tunic - some idiot spilt it. When the generals lose a battle - some idiot read their plans wrong. When the Royal Pageant starts out on a bright sunny day, and the bright sun turns to dark clouds, and the dark clouds to hissing pourin.... Oh. I forgot. Nobody cares about the weather report. Anyway. Some idiot wrote down the wrong day in the Royal Calendar.
I'm the Idiot.
When the call comes, the Queen's people pull out something relevant. A servant's tabard, perhaps a Colonel's uniform - and I go to my duty. I stand where I must stand. Some people shout at me for a while, and I'm banished from the Kingdom forever for my grievous sins. The offended parties feel vindicated, and nobody important has to suffer unduly. I accept my exile, at least as far as the back door to the castle, and I slip inside. To wait. For the next time. Because everybody needs an Idiot.
Like I said. It's a well paying job. And no heavy lifting. Or it was. Until the dragon...
I'm just as excited about these books as I was Satin Sheets. Sure Satin Sheets was a hard copy that I held in my hand and there's nothing like the feel of a book with your name as author. It makes it easier to do book signings for one thing.
