Ask the Author: Tim Newton Anderson
Answered Questions (6)
Tim Newton Anderson
Not a problem I've ever had. If I lose my way in writing one thing I put it down and write something else. This, and the bubbling away of ideas in my subconscious, generally means I come back to the first bit of writing with fresh ideas and a plan to overcome the problems.
Tim Newton Anderson
I get to write the sort of books I want to read in the hope that other people will also want to read them. And I can pay back all the authors I love and who have given me so much pleasure by passing on that love and inspiration in my own writing
Tim Newton Anderson
Write. Then put it down for a while until you have forgotten it enough to come to it fresh and revise it. The show it to someone who doesn't take any bullshit who will tell you what is wrong with it. Then revise it again. In the meantime write other stuff - ideally trying out different styles. And repeat the process with all of them.
Tim Newton Anderson
I'm busy revising two novels at once - one to tighten it up and the other to loosen it from a noirish terseness.
There are still ten or so novel outlines and a dozen short story ideas in my writing bank.
There are still ten or so novel outlines and a dozen short story ideas in my writing bank.
Tim Newton Anderson
I've always written - from a story when I was ten, through comics in my teens and then dipping in and out with mostly terrible stuff from then until my 50s. I then decided to start to write seriously and doing projects with the London Institute of 'Pataphysics inspired me further to write three of the stories in the collection. Standing behind a bar counter gave me the chance to come up with ideas to relieve the tedium and when Jules and I came out of the Hotel we decided to do what we had always wanted to do - act in her case and write in mine.
Tim Newton Anderson
I got the ideas from a lot of different places, some of which are described in the introductions to individual stories. The title story was a combination of two things - the opening words came to me in a dream and that blended with a picture I had seen of Georges Perec with a cat on his shoulder. I had read most of Perec's work and was inspired by the way he wove his experiences in the Nazi occupation in an innovative way in his fiction so decided to tackle the issue of the holocaust in an oblique way. Not as well, but hopefully still effectively.
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