A Self-Interview Inspired By G Lawrence From The Book Nook

So, I just read Gemma Lawrence’s interview of Queer Science Fiction and Fantasy Author Iris Retzlaff in The Write Stuff.

Iris sounds like a fun person!

But looking at the conversation, I wanted to insert myself into it, and pretend I was the one being interviewed.

And so, voila!

Let’s do the part that makes all interviewees uncomfortable… Stand up, please, and introduce yourself to the class!

Hi, I’m Neil Shooter, SFF writer from Robin Hood Country but now living in deepest, darkest Rural Ontario on an acre of goldenrod and other weeds. I’ve been self-publishing since 2013, but writing for as long as I can remember. I just didn’t always believe in myself, that writing could be something I could “do with my life”. And yet it was always the main thing I was doing with my life ….

Apart from writing? I keep (too many) chickens. There’s not much I like better than sitting under my maple tree watching the distant clouds go by. It’s the fantasy that sustained me through years of city life and office drudgery. The reality, though, involves much more work than I anticipated!

Don’t go anywhere with me. I’ll take my camera and we’ll never arrive. I want photos of everything! And don’t say anything in front of me. I’ll scribble it down.

My household is part-Lebanese, while I am SO English, and the result is a constant stream of humorous misunderstandings, accents at odds with each other, and pure inspiration. I highly recommend multi-lingual households!

What’s your latest project?

At the moment I’m working on the sequel to Hindsight (which I’m still getting ready to release), but what am I NOT working on? I have trouble focusing on one project for any length of time. I’m a big proponent of following your muse while it strikes. But that also means you have too many plates spinning to finish anything.

What book is on your bedside table at the moment?

None. I don’t read in bed. BUT I do make time in my day to read a little. And THAT book is The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein. It’s partly for research and inspiration. For ANOTHER Hindsight sequel bouncing around in my head.

Tell us about a favourite book or piece of work you’ve written.

I’ll quote Iris here: “That’s hard to choose, they’re all my babies!” And it’s true. There is something I love about each story. And when I go back again to reread old stories, sometimes I am stunned by how much I love them and how much they resonate with ME. But that’s what they say, right? Write for yourself. So I’ll mention what I love about my most recent story, The Ephemere Evasion. It’s a sci-fi short, in many ways a stand-alone story, set on an unnamed planet recently colonized by humans. But it’s also the epilogue to my debut novel Hindsight, in a way that you’ll understand when you have read that!

What I love about The Ephemere Evasion is how the alien setting felt so alive to me, right from the outset. It just came, flowing, item after item, as though I had seen it all in a dream.

The Ephemere Evasion is about family history, loss and grief, and love and hope. In an alien setting.

Sounds fascinating! So now tell us about your favourite book/s by other people.

This is even harder to choose.

I’ll tell you five works that have stuck with me over many years, that have shaped my thinking, that my mind keeps coming back to, but that I haven’t read in ages.

The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay. The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. The Otherland series by Tad Williams. The Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov.

They’ve all resonated with me pretty deeply, as did a few others.

Three things I’ve read in the last ten years that have had the deepest impact?

Elliot Pie’s Guide To Human Nature by Chantelle Atkins

Elliot, as a character, just resonated so much with me, and reminded me so much of my own overly-earnest childhood flounderings.

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

As a science-fiction world-building extravaganza this was just so epic and authentic, I had no doubt at all of its external reality.

The Re-Creation of Brian Kent by Harold Bell Wright

An oldie but a goodie. I finished it in a day. And it’s a full novel. It’s not short. So immersive and natural and satisfying in a “chicken soup for the soul” kind of way.

Share a book that you’ve always wanted to read but haven’t yet.

Game of Thrones. Seriously. I’ve watched it all. I listened to part of an audiobook. I have several books in the series, and, well, haven’t opened them. It isn’t that I “already know what happens” because, well, the series and the books diverge quite a bit. Or so I’m given to understand.

Share a classic you tried to read and just couldn’t finish.

Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson

My great aunt was called Pamela, but she died when I was small, and some of her writing made its way into my hands. She was a loner, an enigma, but most importantly, a WRITER. I wanted to honour her by writing about her, but I could only get snippets from my family, so the fictional version of her in my head is a bit vague. I thought, “I bet she read that classic novel Pamela,” which is classic projection on my part. If there was a classic novel called “Neil” I would of course be drawn to it, at least out of curiosity!

