P.J. Hetherhouse

I started writing at the age of eight when I composed the poem ‘Hayley Comet and her amazing vomit.’ So amazing was her vomit that, when I had written it, all the teachers in the school came to read about it. I proudly took it home to my parents who, ever supportive, gave it pride of place above.. err.. the outside toilet.

I didn’t write much as a teenager. Looking back, I can see that this was because I was starved of the things that a writer craves; discomfort, despair and failure. I found myself neglected in this respect by my parents who, for some selfish reason known only to them, chose to make the first eighteen years of my life absolutely wonderful, providing me with a childhood of fun, happiness and fond memories.

Lucky for me then th

I started writing at the age of eight when I composed the poem ‘Hayley Comet and her amazing vomit.’ So amazing was her vomit that, when I had written it, all the teachers in the school came to read about it. I proudly took it home to my parents who, ever supportive, gave it pride of place above.. err.. the outside toilet.

I didn’t write much as a teenager. Looking back, I can see that this was because I was starved of the things that a writer craves; discomfort, despair and failure. I found myself neglected in this respect by my parents who, for some selfish reason known only to them, chose to make the first eighteen years of my life absolutely wonderful, providing me with a childhood of fun, happiness and fond memories.

Lucky for me then that, at the age of eighteen, in full charge of my own destiny, I discovered an innate ability for poor decision making. With this new power at my side, no one could stop me. Despite being horrendously unpopular, I applied to be head boy. I failed. Despite having the motor skills of a new-born giraffe, I took my driving test. Despite having never studied Politics or Philosophy, I applied to read PPE at Oxford. I failed.

Although this failure produced some short story work; ‘Jack and the Magic Beans talk’, ‘The Nearly man’ and ‘Why Jesus was a c*nt’; I never really proceeded anywhere with it. Instead, I decided to continue with my proud history of poor decision making; walking away from my highly sought-after politics degree to investigate the unemployable, unprofitable world of zoology.

But even this did not guarantee the disappointment I craved. Indeed it even seemed, at times, that the zoology degree was in danger of becoming a good idea. At one point, I was even faced with the prospect of a first class degree and a glamorous, tropical-flavoured PHD. Fortunately, this crisis was easily averted - one ‘World of Warcraft’ addiction later and I just about managed to scrape a 2:1.

Upon graduation, I decided to apply for the police: a career that I could have started straight from school without £20k worth of student debt. This proved to be a masterstroke of poor decision making; not only did it render my course change completely pointless but, due to the protracted and ultimately futile nature of the recruitment process, I was able to completely waste eighteen months of my life. The failure gauge within me was almost full, my writer was awakening once more. I joined MENSA’s creative writing ‘special interest group’ (SiG), started developing several ideas for novels and even began a writing blog that, at its peak, was visited by up to two or three people a month.

The job was complete. Like a particularly underwhelming version of ‘The Incredible Hulk.’, I exploded. Ten years of disillusionment and futility erupted from inside me, gushing out on to the page. My novels were ready to be born.