Behind The Mirror
What do you normally write?
So far my novel writing has all been set in Renaissance Italy but I’ve stored up loads of ideas for modern day fantasies and I am about to start work on my first full length fantasy novel.
Tell us about the story you've had accepted and what inspired it?
Behind the Mirror is about two kids who fall through a Chinese mirror, what they find behind it and how they get back again with the help of an item of high fashion footwear. It started out as one of those strange early morning dreams; the sort of thing you have when you’re trying to avoid getting up and facing the daily chores. I noted it down at the time and filed it away. Then, when I heard about this anthology I pulled it out and developed it into a short story. I couldn’t think of a way back from behind the mirror until I heard a line in a Kirstie McColl track on a CD in the car. Then it all fell into place. The line? ‘In these shoes? I don’t think so!’
What made you become a writer?
It was one of those weird accidents of history. I decided to go back to my unfinished PhD on a Renaissance artist, only to discover that a monograph on the same subject was about to be published. Left with the prospect of starting another subject completely or using three years of research for something else, I chose the latter and thought I would write a novel about my artist. That got me into writing novels set in Renaissance Italy and the rest...
What writers do you admire?
I have pretty eclectic taste: Dickens, Thackeray, Stendhal, Austen, Christie, Du Maurier, Orwell, Wodehouse, Waugh, Powell, Tolkien, Camus, Cocteau, Stevenson, Sterne, Roald Dahl, Pullman, Rowling, Joan Robinson, Chris d’Lacy, Stuart Hill, Michelle Paver, and so on. When it comes to kids writers my all-time favourite book is Le Petit Prince by St Exupery but that’s for entirely irrational reasons.
Do you have a favourite place for writing?
I write exclusively at the computer in the study, but ideas come to me all over the place. Whenever I have a plot problem to resolve, I go shopping. The walk across the beautiful Decimus Burton landscaped park next door to where I live usually does the trick.
What is your writing routine? Do you have to fit it around your day job?
I gave up work last November and now try to write, or paint, or both, every day. A typical winter’s day in the study starts with cleaning the grate and lighting the fire. Once the logs are blazing I can sit down at the computer and luxuriate in warmth and creativity.
What do you hope to achieve through your writing?
I think I need to get it out of my system. I started writing about four years ago, tried it full-time for about two years and then went back to work. All the time I was at work I was thinking about writing and painting, and I would find my mind drifting in long meetings and my notebook covered in doodles. I don’t think I’m really happy if I’m not creating something.
www.jetowey.com
No comments:
Post a Comment