Ask the Author: Ian Tennent
Answered Questions (6)
Ian Tennent
Wheel out the mountain bike and hit the trails. The bigger the block the tougher the trail.
Ian Tennent
By thinking. By trying to think something up as original as possible, be it a scene, a description, an event, whatever! Its the joy of original creation that inspires me.
Ian Tennent
The internal high you get when you know you 'done good'. And having your suspicions confirmed by another! Of course it works in reverse too!
Ian Tennent
Blitz your first draft. It will be crap. Accept it, embrace it. Your imagination will only really kick in when the blood from the hot blush of reading your first draft flows up your cheeks, swamps your ears and floods your brain!
Ian Tennent
I'm currently working on a Shared World idea for short story as well as a follow up to Zululand Snow!
Ian Tennent
For a long time now I’ve wanted to write a South African story that can stand squarely on its own two feet without resting on the pillars of apartheid or racism. A tale that lives and thrives purely on the fuel of a good story. The idea was to create a good ol’ yarn using all the colour and texture that South Africa provides. Zululand Snow, I hope, is such a story.
Certain scenes in the book have been with me since I was 12 or 13. Scenes that were as clear to me as a high res video. I would find myself thinking about them, thinking I would love to write that scene but what would I do with it? One scene in particular stood out. A scene with three white boys, in the dead of night, diving golf-balls out the local golf-course dam. Suddenly the boys find themselves surrounded by a threatening group of angry black youths; caddies protecting their livelihood. Why are the boys there? What chain of events lead them to this point? How are the caddies going to react?
And the rest of the story grew from there.
Certain scenes in the book have been with me since I was 12 or 13. Scenes that were as clear to me as a high res video. I would find myself thinking about them, thinking I would love to write that scene but what would I do with it? One scene in particular stood out. A scene with three white boys, in the dead of night, diving golf-balls out the local golf-course dam. Suddenly the boys find themselves surrounded by a threatening group of angry black youths; caddies protecting their livelihood. Why are the boys there? What chain of events lead them to this point? How are the caddies going to react?
And the rest of the story grew from there.
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