What made you realise you are a writer?
I was doing a degree in Theatre, Film and TV Studies at University and I had to make up some credits, so I chose Creative Writing, thinking it would be an easy option. Except the act of writing creatively then devoured me, and I wanted to do it all the time, and I couldn’t remember why I ever wanted to be an actress in the first place. Saying the lines seemed good back then, but making them up in the first place – now that’s real power.
I never called myself a writer until I got published. Then I started to announce it at parties and always felt a bit shameful about it; I mean, I’m not a real writer. Yes, I write every day and I’ve always got an idea in my head and I’m obsessed by my characters, and all that. But I’m not actually a writer. Writers are people like David Mitchell and JK Rowling, right? When they go to parties, the word ‘writer’ precedes them into the room in floating letters. I wonder if I’ll ever reach that stage. I’m not sure it would suit me.
Who are your greatest influences?
Three books really influenced me, and I still read them every year. Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca was the first grown-up book I remember reading, and as soon as I’d finished it I turned back to the beginning and read it again. It captures youth and age exactly – the fear and shyness that gives way to a harder person, after mistakes have been made that cannot be forgotten. An amazing book.
Then there was Frank Herbert’s Dune – just such a huge scope to it, and the plottings of these characters, the mental machinations and the way myth and politics and religions all get woven together. Wow.
And Martin Amis’ London Fields found me at a delicate age, and then I realised books could be about the act of writing itself. They don’t need to take you away to foreign, romantic worlds. They can deal with what’s real, and in your head, and sometimes the way the words are put down on paper is more important than the story.
What achievement in your life are you most proud of?
I’m still true to my dreams. Although possibly this answer is influenced by my love of Disney films.
If you were stranded on a desert island which three fictional characters, who would you like to be there with and why ?
Ladislaw from Middlemarch to be my brooding love interest. He’s not Maxim De Winter or Darcy, but I’ve always thought I’d get better conversation out of Ladislaw. I’m going to need someone who’s capable of keeping me alive, seeing that I have no survival skills, so I reckon Robert Neville from I Am Legend would fulfil that function admirably. And, to ensure sweet dreams, Morpheus himself from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman graphic novels.
What was the first book you ever bought with your own money?
I can’t remember. I can remember the first thing I bought when my grant money for University came through, and that was another graphic novel – The Watchmen. I’d read it before but I needed a copy to treasure forever and I’d never been able to afford it before.
What phrase do you find is the most played in your head?
That changes. Hubby and I repeat little phrases back and forth that would probably mean nothing to anyone else. If red eyes ever come up in conversation, once of us has to say, ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you so… spoon!’ which comes from a film called Mystery Men. What a sickening couple we are to have round on a Friday evening, with our little in-jokes. Apologies to all our friends.
A quick Google of you turns out not to be possible, there is so much and the one question that begs to be asked is what was your experience of the road to publication. Which is your first published book, Light Reading, Three Things About Me, Mean Mode Median?
Mean Mode Median is a novella. It was published by bluechrome, and it’s a literary weirdness, based on King Lear with lots of Dune and Jane Eyre thrown in for good measure. Although that might not be obvious if you read it, considering it’s set in an insurance brokerage in Bristol. It asks the question: how do we define what is special? What makes one human being better than another? I was in my early twenties and wanted to write about the big themes in a new way, without realising how that terrifies most novelists. It’s a brave book and I still like it.
Three Things About Me was then published by Macmillan as part of their New Writing scheme. It’s a very different book, as I’d decided by then I was mainly a comic novelist (albeit very black comedy). Light Reading followed soon after, and that was released as a paperback by Pan Macmillan last year. I think I’m getting better as I keep going. Although, weirdly, it seems to get harder. Sometimes I wish to go back to the carefree approach I had to Mean Mode Median, not thinking about the million other books out there, not realising how hard it is to be fresh. But now, at least, I have the skill to tell when my prose is rubbish. That’s handy.
Blogging, short stories, columns, articles, novels, non fiction which comes most naturally to you?
Blogging is always fun, and the columns seem to write themselves on the good days. Novels are hard work, but that’s what I’m drawn to, perhaps in an Everesty-‘because it’s there’ kind of way. Some ideas are obviously short stories, so I write them that way. Some ideas are going to build and build in my head, so they become novels. I can’t seem to settle on one form of writing.
What have you learnt about the Kwisatz-Haderach complex that would be useful for us all to know?
This turns up in my writing a lot. And in the writing of lots of people I admire- Chuck Palahniuk, Rupert Thomson… We don’t have a special purpose, do we? As Tyler Durden points out, we’re not all unique snowflakes. I want to believe that there’s a reason, a plan, for my existence. I’d like to be the culmination of a million years of a breeding program just to make someone as amazing as me. But I’m not really amazing, and neither are you. Or maybe you are. It all depends on how you judge amazingness, I suppose. And all my novels, short stories, poems, address that issue. The calculation of amazingness. By whose standards are we being judged?
