Why did you start to write?
I grew up in a remote iron-ore mining town
in the Pilbara Region of Western Australia, just on the edge of a desert. It
was blisteringly hot, occasionally decimated by cyclones and often rebuilt. It
was a big, open, rust-coloured land which for me, was as big as an ocean,
beautiful but isolated. Growing up in a place like that lets the mind stretch.
I started writing when I was a young boy,
mainly to explore. It’s still true today. This might sound odd, but I don’t
write to tell stories, but from curiosity. Stories are the consequence of that
curiosity. Sometimes something will come to me, an idea, an image, a
relationship, a snatch of conversation… whatever... and I’ll be
captivated. And then just like that,
it’s gone. So rather than just let it vanish I’ll buy the ticket and watch the
movie in my head, write some of it down, maybe stumble across another character
or part of the world.
It’s a compulsion, definitely. I can’t
imagine not writing. I love stories and storytellers, that exploration of ideas
and the weird, unexpected places that they can lead to. I think I wrote my
first ‘novel’ when I was twelve or thirteen, journals and shorts well before
that, and have never stopped.
How did you become an author?
Which is a very different question, isn’t
it? The short answer, was by deciding to be one.
That decision didn’t come easily, as it
turns out. I’ve written all my life. It’s like breathing. Most writers I think
share this, but the decision to become a capital ‘A’ author was a whole
different thing. It meant making the time to finish my first novel, then to
take it seriously enough to open up it to criticism, proof it and so on. Coming
from a creative background in film/tv this was difficult because I’d always
held my personal writing as something separate from that process.
The other part of the answer was in the
decision to thoroughly commit to the supporting work you need to do to make it
all hang together. By this I mean building the blog, engaging more thoroughly on
Twitter, treating the process, ironically, more dispassionately. The fun,
exciting, crazy-mad passionate part is the writing, but being an Author is also
a job, and a big learning was understanding I had to treat it like one.
What was your first published piece?
Technically, that would have to be a poem I
wrote when I was eleven about the town closing down. Sure it was a company town
- built for a single purpose - but as a kid it was also the only home I knew
and it was mind blowing to think it was going to get bulldozed. So for one time
instead of writing about space-ships I wrote about that, and it must have
connected.
In terms of my first real published piece,
that would be ‘Jan and The Spooky Periscope Incident’ a couple of short stories
that went up on Amazon in February this year. I’m actually a massive fan of the
whole Indie publishing thing, and used the short as a small experiment. It did
alright, peaking for a short time in the top 70 free ebooks (comedy) on Amazon
and was inspiring enough to confirm this is how I want to launch Undreamed.
Undreamed, a psychological thriller, is my
first full length novel. When I wrote
the book, which follows Alice, a woman caught in a dream so well conceived that
she can’t tell the difference between it and her waking life, I was truly
fascinated by how someone might be able to live like that, the kind of
compromises they’d have to make to stay more or less sane. Since it’s written
from her point(s) of view in the present tense, it hopefully conveys that claustrophobic
/ nightmarish sense of entrapment. It was also quite challenging to write with
a woman’s voice, but I had a huge amount of help from my wife Zandra, and a few
of my beta readers.
What did you do before embarking on your writing career?
Was it an asset to your writing? How?
I’ve worked in and around film and
television, first as a technical support guy and later in writer /
creative-producer roles. Is it an asset? Yes, in the sense that I learned about
deadlines, writing-processes and so on. In my experience though, writing a
novel is a very different beast from writing a screenplay. There are the
obvious differences - point-of-view, structure, dialogue etc but in a sense
they are superficial - it’s just matter of getting your head into the right
space. The biggest difference for me is that as a novelist, you’re flying solo
for much of the time, accountable only to yourself, which is great as long as
you can get yourself back to earth now and again for a reality check.
Honestly, the greatest asset I’ve found is
observation, reading and getting out into the world.
What inspires you?
Music, photography, great dialogue,
unexpected behaviour, philosophy, tough questions, passion, belief. It’s hard to pin down. I love imagery and
light, nature especially. I’m also drawn to abstractions, questions that are
hard to find answers for and anything that challenges my understanding of the
world. People, always, and their choices.
Please share one of your successful marketing techniques
The question is a bit of a tricky one as
I’m new to this, but what I can say is that I find a combination of Twitter, a
blog and going out and meeting people face to face seems to be working so far.
Reason for twitter? To connect to people I wouldn’t normally be able to. It’s
great for finding like-minded souls. Blog? At the moment the blog is mostly a
collection of vignettes, short stories and a creative collaboration with a
friend/artist, but I hope to start showcasing other authors soon as well.
The reason for all this is to create
connections and the opportunity for conversations.
What genres do you find most interesting?
Psychological thrillers, certainly. But I
also love reading science fiction, fantasy and comedy. I sometimes get asked
why I’ve written a scfi-comedy then straight after that a psychological
thriller. Contrast, partially. But it’s also to do with keeping a sense of
balance. The ‘Jan’ comedy is absurdist and strange, whilst Undreamed is a story
of a woman in crisis, and gets very dark at times.
Parting words
Take the time to get it right, but whatever
you do, finish what you start. If it’s not perfect - and whatever is - do
better next time. By finishing something you create a momentum and set an
expectation. You never only have ‘one shot’ at something. Unless you’re a
sniper. Be genuine, and you’ll be surprised at how much people will want to
help.
Undreamed
Synopsis
Available
early September 2012.
Undreamed is a dark Psychological Thriller,
telling the story of Alice, a woman trapped in a dream.
Alice is
trapped in a nightmare. She leads two lives, both
real to her, both flawless in their logic and texture, both filled with people
that she loves and hates. One of these is a dream. She has no way of knowing
which. A borderline junkie heiress in Manhattan, or a recovering psych patient
in Sydney, when Alice sleeps in one life, she wakes into the other. Other than
her own memory of them, her worlds are separate and seamless. In both her lives
she tries to find clues to discover the root of her sickness, but nothing
crosses over. She may as well be two completely different people. Caught in
this impossible status quo, never able to bring herself to believe that the
life she’s leading is true, Alice is trapped. Not believing either, she believes
nothing. Then one day her lives are fractured when something does cross over.
First in Sydney then Manhattan, Alice meets a girl dressed in green. She knows
this girl for what she is: the key to her escape.
But as she unravels the girl’s secret, the realities
of not one but both lives are challenged.
The question becomes: who is it that she’s
really waking?
Paul
Western-Pittard Author Info
Amazon
Author Page: www.amazon.com/author/paulwesternpittard
