Ask the Author: G.J. Minett
Answered Questions (11)
G.J. Minett
Hi! I'm flattered by the suggestion that these writers are 'less skilled' but happy to take the compliment. I think Robert Bryndza is very talented. I haven't read any Tony Parsons as yet but intend to. The best of the newer breed of writers I've read recently would be Jane Harper (I think The Dry is outstanding) and Attica Locke - if you haven't read Bluebird, Bluebird, I'd definitely recommend it. Reminds me a bit of Ace Atkins who does this American backwater town sheriff thing so well.
G.J. Minett
Hi Lori! No, I don't . . . all 3 novels have appeared under the name G J Minett. The Hidden Legacy and Lie In Wait are out in eBook, paperback and audio formats and the latest, Anything For Her, is just an eBook for now with the other two formats to come in March. Which book was proving elusive? It's worth asking the librarian whether the book is on the catalogue and, if it's not, asking for it to be included. Which library is it? If you are still having problems, get back to me via my website (www.grahamminett.com) and I'll email you to sort something out. Thanks for the interest and sorry you have a problem but we have no say over whether each county council chooses a particular book. It's usually decided at local level on the basis of requests from individuals. Do keep me up to date, won't you? Thanks. Graham (GJ)
G.J. Minett
Where's the harm in opening that door?
OK - now I get it.
OK - now I get it.
G.J. Minett
In no particular order:
With Our Blessing by Jo Spain
All The Wicked Girls by Chris Whitaker
Since We Fell by Dennis Lehane
A Stranger In The House by Shari Lapena
Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke
The Wanted by Robert Crais
The Late Show by Michael Connelly
What They Saw by Gilly MacMillan
Real Tigers by Mick Herron
The Child by Fiona Barton
Golden Prey by John Sandford
The Fallen by Ace Atkins
You Don't Know Me by Imran Mahmood
The Two O'clock Boy by Mark Hill
Girl Zero by AA Dhand
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
They ought to keep me going
With Our Blessing by Jo Spain
All The Wicked Girls by Chris Whitaker
Since We Fell by Dennis Lehane
A Stranger In The House by Shari Lapena
Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke
The Wanted by Robert Crais
The Late Show by Michael Connelly
What They Saw by Gilly MacMillan
Real Tigers by Mick Herron
The Child by Fiona Barton
Golden Prey by John Sandford
The Fallen by Ace Atkins
You Don't Know Me by Imran Mahmood
The Two O'clock Boy by Mark Hill
Girl Zero by AA Dhand
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
They ought to keep me going
G.J. Minett
I'd probably go for Dick and Nicole Diver from Tender Is The Night by F Scott Fitzgerald. I blitzed absolutely everything he wrote when I was in my early 20s and also read biographies until I felt I knew him and his wife Zelda very well. The parallels between what the Divers are going through and what was happening to Fitzgerald and his wife at the time he wrote it are so unutterably sad. I loved the book and will definitely re-read it sometime soon.
G.J. Minett
The idea for my most recent published novel, The Hidden Legacy, came from two news items which I'd stored away for possible use as material for separate short stories. One concerned a man who had inherited a large sum of money from a relative he didn't know about. The other concerned Mary Bell, convicted in the 60s as an 11 yo schoolgirl for killing the baby she was babysitting. She was in the news because she was seeking a court injunction to prevent the media from releasing details of her new identity because she had a teenage daughter who knew nothing about her mother's background. I found myself thinking about that particular mother/daughter conversation and wondering how the hell you would go about it.
As for book 2, which is written, accepted and in the final stages of editing, don't even ask me where that idea came from. As with The Hidden Legacy, the story developed out of the characters rather than the other way around. The Goose Drank Wine is not a sequel, nor indeed is it in any way related to The Hidden Legacy in terms of subject matter, although I'm hoping that anyone who enjoyed the complexity of the latter and the challenge of peeling away layers will be attracted to it for the same reason. It comes out as an eBook and paperback simultaneously towards the end of this year
As for book 2, which is written, accepted and in the final stages of editing, don't even ask me where that idea came from. As with The Hidden Legacy, the story developed out of the characters rather than the other way around. The Goose Drank Wine is not a sequel, nor indeed is it in any way related to The Hidden Legacy in terms of subject matter, although I'm hoping that anyone who enjoyed the complexity of the latter and the challenge of peeling away layers will be attracted to it for the same reason. It comes out as an eBook and paperback simultaneously towards the end of this year
G.J. Minett
A tough one. For years writing was just something I did from time to time when a possible short story occurred to me or when I felt tempted to launch into a novel. It wasn't so much a question of me 'getting inspired' - it was just something I enjoyed doing and I was merely responding to an idea that had appeared out of nowhere.
Now my writing needs to be more formalised because I have entered a different world of contracts and deadlines that are imposed on me from outside, which means I need to approach my writing in a professional way. It doesn't mean the enjoyment is any less real but if I left off writing anything for a couple of years because the mood hadn't swept over me, I'd probably be receiving a lot of difficult emails from my agent and publishers, so I have to accept that I will need to find ways to ensure that I meet all their requirements.
At present it's not inspiration I lack but time, with the competing demands of publicity, editing, social media, school job, family, personal fitness etc. It's a question of adjusting to this new way of life and making a few changes to get the balance right. Once I do that, I'll be able to get back to what opened up this new world to me in the first place, which is writing.
