Ask the Author: Bob Studholme
Answered Questions (3)
Bob Studholme
The honest answer is I'm trying to get something published (Private Universe) after having stopped doing anything when the place I work in threatened to make all of the teachers redundant. We were all doing little else than apply frantically for new jobs, which stifles the creative urges somewhat massive (my CV is non-fiction, honest).
I do have a story which was inspired by Stephen King's 'The Stand' and is similar in being set in a post apocalyptic world. More Europe and the UK with bits in America than King's all-American epic, and an apocalypse that was engineered. The problem is that I can't actually say that I'm working on it. I know where it starts, I know who is in it and I know some of the settings. I have an idea of how it might end, but I'm stumped for what else happens in it. This, for me, is not writer's block. That I think of as being more when you pretty much know what you want to say or have happen, but just can't get it down in words that work for you. With 'The Inheritors', I really don't know what the story is exactly. I had a feeling when reading The Stand that that was King's problem, too, and his solution was to truck in the supernatural and hope people would be too busy looking at the moving cups to realise he didn't actually have a pea under any of 'em.
I do have a story which was inspired by Stephen King's 'The Stand' and is similar in being set in a post apocalyptic world. More Europe and the UK with bits in America than King's all-American epic, and an apocalypse that was engineered. The problem is that I can't actually say that I'm working on it. I know where it starts, I know who is in it and I know some of the settings. I have an idea of how it might end, but I'm stumped for what else happens in it. This, for me, is not writer's block. That I think of as being more when you pretty much know what you want to say or have happen, but just can't get it down in words that work for you. With 'The Inheritors', I really don't know what the story is exactly. I had a feeling when reading The Stand that that was King's problem, too, and his solution was to truck in the supernatural and hope people would be too busy looking at the moving cups to realise he didn't actually have a pea under any of 'em.
Bob Studholme
For me it's being able to create people and fit them into worlds. My first story, which is up here as: 'The Chronicles of Brendan Earle', but which I might be rewriting to put out again with a different beginning and the new title: 'Changed', is a made up magical world. It's also loosely based on Northumberland in terms of the scenery.
That being said, the geography of the place is flexible and the places I need to have are in the places they need to be to keep the story rolling.
One of its characters is a 12-year-old girl who was based on my daughter when she was about 8 or 9 (but very mature for her age).
My latest story, Private Universe, which I'm trying to get published, is set in Devon. But the location is based on Slane Castle in County Meath, Ireland. That's partly 'cos I've never been to Devon and have been to Slane, but also because I needed a place just like Slane, but couldn't use it as the actual location. The setting of the book is the First World War and it's essential that all of the men would be gone to the war. That is pretty easy to believe of anywhere in England, but might be harder for readers to believe of rural Ireland.
This works in the context of the story, but it would be a spoiler if I told you how.
That being said, the geography of the place is flexible and the places I need to have are in the places they need to be to keep the story rolling.
One of its characters is a 12-year-old girl who was based on my daughter when she was about 8 or 9 (but very mature for her age).
My latest story, Private Universe, which I'm trying to get published, is set in Devon. But the location is based on Slane Castle in County Meath, Ireland. That's partly 'cos I've never been to Devon and have been to Slane, but also because I needed a place just like Slane, but couldn't use it as the actual location. The setting of the book is the First World War and it's essential that all of the men would be gone to the war. That is pretty easy to believe of anywhere in England, but might be harder for readers to believe of rural Ireland.
This works in the context of the story, but it would be a spoiler if I told you how.
Bob Studholme
I don't think I do, really. When I've got time and ideas, I write. When I don't have time, I can't. I don't think I've ever got into a project and not been able to write the next bit of the story, or some next bit of a story because of writers' block. That being said, I don't think I write as much as I should and I have two projects which are on hold at present because I don't know how the stories finish.
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