Jon Courtenay Grimwood Interview

One of our regular contributors Alister Davison recently emailed me a review of The Fallen Blade (now online click here). To summarise his thoughts on the novel:

“A writer more well known for his sci-fi than fantasy, John Courteney Grimwood has turned his hand to the historical fantasy/vampire genre with impressive results. What has become a somewhat clichéd genre now has a new entry with a unique and refreshing character in an impressive setting. And, with expansion into Cyprus at the final part of the novel, who knows where events will take Tycho next?”

Well, one man does know and that man is John Courtenay Grimwood. After such positive reviews flying around the Internet, we gave Mr Grimwood a call and asked him if he’d mind talking to us a bit about himself, the book, the vampire genre and also the topic of writing. An interesting and gracious man, he jumped at the chance to talk with us and it was an absolute pleasure. So grab a coffee and get ready to immerse yourself in the wit and wisdom of this one of a kind author.

Firstly, could you tell us a bit about yourself and what it was has led Jon Courtenay Grimwood to release a fantasy novel in 2011?

Right, there’s a glib little biog somewhere that includes my being Christened in the upturned bell of a ship and being brought up all over the world when I wasn’t flying back to the emotional lockdown that passed for an English boarding school in those days. I kept myself sane by making up stories in my head and letting them run for months at a time. They were peopled by the kind of demons, warriors and heroines only a seven, eleven, thirteen year old could think logical or believable.

Years later I parlayed this into a living. First with four books set in a 22nd C Third Napoleonic Empire, then in an alternate 21st North Africa as examined by a half English/possibly half Berber detective. Three stand alone novels followed ending up with one featuring a British sniper on the run in Tokyo and a street kid from the End of the World.

Then came my great unpublished crime novel set in Heaven, Hell and Mexico City (currently sitting in a drawer with a standing offer to publish). Which isn’t going to happen yet because I decided what I really wanted to do was write The Fallen Blade. There are vampires in my first and third book, magic or mysticism in some form in most of the others but what I haven’t done is a full on fantasy novel and this is it. Well, this is the first of it, since I’m contracted for three books and have a story arc that goes beyond that!

How would you describe The Fallen Blade, what is it about and who will enjoy it?

It’s a love story about an angel-faced dead boy and the great granddaughter of Marco Polo, who made himself duke of Venice and signed a trade deal with the Mongols. Set against a back drop of warring emperors, German werewolves and a bitter internal strife. It riffs of Shakespeare’s Othello, but you don’t need to know that. Basically anyone who likes court intrigue, love stories, battles, weres, undead heroes and exotic backdrops should get something out of it.

Could you tell us a bit about how the idea for the story came about?

All my books came out of single images and an impossibly-beautiful boy chained naked to the bulkhead opening his eyes to reveal he wasn’t human was too visceral an image to let go. In fact, I suspect Tycho would have kept haunting me until I agreed to write his book. It really was that basic. I had the image and a few days later I had the general shape of the book. Actually working out what the hell happened took four months and to the end of the first draft. After that I just needed to lock down the writing.

The Fallen Blade is historically set. Currently the trend is to set vampires in the present or in made up worlds. What reasons do you have for basing your story in a real location and in the past. What benefits do you think this gives the novel?

I lie for a living. To do it convincingly I need to have as much reality as possible to make the lies believable. And it’s a double, possibly triple self bluff. I need to make myself and readers believe I am giving them 15th Century Venice whole. We all know I’m not, I’m give us all a 21st century take on 15th century Venice. So it’s sleight of hand. I’m saying, “Look at my real city…” while knowing its really as made up as any middle earth empire.

The basic advantage for a writer to setting a novel in a real place even if not in a real time is the ability to sit in a cafe in a darkening square and *see* what will be in the book. Silver-furred krieghund slinking out of the dark against a real background.

Without spoiling too much (because most readers are still reading the first book) what are your plans for this series and beyond?

