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Ask the Author: John Collee

“Ask me a question.” John Collee

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Hello John! Its great to see all your work over the years! Pretty impressive. I did not know about Happy Feet! I see Nigel and Jane quite regularly. I see them on Bristol and they visit Cornwall regularly. Maybe one year once retired I will visit Australia. Life treating you well? Francis
John Collee Hi Francis, good to reconnect. Will send you an email
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Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?
John Collee My most recent book was The Rig and it came from working for a year as a doctor for a company exploring for oil on the West coast of Madagascar. At night we would play poker and the guys would all tell stories about conspiracies, near death experiences, divorces, love affairs and drunken brawls. A few of those stories found their way into the plot of this book.
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How do you get inspired to write?
John Collee By doing stuff which is outside my comfort zone.
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What are you currently working on?
John Collee A film about a terrorist attack and the unexpected heroes who emerge in extraordinary circumstances.
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What’s your advice for aspiring writers?
John Collee Everyone can read and write, and almost everyone can tell a good story. What's hard to acquire is experience of the real world and the most valuable experiences - the ones that will motivate your writing - always involve an element of pain. Round-the-world yachtsman Jesse Martin once said to me "If you don't, at some point, wish that you weren't doing it, then its not a proper adventure." I believe that to be true, and I believe that as a novelist, your job is to have adventures.
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What’s the best thing about being a writer?
John Collee Freedom to do what you like is the best thing and the worst thing. The best because you can research anything that interests you, the worst because getting to a place of real understanding is hard work, and when you fail you have no-one to blame except yourself.
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How do you deal with writer’s block?
John Collee I think procrastination is a normal part of the writer's creative process. If this wasn't the case then a lot more bad literature would be produced, and theres enough of that already; but if you're blocked you either haven't identified the theme at the core of your story, or the themes no longer important to you, or you haven't written an outline, or you haven't done enough research.
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