What is the greatest joy of writing for you?
I read compulsively. I will strain to read distant notices through heavy rain. I will even read the same cereal packet I read yesterday.
So, one of the greatest joys for me is the thought that somewhere out there someone like me will have one more thing to read.
Do you remember the first story you ever wrote?
I went to a Church of England primary, so was asked to re-write Bible stories in different settings; I can remember rewriting at least one of them as a play set in space, but cannot remember which parable it was. I can remember writing my own stories too, but not what they were about.
I do remember starting a book when I was 11 or 12 (if I acknowledged a distinction between novels and short stories then, I cannot recall which I intended). It opened with the protagonist in a five-sided temple-like room, wondering how he got there, realising it was a dream, then finding evidence it might not be. I produced a first chapter before I ran out of steam. Given the similarity to Lovecraft combined with the theme of ancient knowledge bleeding across time in his work I am not sure now whether to see it as early evidence of interest in speculative fiction or of a cthonic conspiracy revealing itself only to my unconscious.
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