Ask the Author: G.S. Johnston
Answered Questions (6)
G.S. Johnston
Writing. The times when a few hours slip by unnoticed.
G.S. Johnston
It's usually a very long process. Something will interest me, and I'll read about it. But it usually doesn't become an idea for a novel until I find something else about it. This is often by chance and often can take years. For my new novel, Sweet Bitter Cane, I read the first idea about it in 1989, or so. But without really trying, I kept hearing small bits of information until someone gave me a folder with documents relating to the topic. The thing is that whilst this folder formed the backbone of the novel, without the prior knowledge from the last 30 years, I probably wouldn't have read it with such interest or understanding.
G.S. Johnston
I've just finished a new novel, Sweet Bitter Cane, set in the sugarcane fields of Far North Queensland in the 1920s to the mid 1940s, a turbulent period. But I've started work on a novel set in contemporary Sydney.
G.S. Johnston
Just to plod. And don't dream it - get on the internet and organise it.
G.S. Johnston
I don't really have writer's block, per se. My greatest issue is blocking out the rest of the world to write. I need a contradictory mix of tension and relaxation. I need to feel pressured but at the same time I need to feel concentrated. If the cat is jumping around the room, I can't settle. But if I have massive amounts of time and no pressure, I'll just go an put another load of washing on. I guess I've always been borderline shy/wild.
G.S. Johnston
I went to an exhibition of death masks at the Musée d’Orsay in 2001. Apart from the casts made of people’s faces after they’d been executed, there were some casts of the hands of murderers. I was researching another novel at the time and found a book on the new extension to the Palais de Justice in Paris. The first case trailed in the new court was the Troppmann case and the book had a photo of a cast of his hand. I found that intriguing and started looking for more books on the case. Once I started, I was less and less convinced of his guilt.
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