Ask the Author: Nick Sweeney
Answered Questions (8)
Nick Sweeney
The Eden Man, by Paul Lyons. Stephen Hero by James Joyce. The Philip Kerr book I have not read yet - I forget the title. Bruno Schulz' The Street of Crocodiles, a book I read for years, get to the end of, then start again.
Nick Sweeney
There are a few, one very compelling, and the others possibly imaginary/misremembered. I'm a writer, and might use them for my own work, so I'm not telling you.
Nick Sweeney
It's set mainly in Nice, on the Cote d'Azur, where I've spent some time, and in Camberwell, south London, where I grew up. The characters in it are survivors of various kinds, one from drug addiction, based on certain friends, and on a patient I met when I had a long stay in hospital at the age of 16, the others from genocide that took place in 2 periods of history, the end of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, and wartime land-grabs in north-eastern Europe's Transnistrian region in World War Two. I got the idea for the characters from several trips, two to Paris and one to Armenia.
Nick Sweeney
By people, by travelling and most of all by reading.
Nick Sweeney
A novella, several short stories and a long-abandoned novel I want to revive. (I don't think I was a very good writer when I first wrote it.)
Nick Sweeney
Learn the basics of the language you're writing in, and then get to advanced stage in that language.
Read good books in the genre you want to write in, and also read more widely, in other genres. If you want to write in English or French, you really have to read a lot, as nothing else will teach your how their spelling systems work.
Always write, even if you don't really feel like it.
Read good books in the genre you want to write in, and also read more widely, in other genres. If you want to write in English or French, you really have to read a lot, as nothing else will teach your how their spelling systems work.
Always write, even if you don't really feel like it.
Nick Sweeney
Keeping my own hours and being able to work on my own ideas without interference from collaboration. I'm also a musician, and have to make lots of compromises because of others' limitations - I have limitations, too, of course - or their outlook on my contribution.
Nick Sweeney
I never have writer's block. I don't have enough time to write whatever I'm working on at any time.
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