It's still too early to say whether I'll reach a point at some stage where I'm struggling for inspiration. People always talk of writer's block as if it's a very real and difficult obstacle to overcome but for now I'm a long way away from anything like that. I'm just looking forward to having the chance to be creative again.
Now my writing needs to be more formalised because I have entered a different world of contracts and deadlines that are imposed on me from outside, which means I need to approach my writing in a professional way. It doesn't mean the enjoyment is any less real but if I left off writing anything for a couple of years because the mood hadn't swept over me, I'd probably be receiving a lot of difficult emails from my agent and publishers, so I have to accept that I will need to find ways to ensure that I meet all their requirements.
At present it's not inspiration I lack but time, with the competing demands of publicity, editing, social media, school job, family, personal fitness etc. It's a question of adjusting to this new way of life and making a few changes to get the balance right. Once I do that, I'll be able to get back to what opened up this new world to me in the first place, which is writing.
It's still too early to say whether I'll reach a point at some stage where I'm struggling for inspiration. People always talk of writer's block as if it's a very real and difficult obstacle to overcome but for now I'm a long way away from anything like that. I'm just looking forward to having the chance to be creative again.
G.J. Minett
I SHOULD be working on book 3 but I've been thrown completely out of my stride by events since I landed the two-book deal with Twenty7. My writing year, because of the demands of my timetabling job at a local school, is built around thinking about the book from March through till the end of July, doing a detailed written plan, scene by scene, during August and September, and then doing the actual writing of the novel from October through till March. As a plan, it worked fine for books one (The Hidden Legacy) and two (The Goose Drank Wine) but when we got to the summer months last year my planning for book 3 was completely disrupted by new elements such as editing book 1, rewriting parts of book 2, blogging in preparation for the launch of THL as an eBook and then seeing to all the concomitant publicity demands, especially social media which takes up a fair amount of my day at present.
So what I AM working on is all of the peripheral details relating to books 1 and 2 - book 3 has no deadline at present other than a self-imposed one which I'm having to review but I will get there soon. Authors are masters of procrastination but I'll know when I'm ready to shove everything else to one side and get on with writing again. I'm looking forward to it.
So what I AM working on is all of the peripheral details relating to books 1 and 2 - book 3 has no deadline at present other than a self-imposed one which I'm having to review but I will get there soon. Authors are masters of procrastination but I'll know when I'm ready to shove everything else to one side and get on with writing again. I'm looking forward to it.
G.J. Minett
Write. And write. Don't agonise over why you're not making a breakthrough just yet. Just keep writing. I've attended countless talks by authors and whenever they were asked what advice they'd give, it always seemed to come down to something along the lines of 'if you want it badly enough, you'll get there'. It used to drive me mad because the inference I took from this was that if I hadn't got anywhere, it must be because I didn't want it badly enough and I DID! But I had to acknowledge that there were plenty of things I could be doing that I hadn't done so far and it was once I started identifying these and then putting the building blocks into place that things finally began to move. But the bottom line is write, as often as possible. There aren't many things in life that we don't do better with practice. As for what these building blocks were ... that's another question altogether
G.J. Minett
That's such a good question ... and an incredibly difficult one to answer without seeming pretentious. I could ramble on all day about being driven, about knowing from day one that was all I wanted to do, about having this indefinable need to express myself. I think the truth is probably much more prosaic than that. I think it's an itch being scratched, a need for approval being fulfilled. I started writing as a small boy, hoping to impress my parents and my primary school teacher. I moved on to writing in my teens to impress friends, especially girls. Ever since then I've been writing on at least a semi-regular basis. Would I do so if I knew for a fact that absolutely no one would get to read it and tell me how good they think it is? I might ... but I can't put it any more strongly than that, which leads me to think that I do it because it's something I know I can do quite well and because I hope that people will like it. I can smile for days on the strength of a 5* review and agonise for just as long over where I went wrong when the 1* s come along. That can't be a coincidence. That's the most honest answer I think I can give.
G.J. Minett
I'm probably very fortunate as I don't think I've ever really experienced this. I do get spells when things don't flow very well and I end up giving up for the day and walking away for a while but I've never gone through the sort of torments you see so often in TV dramas where the writer sits for hours in front of a laptop and absolutely nothing comes to mind! I'm sure it happens - even if it's a cliché, they don't just spring out of nowhere, do they? But if I'm not in the mood, I don't write. I go for a walk around Pagham harbour or maybe read for an hour or so and then come back to it when I'm fired up again and ready to go.
It's not always easy to come up with storylines I want to develop into a full-length novel which is going to take up a year or so of my life (just for the first draft!) and I do sometimes get anxious about what will happen if I can't think of a suitable plot, but it's amazing how things suddenly click into place. The more I chase an idea, the less likely I am to find it, it seems. Far better to leave it alone and wait for something to come to me. Does that make sense?
It's not always easy to come up with storylines I want to develop into a full-length novel which is going to take up a year or so of my life (just for the first draft!) and I do sometimes get anxious about what will happen if I can't think of a suitable plot, but it's amazing how things suddenly click into place. The more I chase an idea, the less likely I am to find it, it seems. Far better to leave it alone and wait for something to come to me. Does that make sense?
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