Ask the Author: David Gee
Answered Questions (8)
David Gee
Meeting somebody in Bahrain who wanted to see what we now call an Arab Spring. This was in 1977, before the fall of the Shah of Iran. He had to wait till 2011. Still waiting, I guess.
David Gee
Harry and Janice Angstrom from John Updike's RABBIT quartet. They are Mr and Mrs Average America through four decades.
David Gee
My Arab Spring novel SHAIKH-DOWN was inspired by the 'disappearance' (in the transitive sense of the verb) of a boy who worked with me in Bahrain (details of this on my website). LILLIAN began as a story to show my mother (who adored Italy) that there would be Life After Fifty, although sadly what was what was waiting for my ma was not a Sicilian prince but Alzheimer's.
David Gee
LILLIAN AND THE ITALIANS, a novel about a 50-year-old widow who goes to Venice to find her 'prodigal' son and learns that she didn't know him as well as she thought. Going on to Amalfi, she meets a dangerously charismatic Sicilian prince. The first chapter is on my website at www.davidgeebooks.com and a later extract (including "revelations") can be found on Alice W's splendid site at www.newlondonwriters.com
David Gee
Edit edit edit. Re-writing is very nearly more important than first-drafting. Like Who-was-it? said, it's more about perspiration than inspiration. So many books (including best-sellers) suffer from inadequate editing. A novel, a story, a play, a script, they're all like a fruit tree and need pruning. Jeffrey Archer says he does ten or more drafts of his books: rewriting seems to have paid off for Jeffrey!
David Gee
Those magical moments when a character seems to take the story in a direction you think you didn't think of.
David Gee
I'm big on editing (see a later answer), so I can re-re-edit something already written until the block plays itself out, which they (almost) always do.
David Gee
I wrote Lillian and the Italians to show my mother (who adored Italy) that there would be Life After Fifty, although sadly fate brought her not an Italian Prince but a rendezvous with Alzheimer's.
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