Interview with Robin duMerrick
Published 2014-08-23.
Do you remember the first story you ever wrote?
Yes. A lurid tale bought by a Men's magazine for such a paltry sum that I framed the cheque instead of cashing it.
When you're not writing, how do you spend your time?
Skiing. Fishing. Boating. Rescuing boaters (as a skipper with NSW Marine Rescue). Playing and coaching tennis. Target shooting. Reading. Doing chop-chop as sous chef for my partner to make something incredible out of her huge repertoire of ethnic cuisines.
Describe your workplace.
Dominant in view (apart from my laptop and a vista out the window by my shoulder of an alpine lake and snow-clad mountains) is a Bengal cat called Rafa. A small leopard, everyone says, who auditioned for the part of the spooky familiar in Sports Witch, out soon. A devil of a cat, as anyone who has ever owned a Bengal will tell you.
What is your writing process?
I pound the first key around eight thirty and the last when I run out of steam, which usually happens between three and six, with no breaks. That's for the first draft. After that, it's polish, polish. polish. Put the work away for a month. Then polish, polish, polish. Repeat as many times as it takes. The first draft is purgative. All the others are more like constipation. You know it's done when you can read the novel and be left woondering who that fine author was who wrote it. If you think about it, a book has to be good to enjoy it after the nth read (where n is greater than 30), when most of us seldom read the same book twice.
What do you read for pleasure?
Can't beat a good thriller, mystery, crime, whodunnit. Now and again, I re-read Hemingway so that I don't get carried away with "fancy" writing and remember how it feels to be machine-gunned in the heart and mind by concrete words and simplicity, arranged on the page by genius.
When did you first start writing?
In the Antarctic, of all places. Where the days are long and the nights longer. On a base with other scientists. With a year ahead of me, I made a project of studying all my English grammar all over again as a grounding. Then everything in the library on writing. Then my first keystroke. There have been millions of those since.
What is the greatest joy of writing for you?
Gripping and delighting the reader. Having her wonder at characters, locales and situations she has never met before. Then again, hoodwinking her into smugly thinking she has some of the cast pegged as old familiars only for them to jolt her with an unexpected, often shocking, behaviour. So that, in the end, she might even look at her own mother with suspicion.
What motivated you to become an indie author?
After being twice published in print (The Wrenwatchers, and You the Detective), I was on my way. Not. As even "established" authors will tell you, they days, print publishers (and agents) want you to go guarantor (the guarantee signed in your blood) that your next book will be a sure-fire money-spinner. And, unlike in the past, they want the author to shoulder the burden of marketing. As an editor and publicist, I had all the skills to do everything a publisher was going to take ninety percent of the cover price to notionally do. So viva la indie!
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