So I thought reading “Pamela” might give me some insight into Auntie Pam. I was wrong. Or maybe, I had the same kind of reaction she would have had? I pushed on WAY past the moment of realization of how BAD it was. I’ll never look at another page of it. I promise!

What’s the hardest thing about writing?

Squeezing in the time to actually write! Life is busy. Lots of things need to be done. We have jobs, bills, chores, families. We need to eat, sleep, bathe, and so on. I don’t know how anyone who isn’t independently wealthy with a team of professionals and a household staff ever manages to write anything!

What’s the easiest thing about writing?

Wait, there’s an easy part? Seeing typos is easy, once you’ve published it. Editing is easy, if you have left the manuscript long enough to see things with new eyes. Plotting is easy, if you have figured out a structural framework that works best for you as a starting point. Writing is easy, if you have enough signposts to keep you on track but enough leeway to explore a bit as you go. EVERY part of it is satisfying and rewarding, in its own unique way ….

And what’s the best thing about writing?

FLOW. When you’re in the ZONE. The words tumble out of you whole, and your scribbling pen or typing fingers struggle to keep up with the words that are ALREADY THERE in your brain, with many more lined up afterwards, as if the Universe Itself is somehow communicating them directly, feeding them to you; unless it is our own subconscious that produces these moments, or the stars aligning, or all the appropriate sacrifices having been made to the correct gods .. ahem ….

Or else it’s READING something that you’ve written, and you love it, and although you’ve written it, and you have “some idea” of how things are going to turn out, you are still rapt, pulled in, brought to emotion, and sometimes surprised and awed by what you are reading.

How did you start out?

The first story I was really proud of was a Star Trek fanfic I wrote when I was 9 or 10. Incidentally, that’s when I got my first stinging critique. My friend Chris didn’t like the way Captain Kirk had signed off at the end. He said it didn’t sound “believable”. (I stand by my creative decisions!)

I guess the first thing that relates to anything I’m still working on now is a scifi story set on Tau Ceti 3 (which is the precursor to my current Interstellar Universe), or else it’s the story of Ramana the Rainbow Goddess, a stand-alone fantasy that I never finished (!) (I just handed in the first half, ending at a cliffhanger) that inspired aspects of both Interstellar Universe AND fantasy epic The Eternal Art.

I suppose I started really trying to be a writer around 2006 when I submitted my story “Homeless” to the CBC Short Story Competition. I submitted “Causality” in 2007. I didn’t get any success from it.

And then I started self-publishing on Smashwords in 2013, and now on Draft2Digital.

Now on to the important questions…

In your opinion, what is the best biscuit/ cookie/ snack in the world?

The jam-filled donut from the Bagel Shop on Brick Lane in East London, which is somehow extra delicious very late at night.

Or else it’s my Lebanese family’s maakroons, which are fried dough covered in syrup, reminiscent of … oh, fried doughnuts. Are you sensing a theme?

What drink do you prefer when writing?

I don’t. I prefer not to be eating or drinking anything while writing. And if I have more than one coffee per day I tend to get over-excited ….

Silence or music whilst you write? And, if you so wish, why is the other way just wrong?!

Silence. But silence is impossible around here. Unless I wear industrial ear defenders. It shuts out everything! Soap operas, bickering, lawn mowers, and pretty much everything else.

So I actually prefer some kind of white noise, whether that is some REALLY ambient music or just LOTS of fans. Music with any kind of beat to it is really distracting. So some kind of zen meditation type of thing usually works best.

Describe your writing room

It’s not a room, it’s a Cozy Corner. Well, it’s my bedroom. A chair in the corner of my bedroom. Oh, I have a writing desk in the basement, and some shelves full of books and papers, but my Cozy Corner is more convenient (and comfortable) in most ways.

And lastly…

Where can we find you?

I’m all over the place!

I’m on Smashwords.

I’ve been on Goodreads since 2013, but kind of NOT on there much since it got taken over by Amazon. (The vibe changed.)

I like the vibe on BlueSky though.

I’m still on Medium for the time being, but I’m looking for greener pastures!

I’m also on Substack, which is more engaging than Medium in some ways but also more distracting.

I also have a second “secret” Substack, for my Epic Fantasy Saga (The Eternal Art).

Where can we find your books?

My debut novel Hindsight is “coming soon”. As is the first “season” of The Eternal Art.

