Crime Addict
Okay, I admit it: I have an unhealthy(?) fascination with psychopaths...
I have a good excuse. I have been reading crime fiction since I was eleven or twelve so I became hooked on tales of misdeeds at an early age.
It all started one day when my mum was ill and asked me to go to the library to select some books for her.
I was quite excited as it was my first trip to the adult section and I spent an hour or more selecting four books based on the example provided by the four I returned for her.
It turned out that I was better at selecting crime novels for her than she was after twenty five years experience...
I read those novels too - after all, I had chosen them, hadn't I?
Corrupted young mind
So we can happily blame my mum for corrupting my young mind and nurturing my warped imagination - and the librarian. He was so impressed that I was avidly reading adult fare he upgraded my junior tickets so that I could borrow them on my own account, and doubled the number from four to eight.
I became a bookworm and immersed myself in crime fiction - with the occasional foray into biography, psychology and... true crime.
Eventually I just had to write a novel of my own, but found plenty of reasons not too. I think they call it writer's block. I think laziness is a more accurate term.
At the age of fourteen or fifteen I won a tri-county prize in a writing competition - nothing to do with crime, just some boring stuff about computerization in banking, but it convinced me that I could write at least as well as the authors I had read.
I could even visualize my book on the library shelf with the magical words Will Patching - Author over dozens of crime novels... but my first attempt died a death at several thousand words, and I'm pretty sure they are still buried in a loft somewhere in the UK. Best place for them, I reckon. Incidentally, Remorseless is 125,000 or so.
Soon after that failed attempt, girls, exams, university, family and having to earn a living all got in the way of my criminal writing intent.
I wrote endless business reports for the next twenty five years, then finally had an opportunity to downshift from my manic work-life and do some of the things I had left on a back burner - like writing...
I have a good excuse. I have been reading crime fiction since I was eleven or twelve so I became hooked on tales of misdeeds at an early age.
It all started one day when my mum was ill and asked me to go to the library to select some books for her.
I was quite excited as it was my first trip to the adult section and I spent an hour or more selecting four books based on the example provided by the four I returned for her.
It turned out that I was better at selecting crime novels for her than she was after twenty five years experience...
I read those novels too - after all, I had chosen them, hadn't I?
Corrupted young mind
So we can happily blame my mum for corrupting my young mind and nurturing my warped imagination - and the librarian. He was so impressed that I was avidly reading adult fare he upgraded my junior tickets so that I could borrow them on my own account, and doubled the number from four to eight.
I became a bookworm and immersed myself in crime fiction - with the occasional foray into biography, psychology and... true crime.
Eventually I just had to write a novel of my own, but found plenty of reasons not too. I think they call it writer's block. I think laziness is a more accurate term.
At the age of fourteen or fifteen I won a tri-county prize in a writing competition - nothing to do with crime, just some boring stuff about computerization in banking, but it convinced me that I could write at least as well as the authors I had read.
I could even visualize my book on the library shelf with the magical words Will Patching - Author over dozens of crime novels... but my first attempt died a death at several thousand words, and I'm pretty sure they are still buried in a loft somewhere in the UK. Best place for them, I reckon. Incidentally, Remorseless is 125,000 or so.
Soon after that failed attempt, girls, exams, university, family and having to earn a living all got in the way of my criminal writing intent.
I wrote endless business reports for the next twenty five years, then finally had an opportunity to downshift from my manic work-life and do some of the things I had left on a back burner - like writing...