Interview 2025

I was approached in early 2025 by a journalism student, Tina Freeman, who was given the task of doing an interview. I said, yep why not. A bunch of questions landed in my email, and here’s the result.

1. Your background is in visual arts, so why write? Creating art is something I love doing, but it takes up physical space. If people don’t want what you have, then you end up with too much ‘stuff’. Writing and especially ebooks doesn’t take up too much space at all, very convenient, also you can do it on the road as long as you have a device to access your files.
   
2. I noted that you started out writing business articles and interviewing visual artists, so what got you started writing fiction? I had this story brewing in my head for a long time, and I’m talking 15 – 20 years. I would imagine various scenarios and then finally I had enough bits and pieces to make the whole thing interesting enough for me to bother putting together an outline. I had a couple of websites one for the artist interviews and one for the business articles which were how to street smart tips for business people. I did a few hundred business articles and a big bunch of artist interviews. They could be quite engrossing and fascinating to create but if people don’t check them out, you can get a bit jaded. It seemed that people were willing to pay for advice on business but didn’t want the same info for free, it comes down to what people value I guess.
   
3. Your first set of stories portray a teen girl finding wisdom and she’s linked through the other books as she develops as a person, why did you pick a female lead character? I have worked with Teens and adults in teaching and training roles and the same thing kept popping up, people who lacked strength, mentally and sometimes physically, and these people just seemed to blindly follow whatever path was put before them, I then figured I wanted a character who could push through the usual ‘stuff of life’ and take a stronger path a positive role model.
   
4. Janey, your main character, you give her self-defence skills, and it’s a thing that comes up from time to time, why is that? Look at the media, how many females are abused. I wanted Janey to be able to handle those sorts of life pressures with some form of clarity if you like, to have the sense to know what to do, how to do it and what to avoid. I want to try to change the narrative. I want to champion the cause of women to be able to say, ‘I can stand my ground and be able to use a range of strategies to not become a victim.’
   
5. You give Janey an unlikely wise person to guide her; how did that come about? An old man with stories to tell and, in the process, wisdom to give. I could have gone for a Buddhist monk, but Bill was more relatable, I think. I wanted someone a bit eccentric, engaging, and who could cause people to think.
   
6. Are the places you write about real? Yes, some are juxtaposed from other settings but it does the trick, like a set of old shops in Manly, set in a similar aged suburban setting but in a suburb of Melbourne. Then there’s houses the characters live in, one in particular is very real. I used to walk past it on the way to and from work many years ago, it’s all about observation and adding details to make things work.
   
7. Your characters, how did they come about? For instance, are they real people or a combination of various characters you have met? A combination of people, teaching in schools, gave me a range of character types to explore for Janey, and then other characters have the qualities I felt were useful. It’s about observation and piecing together the characters I wanted. For instance, Bill is a combination of people I have met and the stories he tells are from real-life stories, like buying a firetruck at auction, you can’t make that sort of stuff up.
   
8. Is writing fiction a creative process for you or something else? I’m not sure what else writing fiction could be other than a creative process. A story develops in my mind, then I explore some character traits and then I think about it for a while until I get an inkling that I have something worthwhile. Then I plot out the basics of what I want to have happen in the story and then some basic characters and then other characters as the story evolves. At weird times an idea will pop into my head and I hope I remember it or get the chance to write it down before that idea is lost.
   
9. Constructive feedback, does that happen? It can, but only if people bother to read what you have created. I’m not sure how to get people to read what I have on offer.
   
10. So are you suggesting that people somehow discount you as a writer and therefore don’t bother to read what you have? Yes, but I can’t be sure, if people were to think I was a famous writer they might want to read the stories or even be compelled to read them, it’s funny I see people in the arts who create things and people are all over them with praise and wow and such, then there are others who wave a flag but aren’t noticed.
    
11. What parts of the story development do you find the hardest? The easiest seems to be the start, the endings can be tricky and developing enough detail, being ADHD, I want to get ideas out fast and then explore the details. On a few occasions, I have gone over sections to develop things more; it’s taken me quite some time to develop that process, though.
    
12. How do you find time to write? I’m up early to feed the dogs, and once I’m up, that’s it; my day has started, so I get into it without interruptions. Being retired helps.
    
13. How do you know what to write? How about this, how do I know what not to write… If I have a start to a story, I might have an ending as well. I tend to let the in-between parts evolve. Sometimes in the editing, I rewrite things, push and pull until something works, I have a few stories that are not finished, I got to a point that I felt I couldn’t ‘currently’ do the story justice.
    
14. How long does it take you to write a book? That depends on the size and the way the story evolves. One of the best pieces of advice I have heard for writers was to read and re-read what you have created, then explore how the story evolves, and does it make sense? Could things have been stated better, and so on? Therefore, a book can take a lot of time to create, depending on the complexity of the characters and the storyline.
    
15. What is the most challenging part of writing a book? Making a start, sometimes an idea floats about in my head, and I let it go, these days If an idea pops up, I tend to jump in and start writing.
    
16. You self-publish using ebooks. Is there a reason for that? I have met Authors who have created a brilliant story, so they say, but couldn’t get it published so they printed their own, they have like 1500 books in boxes in their garage and sell a few. So the whole idea of having a reminder that your story didn’t get traction is heartwrenching. Ebooks are a way to get your story out there and not have the inventory hassles. After a while of trying to get things published you may decide that the act of writing and getting your characters to come to life is more important. And it’s so easy to do these days.
    
17. What important advice would you give a first-time author? Get a solid understanding of the book world, know what you want to achieve, but above all, be true to yourself and the stories you want or need to tell. Then write.
    
18. What strikes you as ‘off’ in the book or writing world? How writers find people to read their material, even just first drafts and then the completed manuscript. I see people in book shops buying big name authors and things of interest but how about the smaller stature authors, how do people find out about them? Even so, how do people find out about the big name authors?
    
19. Favourite authors? That depends, I read more non fiction and names for those books escape me, oh except for Jess Hill, her name jumps up and slaps me in the face! Her book was a struggle to read but it was a necessary read, it’s called “See What You Made Me Do”. As for fiction writers, J.D. Salinger, Oh and I have to tell you I struggle to read, so I don’t read much, in fact I avoid most books, I was 45 before it was picked up that I needed glasses, the person who tested me said I would find reading easier with glasses, due to some form of astigmatism, they were right but by then I guess the reading habit was not readily formed for me. I see these thick books and say ‘not in this lifetime.’ But managed to read Jess Hills book. Another author, Bill Griffiths who wrote comics about Zippy the Pinhead, AWESOME!
    
20. You have mentioned in anther other interview that language is important, how so? Without language not much happens, and it pays to get a fascination with words. Big words perhaps, or just words with interesting meanings. I still recall the first time I heard Existential and I was driven to go to the library and look that one up, I was about 22 at the time, our imaginations get all manner of material that should make us go ‘wow!’ and then explore. My Father taught me to have a fascination with language and explore the ‘emphasis on syllables’ and how words can sound different when we change that emphasis.
    
21. I hear you write short stories and poems from time to time, do you want to elaborate on that? It’s all about playing with language, fitting things together to make it work, in this case words to evoke feelings and so on… If you can make something come to life that’s not too much of a challenge then bingo, do it.