This story was written for someone who is currently traveling around the world. The idea of appearing in someone else’s photographs fascinates me. By nature, holiday pictures are posed and consciously constructed; what is happening in the background can actually be the most interesting part. It’s similar conceit to another of my stories, ‘Reeling’. I think a big theme in my writing is what happens to us when we are unaware of it; how sometimes we feature in other people’s lives without really realizing.

 

"There is a connection between the two, but the 'outsider' figure is used differently in each story. In 'Steeplejack' the titular character is crucial to the final act, but he remains a distant figure, also doubling as a crude religious symbol when the girl begins to have doubts at the end. 'What I Am Doing...' is told from the perspective of the outsider. It was partly inspired by a short story by Will Self, in which the narrator gradually realizes he is the story's least important character. I guess both stories are propelled by a notion of helplessness; of placing our fate in someone else's hands."


Do you have a specific writing schedule that you adhere to and/or any tricks that help you, that might be useful for our readers?

 

I struggle to get a good two or three hour stretch to write in at the moment.  At the beginning of the year I set myself the target of writing at least a thousand words a week. That’s realistic, I think. One day I will get a job which requires me to sit and write fiction all day. As for writing tricks, I don’t really believe in them. Catch yourself unawares. My literary hero, Graham Greene, puts it better: ‘A novel is made up of words and characters. Are the words well chosen and do the characters live? All the rest belongs to literary gossip.’


What are you reading at this time?

 

At the moment I’m reading ‘Hackney: That Rose-Red Empire’ by Iain Sinclair. It’s a history of Hackney told as a detective story. There are some amazing interviews with life-long residents, and Sinclair takes some pretty wild detours, but it’s thoroughly satisfying. I’m also working my way through Eric Ambler’s thrillers – he is a master of what is an unfairly marginalised genre.


Name the top two or three most influential writers in your reading life and maybe a note on why.

 

As I previously mentioned, Graham Greene is a huge influence on my writing. A lot of the time his characters’ anxieties chime with my own, and the sense of claustrophobia he creates is unrivalled. Hemingway is another cornerstone; no one constructs sentences quite like he does, though many have tried. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is another of my favourites, though I’m not sure how much his writing influences my own. The scale of his bigger works is incredible; he creates places where fantasy, history, theology and realism can happily co-exist. If, one day, I can write half as well as Marquez does, I will be a happy man.