Ask the Author: Tim Trent
Answered Questions (11)
Tim Trent
The family history I cannot discover about my father's family kin and before Vienna, a city he left in 1939
Tim Trent
Unless non fiction, every book creates a fictional world, even if the geography is real.
Every time I look at a book I half think I'd like to live in, I see major drawbacks. I adore Mary Renault's books, old and 'modern' world, but bad things happen to good people in them.
Who could prosper in a Tolkein world? Even Mr Frodo had a rough time.
I lived, pretty much, in the world of Michael Cambell's 'Lord Dismiss Us'. He got it right, pretty much. But it's not a world I'd like to live in
This is coming up as a list of negatives. But there's a reason. Unless I want to live in an Enid Blytonesque world, tales have reality in them. I have sufficient reality.
That leads me to a world of ultimate decency. The world of Swallows and Amazons and other Arthur Ransome books.
What would I do there?
I'd live there and enjoy it.
Every time I look at a book I half think I'd like to live in, I see major drawbacks. I adore Mary Renault's books, old and 'modern' world, but bad things happen to good people in them.
Who could prosper in a Tolkein world? Even Mr Frodo had a rough time.
I lived, pretty much, in the world of Michael Cambell's 'Lord Dismiss Us'. He got it right, pretty much. But it's not a world I'd like to live in
This is coming up as a list of negatives. But there's a reason. Unless I want to live in an Enid Blytonesque world, tales have reality in them. I have sufficient reality.
That leads me to a world of ultimate decency. The world of Swallows and Amazons and other Arthur Ransome books.
What would I do there?
I'd live there and enjoy it.
Tim Trent
Summer is over. I've been reading Young Adult fantasy, sampling new authors. Check out my books list
Tim Trent
His feet refused to obey him; his legs failed to run. He was engulfed by the clawing darkness.
Tim Trent
That is a really good question, originally asked to me by message from a reader here. This is the answer I gave then.
I think it's varied as I've grown older. The Persian Boy was the first book that made me realise I was not alone, coupled with Lord Dismiss Us, both when I was a teen in the late 1960s.
While Mary Renault has not faded with my ageing, and her works remain vibrant and meaningful, Michael Campbell's writing felt turgid and inflated when I read it in around 2000.
Very few other works have made as great an impression on me as those two, though. I am always impressed with Goodbye, Mr. Chips! and To Serve Them All My Days, but have seen movies or TV serials based on the books, never having read them. They portray a world I almost inhabited as a chid and wanted to emulate as an adult, but you will know from Queer Me!: Halfway Between Flying and Crying that I felt unable to become a schoolmaster
A voracious reader most of my life I consume books. I can't even recall most of those I've consumed, as my book list here shows! It takes a lot to make books stand out for me. I think those two books back in my teenage years were the epiphany ones.
I think it's varied as I've grown older. The Persian Boy was the first book that made me realise I was not alone, coupled with Lord Dismiss Us, both when I was a teen in the late 1960s.
While Mary Renault has not faded with my ageing, and her works remain vibrant and meaningful, Michael Campbell's writing felt turgid and inflated when I read it in around 2000.
Very few other works have made as great an impression on me as those two, though. I am always impressed with Goodbye, Mr. Chips! and To Serve Them All My Days, but have seen movies or TV serials based on the books, never having read them. They portray a world I almost inhabited as a chid and wanted to emulate as an adult, but you will know from Queer Me!: Halfway Between Flying and Crying that I felt unable to become a schoolmaster
A voracious reader most of my life I consume books. I can't even recall most of those I've consumed, as my book list here shows! It takes a lot to make books stand out for me. I think those two books back in my teenage years were the epiphany ones.
Tim Trent
I wanted to find a picture that was of a lad, mid to late teens, in despair. It was important that the picture didn't show his face, and that he fitted, broadly, into the time period from 1965 onwards.
The location needed to be anonymous, and, for design purposes, he had to be offset a little to the right and facing to the left.
My own personal picture library was useless. In that time period I used colour slides, and their definition fails when transferred to print, and I had no suitable shots anyway.
I was lucky that there was one, single, suitable picture available from the stock photos in Kindle Direct Publishing. It's not perfect, but no picture ever is. And it does what I need it to do. It grabs the potential reader's attention and gets them to pick the book up and see what's inside.
The location needed to be anonymous, and, for design purposes, he had to be offset a little to the right and facing to the left.
My own personal picture library was useless. In that time period I used colour slides, and their definition fails when transferred to print, and I had no suitable shots anyway.
I was lucky that there was one, single, suitable picture available from the stock photos in Kindle Direct Publishing. It's not perfect, but no picture ever is. And it does what I need it to do. It grabs the potential reader's attention and gets them to pick the book up and see what's inside.
Tim Trent
Fun!
I enjoy writing, almost always about things I wish I could do, or have done. My first Amazon published book, Queer Me! is an exception. Writing that was a catharsis
I enjoy writing, almost always about things I wish I could do, or have done. My first Amazon published book, Queer Me! is an exception. Writing that was a catharsis
Tim Trent
I see something, someone, which interests me. I can change anything about a person, but they have to have something about them before I bother. When I see that thing I alter perhaps, their, age, height, sex to fit the tale they have inspired me to weave.
I have a set of geographies that I know well, albeit often slightly massaged, that I can set my characters in, and I let them interact.
I have a set of geographies that I know well, albeit often slightly massaged, that I can set my characters in, and I let them interact.
Tim Trent
I can only tell you what worked for me when I started and works today. When writing fiction I immerse myself in a character, disconnect my editorial brain, and let the words flow through the fingers to the keyboard. I know I can go back and edit when the current blast of creativity stops.
Tim Trent
I only get writer's block when I have no inspiration. I see that as a good thing, because I write rubbish when I try to force myself to do it as an academic exercise. Writing is a pleasure, or is supposed to be.
I walk and observe. When something strikes me I know I can change anything about it and write what I want or need to write around it.
I walk and observe. When something strikes me I know I can change anything about it and write what I want or need to write around it.
Tim Trent
The idea came from my wife, though she did not necessarily expect a book at the end of it. She suggested I write out my experiences at school, and thus 'Queer Me!' came to be.
It is the product of memory, school reports, old school magazines, and some fictionalising and dramatising
It is the product of memory, school reports, old school magazines, and some fictionalising and dramatising
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