Ask the Author: Paul Letters
Answered Questions (9)
Paul Letters
Hi Sandy. Those are the elements I've endeavored to incorporate in A Chance Kill (ACK), so I hope you enjoy it. Whereas my upbringing in England/Europe, living close to my Polish gran, gave me the ingredients for ACK, now that I'm in Hong Kong I am inspired to write about this part of the world. I write articles for Hong Kong's main English-language newspaper, and the dynamism of this part of the world is often inspirational. So is the history, which feels largely untapped here; now that I'm looking, I'm finding so many stories just waiting to burst out into a novel or three!
Paul Letters
Hi Donna. A Chance Kill was released today, but I'm 20,000 words into a second book in the 'Chances' series, set in wartime Hong Kong.
Paul Letters
My desk is under a bedroom window fronted by a steep hillside; the view pushes the eye up towards the heavens – it often feels like that’s where I’m looking for inspiration.
One of many things I don’t share with Hemingway is the compunction he had never to mix alcohol with work; I occasionally multi-task. One afternoon a week I’ll take some easy work to a quiet pub for a slow pint. ‘Easy work’ could be the typing up of notes – or answering these questions (just now I’m enjoying a nutty ale).
One of many things I don’t share with Hemingway is the compunction he had never to mix alcohol with work; I occasionally multi-task. One afternoon a week I’ll take some easy work to a quiet pub for a slow pint. ‘Easy work’ could be the typing up of notes – or answering these questions (just now I’m enjoying a nutty ale).
Paul Letters
Perhaps because I got into writing relatively late (mid-thirties) – when I was old enough to realise life doesn’t last forever – I’m not one for procrastinating. Unless you count reading.
But if I may swap ‘worst’ and ‘best’ around in the question, the answer to both would be my four-year-old son. He is the best source of distraction, but his potty mouth of ‘poopy bum-bum’ and ‘smelly fart-head’ doesn’t inspire my writing.
But if I may swap ‘worst’ and ‘best’ around in the question, the answer to both would be my four-year-old son. He is the best source of distraction, but his potty mouth of ‘poopy bum-bum’ and ‘smelly fart-head’ doesn’t inspire my writing.
Paul Letters
Always. I believe I’ve just begun my writing ‘career’, but I have no idea how far it will or won’t go. I felt like a real writer when I did a research tour, visiting expert historians in Warsaw, Prague and London. They took me seriously, and I guess I began to.
Paul Letters
Growing up, I had vague notions of writing – although not necessarily of ‘being a writer’, however we may define that. In my twenties I had equally vague intentions of writing a novel one day, but I was aware that I hadn’t experienced enough of life to give it a go.
Paul Letters
In 2008 I was on holiday in Crete and couldn’t get to sleep one night. Ideas for a novel had been pinballing around the back of my head for years, but at 2am that night the beginnings of a plot – inspired by my grandmother’s escape across Europe in 1939-40 – poured out onto the page. I had recorded an interview with her about a decade earlier; I hadn’t looked at it for years, but I guess at some level I had long-intended to do something with it. Although I took a year off teaching, a combination of my baby son, a Masters’ Degree and a job as a university researcher all competed with the would-be novel for my time.
My first published and paid article was a 2010 travel story about a date with Alicia at the Umbrian Jazz Festival (http://paulletters.com/umbria-jazz-fe...). My op-eds include Orwell’s prediction of the current rise of China (http://paulletters.com/the-cold-war-c...), to taking on academics who avow that the world in 2014 resembles 1914 (http://paulletters.com/2014-is-not-1914/).
My first published and paid article was a 2010 travel story about a date with Alicia at the Umbrian Jazz Festival (http://paulletters.com/umbria-jazz-fe...). My op-eds include Orwell’s prediction of the current rise of China (http://paulletters.com/the-cold-war-c...), to taking on academics who avow that the world in 2014 resembles 1914 (http://paulletters.com/2014-is-not-1914/).
Paul Letters
Researching historical accounts, engaging with people who were there and historians who live and breathe the minutiae of past times, draws me in – and, by default, my characters. For me, writing (and reading) historical fiction is a quest to get closer to dramatic events and to the individuals involved in them. In that sense, it’s a search for truth about a world that’s only disappeared if we ignore it.
Paul Letters
It dawned on me that I must now be taking writing seriously when on Christmas Day I got up at 5am to do a little writing while the house was still quiet (I beat my four-year-old by several hours).
I write for up to seven hours a day on three days per week, and I teach three days per week. I take Sunday off and spend it with my family. But at some point every day I try to sneak in something related to my writing – that could be some relevant reading or simply jotting down ideas.
I write for up to seven hours a day on three days per week, and I teach three days per week. I take Sunday off and spend it with my family. But at some point every day I try to sneak in something related to my writing – that could be some relevant reading or simply jotting down ideas.
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Mar 03, 2015 11:05PM · flag