This is the 20th of 25 blog posts to celebrate my 25th published novel, A Skye Full of Stars. Continuing on with the takeovers, here I pass over to my friend Mark West.
At an event this year, Sue and I realised our friendship stretched back twenty-five years, which is a very pleasant anniversary to share. We first met, in 1999, at Kettering Writers Workshop. My wife had seen an advert for it in the local library (you know, I’ve never asked Sue how she came to know about it) and I went along, not sure of what to expect. Since I wrote horror (too gory!) and Sue wrote romance (too slushy!), we were classed as the genre kids (we were probably twenty years or so younger than anyone else there) and had to sit at the back, because we didn’t write “serious stuff”. The irony being, of course, that we were actually getting our work published and picking up useful information that might have benefitted some of the other members, had anyone asked (and we did offer it, trust me!). I fondly remember those days, sitting together and giggling about stuff and sharing our publishing news with one another, and it’s part of the reason I love our get-togethers now.
I left the group in the early 00s, to pursue my professional qualifications, but Sue and I kept in touch and then she started coming to various horror writing conventions with me (to the extent that she’s friends with a lot of those fine people, several of whom break out of their usual reading pattern to take in her latest novel). Going out for meals at them led to us getting together for a drink and a catch-up, mostly at The Trading Post pub and that’s been a long-standing engagement for a long time now. In fact, it was there that Sue first told me the idea for a novella she was thinking about, which would go in – in time – to become “The Christmas Promise” and we all know what happened after that!
Our friendship is based on great chemistry, a mutual admiration for each others work and a love for the written word. For a long time (sadly, not the past few years, as my writing schedule has meant I had to take a step back), we critiqued each other and that, for me, was a wonderful learning experience. I enjoy contemporary drama, I enjoy a good romantic story and getting to see how she constructed her novels – and then slotted everything in together – was a huge boost for my own process. I’m not sure quite what she got from reading my horror work (my introductory piece to the group apparently gave her bad dreams!), but she was always a trouper and always gave me great – and incredibly useful – feedback.
“Our friendship is based on great chemistry, a mutual admiration for each others work and a love for the written word…”
Probably the best writing lesson I learned from Sue is to approach things from a commercial aspect. That’s not to say there isn’t art involved (because, in her case, there absolutely is), but she’s always been aware of serving the reader and making them want more. Coming from the small press horror scene, as I was, commercial didn’t really come into proceedings, but it did make a difference when I branched out into mainstream thrillers. Her advice, her feedback and her emails of “Hey, have you seen this market that’s just opened up” were a great help and continue to be. She’s always there, to offer a bit of advice or a pep talk, and I only hope I give back as much as I take.
Over the years, we’ve also developed a nice little double act that has served us well with talks we’ve held, at such places as libraries and literary festivals. Our respect for one another (both as people and as writers) allows us to take the mickey, have a laugh, but still make a point and I think our audiences enjoy the events as much as we do.
I’m a big fan of Sue, both as a person and also as a writer and I hope we have at least another twenty-five years of sharing stuff and supporting one another and having a laugh.
My new novel A Skye Full of Stars is out now!
