Why I Write

Well, that’s simple. I write because I can, and because I love stories. And because I can’t paint. Well, I tried once and it is hanging in my mate’s house, but given her taste…anyway, digressing. I write because I want to write – and because everyone who wants to, should.

But why do I write this stuff? Mythic urban fantasy? Queer-led stories? YA supernatural fiction? There’s two main reasons. Firstly, the world is dark and twisted and horrifying in both it’s mundanity and it’s capacity for cruelty. And I’m not being flippant there – it’s the truth. But it has always been that way, and the long tradition of myths and monsters were never literal stories, they were ways of expressing the fundamental truths of being human. The bitter taste of grief is the same whether lost to pneumonia in a poverty stricken Irish family in a period drama, as when your spouse is obliterated by a fire-breathing dragon. The meaning is the same. But, y’know, fantasy has dragons.

And secondly is representation. Growing up a young gay lad in the North of England, in the beigest town in Cheshire, in the nineties and early noughties, was always going to be a challenge. But I had no heroes. Queer and gay characters were token side pieces, predatory perverts or comic relief – figures of tragedy or mockery. And bears? Don’t even get me started. So, welcome to my own course correction.

The Worlds I Build

Every world I’ve built has been in motion since I was young, typing away at my home desktop computer in my teenage bedroom. The nuances have changed, the writing has polished (if I say so myself) and at least I dropped the sentient machine-gun wielding hamster (for now), but the worlds have always existed. The Heroes & Demons series was my emotional awakening into adulthood – a dark, superficially cynical, cosmic world; the collective stories of the New Knights Saga were me playing around with my genre conventions, experimenting with tone and temper in an exploration of this whole new world; while ‘til the End of the World was where it all began – for me that was in High School.

And no, I didn’t fight vampyrs in High School, but I so would have.

The worlds are as varied as me, because I am like my playlists, eclectic. I don’t define myself by one thing, so neither do I in my writing – and neither do I as a reader. That’s not to say they don’t gel, we humans can hold two perfect contradictions and so, feel assured, can you.

How I Build ‘Em

My writing process is a little the same – planned and chaotic, fixed and moveable, mixing emotional anchoring with ‘wow, that’d be so cool’. I plan, sometimes decades in advance. Ideas come and I jot them down, little notes and ideas filled notebook after notebook. And then I sit with them. I sit with them for a long, long time.

In that sitting, I feel them. Over time, my heart pulls me towards an idea, a thought, a story. Sometimes, I’ll forget about it for years, then suddenly it will strike me as time, and I’ll end up writing a full story outline in a few hours. On the train, oddly enough, that’s where I tend to have that kind of a strike. Other times, the distance between the idea and the full chapter-by-chapter outline is a few days.

And yet, writing always goes the same. I move logically through the story, feeling the emotions shaping themselves as the plot goes. How does the character feel? What do they think? I spend more time than I care to admit inhabiting the heads of these people. That’s why when beginning a novel, it can take a while for the actual writing of the first few chapters to take shape. As the characters tell me their voices, I come to it slowly. And then, it strikes. And before you know it, I’ll have the whole book written. Towards the end, it comes in feverish bursts, like a quickening labour. Painful, but worth it.

A Little More About Me

Oh, so this is the bit where I talk about my love of baking or list my awards? So, I’m currently a Leeds lad but have lived large chunks of my life in Manchester and South Lancashire. I’ve been writing for over twenty years, though only publishing for the past decade.

My tastes venture from dark and twisted, to camp and chaotic. My background is in psychology, health and education; and I think that bleeds through into my work. You’ll sometimes find me drinking a craft beer in a loud and banging bar or sitting in the garden with a book.

I’ve won no awards (partially because I’ve never gone for any) and am happy just going along in my lane. As I say, I write because I want to write. I share because somewhere in the world there may be someone who needs that right story at that right time and maybe I can take them away from their lives for a bit. I live with my loving fiancé and our many, many dogs.

I’m very lucky, I live a good life. And I’m immensely grateful for that. And for you – the reader. If you’ve made it this far, let me sign off (before the obligatory call-to-action below) by saying thank you. You don’t need a reader to justify a story’s existence, but it being read gives it some meaning. And means an old bear like me gets to keep doing what he loves.

Well, in between walkies and Jaffa cakes.

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