But everything published is available from all major ebook retailers. Here’s the full list:

Causality (Causality #1) (Interstellar Universe) (System 35)

A dream of desolation and death. A nightmare vision of a looming end, surrounded by hidden enemies and desperate strangers. His love taken. His hope lost. His life forfeit because of his failures, his inadequacies. How can this end be a beginning? And how can a dream seem so real?

Probability (Causality #2) (Interstellar Universe) (System 35)

His eyes are filled with recognition even though they have never met. She knows it’s not possible, but it’s happening anyway. It makes no sense, and yet it is real. They shared a dream, but how much of it will come true?

The Kinnon Gate (The Eternal Art)

From all over the Kinnon, they have been magically Called to a wintry square in a deserted city, but by whom, and why?

Homeless (Valay Universe)

Winter didn’t end, but his world has. Is he completely alone? In a world gone cold, what can keep the spark of life shining?

Annual 2013 (Collection)

My published stories from 2013, along with a few little extras.

Includes: Causality, Probability, The Kinnon Gate, and Homeless AND interviews, blurbs, gems out of my Vault, and some teasers!

The Visitor (Dean Rand) (Hindsight Universe)

On an ordinary blustery British night an extraordinary visitor comes, a time traveller, with a paradox. But time is relative.

January 2016 — Volume 1 — Eleven Short Stories (Collection)

Terror, humanity, fallibility, love, sex, despair, regret, sacrifice, grief, deceit, and hope. Eleven short stories of distant planets, desperate futures, ancient magic, lost souls, shattered dreams, vain hopes, and bad decisions.

Five Miles Out Of Black Creek (Dean Rand) (Hindsight Universe)

Dean Rand is in a bit of a slump. Can this next story save his bacon? Dr. Chang’s dirty white farmhouse in the middle of nowhere? Well, in the middle of Hamilton County, five miles out of Black Creek. Why would a scientist want to live here? Or work here?

Annual 2016 (Collection)

My published stories from 2016, along with a few little extras.

Includes: The Visitor and Five Miles Out Of Black Creek AND several more gems from the Vault, a poem, and some teasers.

366 Story Seeds

An idea is only the first step. Questions build stories. You must interrogate an idea, and learn to see it from different angles. You need to find the story within the setting. The more you do, the better you do. The best way to learn to do something is to do it over and over again. If you write 366 stories, it is surely impossible for them all to be bad?

Catch (Catch Universe)

Claudia, Melanie, and Daphne. Just three girls walking side by side, intent on each other, and the game they are about to play: Catch. Anyone with an up-to-date phone can play. Not just thirteen-year-old girls. This is the game’s strength, and its weakness.

The Long Night (Paradise #1.5) (Interstellar Universe) (System 02)

The human colony world of Paradise is a frigid mockery of habitable. Commander Carter Jensen’s mission to escort a wayward professor back to Eden Base to face justice has taken too long, and night is about to fall. The alien shipwreck is their only chance of escaping the Shearers and surviving the night. But the alien ship haunts Jensen’s mind, constantly whispering to him. Are the voices real?

The Edge (Interstellar Universe) (System 00)

Two scientists on a journey to the edge of the Solar System are determined to push the boundaries of modern astronomy. Professor Alexander King has been working on this project for decades: it is his crowning achievement. His former student, Dr. Reza Shah is as happy to be leaving his old life behind as he is to be heading into the depths of interplanetary space. It’s all going to be fine…

Annual 2018 (Collection)

My published stories from 2018, along with a few little extras.

Includes: Catch, The Long Night, and The Edge … and more.

New Year (Mission 2 Mars #1.5) (Interstellar Universe) (System 00)

Life on Mars is a constant struggle, and not at all what Naamah expected. The Mission backers melted away, and the four new Martians are alone. To survive Mars, she must come to terms with her past, her present, and her future.

Anti Hero (Catch Universe)

Danny rushes to a meeting, not realizing how stupid an idea this was until he is already there, and it is already too late.

Annual 2019 (Collection)

My published stories from 2019, along with a few little extras.

Includes: New Year, Anti Hero … and more.

The Ephemere Evasion (Epilogue to Hindsight)

An alien world. A human colony ready to expand. A journey on foot through unfamiliar territory containing known dangers, to a destination holding too many unknowns.

And Fin! Many thanks to Neil Shooter for taking the time to talk to himself today!

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Thanks for reading!