Ask the Author: Neil Bailey
Answered Questions (6)
Neil Bailey
Write! It sounds so bleeding obvious but the more you practise, the better you'll get. My early attempts at short stories, written only a few years ago, I now find embarrassing, but every word is a step, every sentence a lesson, every page a journey, etc. etc.
Read! Read books in the genre you're interested in writing. Read books you're not interest in. Read anything and everything. Stephen King recommends you spend as much time reading as you do writing, and that's great advice.
Read! Read books in the genre you're interested in writing. Read books you're not interest in. Read anything and everything. Stephen King recommends you spend as much time reading as you do writing, and that's great advice.
Neil Bailey
Writing can be hugely frustrating but if you accept that some days the words come far easier than others then stumbling into a ‘block’ isn’t that bad. Once you have the characters you can usually work stuff out.
Sometimes you can just overthink things. With the book I'm currently writing I've been a bit wild with some of the ideas in my first draft - I'll need to tame thing down and add more order when I tackle the second draft in 2018!
Sometimes you can just overthink things. With the book I'm currently writing I've been a bit wild with some of the ideas in my first draft - I'll need to tame thing down and add more order when I tackle the second draft in 2018!
Neil Bailey
It's not a fictional world but I'd love to experience fifties and sixties Liverpool as described so vividly in Mark Lewisohn's Beatle biography, 'Tune In'. I was born in 1961 and don't remember much of the decade that followed, but that for me would be wonderful. I'd spend my time there as an early fan of the band as they make their way to the 'toppermost of the poppermost' (as Lennon notably said).
Neil Bailey
I love the TV series Fargo so discovering that its showrunner, Noah Hawley, is an accomplished thriller writer is hugely exciting. I have his Before The Fall next on my list.
After that, Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life comes highly recommended but I need clear my diary for that one - it's enormous!
Kazuo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant has sat on the bedside table since it came out and has been ignored for far too long.
M J Arlidge's books have always looked a bit too gruesome to me, but I've got one on the Kindle demanding my attention...
After that, Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life comes highly recommended but I need clear my diary for that one - it's enormous!
Kazuo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant has sat on the bedside table since it came out and has been ignored for far too long.
M J Arlidge's books have always looked a bit too gruesome to me, but I've got one on the Kindle demanding my attention...
Neil Bailey
I have two books currently at the very early stages, little more than ideas at this moment. One is a novel called 'The Ghost's Story', which is a more conventional thriller than the Barclay & MacDonald books. The second is non-fiction, a biography/art book of comic book artist Steve Dillon.
Neil Bailey
When I finished writing my first book, When She Was Bad, I had pages of back story for Barclay and a number of other characters that I hadn't been able to include. The most common request I had from readers was to see more of TNT and give him more of a spotlight in a sequel. Done!
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