What is this about Bardolino wine and houseplants – is there a link that explains why you can’t keep plants alive?
I hope the two aren’t linked. I love red wine, but I don’t think I’m at the ‘unable to pour straight out of the watering can’ stage yet. No, Bardolino is awesome, particularly when it’s served in Verona at a little street café next to the amphitheatre and you get free crisps with it. It’s not quite so great when you get it from Tesco’s. And I don’t know why all my house plants die. I water them, I speak to them, I give them affection. They never last more than two weeks. I try not to take it personally.
Who is this, and I quote, “strange hanger-on fellow” you do a bunch of stuff with?
That’s my pet chicken, Neil Ayres. We were both published by bluechrome but I didn’t know him until he was running a magazine called Fragment, and he asked me for a light short story. I sent him a piece about a woman who eats her boyfriend and marks the experience out of ten, but he liked it anyway, and then new projects came up and he kept in touch. Then he went on holiday and asked me to contribute to his blog while he was away, and when he came back I’d made myself comfy, so we decided to keep it as a joint blog. It’s called The Veggiebox because initially I spent a lot of time chronicling what veggies I ate for some reason that I can’t remember, and now it’s more of a random series of outpourings about anything. Neil blogs about his projects – he’s currently turning his wonderful novella The New Goodbye into an app – and I blog about computer games and stately homes and novels that have vegetables in them. I maintain that a novel cannot be truly great if there isn’t at least one vegetable in it. Although I will settle for fruit.
What were your conclusions after thinking about getting breast implants and do something about your terrifyingly high IQ for more sales on Amazon?
I went through the stage of being desperate to get attention for my novels, but have come to the conclusion that it’s really not worth getting breast implants over. I like to go along to events and talk to friendly people, but people who are not in the mood to listen are no fun at all, so I tend to wait for an invitation. Besides, you have to trust the book a little bit and hope that word of mouth will spread.
Having said that, I do a speciality pole-dance act with a G-string made from a random pages of one of my novels every Tuesday night on a lamp-post outside Windsor castle.
Not really.
From Balderdash to anything with a joystick, what is your favourite game of all time – you can only take one to the desert island, you know those are the rules?
That is a tough question. I’m addicted to games of all forms, and I’m extremely competitive. Well, since I already have Morpheus, Ladislaw and Robert Neville on the desert island I need a game for four players that I stand a chance of winning. Given that one of the players is actually immortal this might be tricky.
I know – it would have to be a card game called Magic: The Gathering. I played it obsessively for a few years in my late twenties. You’re a wizard and you build a deck of creatures and spells (the cards are collectible, with brilliant artwork) and also types of land/mana to cast the spells with. Then you try to destroy the other wizards. The rules are so complicated that I’m hoping it will take even Morpheus a while to work them all out, so I can use my advantage to sneak in a couple of wins. Heh.
Were you there at the Salzberg Easter Festival …
Salzberg is my favourite town. I went there on my honeymoon, and again while camping around Europe, and everything about it is wonderful. They make sausages with cheese in. They make amazing beer. They have hills that are alive with the sound of music. Mozart and Julie Andrews and the paintings of Bernhard Vogel: awesome. I’m going back for the Easter festival some day, but no, I haven’t got there yet.
If this is you, Ushi-Oni:
“No woman of the sea is innocent. We are demons.
We were raised to the lapping of waves.
We know what we do when we fall for you.”
Can you tell us more about how you are involved with shape shifting monsters of eastern folklore?
Yup, that’s me. I write poetry very occasionally for a small press called Sidekick Books. They put together micro-anthologies on subjects such as retro computer-gaming and spells and British birds. This poem was in their anthology entitled Obakarama. All the poems are about monsters from Japanese folklore, and I chose Ushi-Oni, because I came out of the sea too. Well, from a seaside town, anyway.
From all this, how did you get involved in the Book Swap night?
I was idly watching Twitter, and Scott Pack tweeted that he was looking for some guests, and here I am. See, tweeting isn’t about wasting time while pretending to write. I should say it isn’t only about wasting time while pretending to write…
What do you hope to achieve with the evening?
Eating cake.
Can you give one good reason to come along?
See above. And hopefully see you there.
Aliya Whiteley will be at the Firestation Book Swap on Thursday 15th July 2010
The Book Swap is every third Thursday of the month- at the Firestation Arts Centre, 7.45pm onwards.
- There is a bar and chatting afterwards is encouraged.
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Aliya Whiteley is an author and blogger living in High Wycombe. More can found about her from here: www.aliyawhiteley.com
She has a shared blog with Neil Ayres is at: www.veggiebox.blogspot.com
You can follow her on twitter: @bluepootle
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