The second book is finished and delivered, and I’m pleased with how it went and how the characters have turned out. This is rare for me since I’d happily keep fiddling with the narrative for another year if only the publishers would allow me (so it’s probably good they won’t). I’ve just started the third book and am already having fun. That’s the three under contract. I have a story arc that runs beyond that but it jumps time a little and sheds some characters. So we’ll see what happens.

In regards to reading, what are your Top 5 books of all time, what are you currently reading and what are you looking forward to?

I’ll give you SFF!

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Shifts between Soviet Russia and Biblical Palestine, a large talking cat and Satan in Moscow. Adore it.

A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller
The Italian monastery at Monte Cassino was reduced to rubble in 1944, and ten years later one of the Americans wrote a novella that became Canticle, a razor sharp trashing of war, organised religion, politics and human stupidity.

Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson
His later books are better written and his earlier ones more famous but this is my favourite. Japanese gang bosses, corrupt corporations, sentient computers, mad billionaires and a ghost in the machine.

The Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End Of The World by Haruki Murakami
“Somewhere in the near future our hero shuffles numbers from the right to the left side of his brain, laundering data. Unicorn skulls bring dreams. Weirdshit happens.”

Red Shift by Alan Garner
Vietnam in Roman-age Britain, the English Civil War for good measure, and a wildly bleak (once modern now retro) teenage love story. This book proved you can do more with a single genre YA novel than most lit fic authors achieve in a life time.

I’m currently reading nothing, and having just finished the second of my two years as a Clarke judge reading endless SF novels I’m looking forward to reading a lot of crime for at least the next two months!

Now that you have sold this novel is writing something you are able/looking to do full time? How will this status of ‘author’ change your life?

I’ve been a full time writer since 1993, which is just as well as I’m virtually unemployable. My entire life is shaped by the fact it’s a job that can be done anywhere. So, I work mainly in cafes and bars and on trains and anywhere else that will let me squat over a keyboard for a few hours.

Because I was a single father of a child who lived with me, my work pattern is shaped by the school day of: get kid to school, get kid back from school, feed kid, get kid to bed… I cut out about 3:30 in the afternoon and kick back in at 8:00 and work until midnight if I’m alone.

What is the process of writing for you? Do you lock yourself away for hours and hours or do you do it bit by bit? How has having deadlines (associated with being published) changed the writing process for you?

I’m a get up and wander round writer. Also a do the washing up, check the laundry, go do some shopping, drop in at the pub kind of writer. Basically, it’s a war between working and not working with deadlines the final arbiter.

I will do the words each day, but some days it takes a couple of hours and others it takes 12 or 14. Same number of words, it’s just turns on how hard it is extracting them from my head. Today’s been good and I’m writing this having cracked a scene this morning at Caffe Nero in Winchester, while drinking my body weight in coffee.

Do you believe writing is a skill or a talent? Do you have any suggestions to want-to-be writers that will help them on their path to getting published?

Writing is a learnt skill like being an electrician. You learn how to wire the story, what each wire does, what happens if you get a couple back to front. Talent is important, inspiration is important, and the ability to work ridiculously hard at your own order rather than someone else’s is also key. I don’t think writing can be taught. But I think it’s perfectly possible to help people to learn to write. That said, a lot of writing is like music, you have to hear it inside. So some writers will always be workman like and others insanely beautiful in what they can achieve. One doesn’t necessarily do better in the market than the other.

My only suggestion is write. Do it every day. Start something and finish it. Don’t start it and rewrite it and keep rewriting it. I’ve not idea if Hemmingway really said all first drafts are shit. But if he didn’t he should have as it’s true. Doesn’t matter. It’s what you do to the first draft that matters. Keep writing and keep reading other people’s work.

We’d like to thank Mr. Grimwood for taking the time to speak with us. You can learn more about The Assassini series and his other works on his website or follow him on Twitter.

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