My boyfriend, Nick Bryan, has published a book, The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf, and this has caused all kinds of ethical dilemmas to grow wings and flutter around my brain.
I had already decided a few years ago not to review books that I had been involved in at an earlier stage. The first of my friends to publish a book was Ali Luke, who I met when we were both doing the MA Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths. Her novel, Lycopolis, is about a group of roleplayers that sort-of-accidentally summon a demon. It’s very good, I enjoyed it. I would love to be able to review it, but I just couldn’t separate the-book-as-it-is-now from all the bits and pieces of earlier drafts in my head. When I review a book, I want to be sure that I am reviewing only what made it to the final pages.
My role in the production of The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf was more minor, all I did was proofread it, but still, the idea of reviewing it makes me uncomfortable. He’s my boyfriend. It would Just Be Weird. But I wanted to do something to celebrate the book’s publication. After a bit of thought I hit upon the idea of doing an interview. Nick and I talk quite frequently about the craft of writing, but I’d never really asked him about where his ideas came from before, so I started typing up questions and emailing them to him.
Does it count as nepotism when all you’re doing is interviewing your boyfriend for your own relatively minor book blog? He has more Twitter followers than me, hell, he has more Twitter followers than the shared Bookish Brits account at this point. So maybe this is actually sneaky nepotism on his part, because he’ll be promoting my blog by tweeting about this interview?
In any case, whoever is the nepotist, here is the interview. I hope you enjoy it.
Let’s start with a pretty basic question. How did you come up with the idea?
I watched a lot of odd-couple detective shows and thought “Y’know, if one of them is going to act like a teenager, they might as well be one.” After that, a lot of the dynamic, from the way both of them cover up their real selves for silly reasons to their on-off infantile bickering, came pretty naturally.
Like many things I write, it originally had more of a fantasy element – the wolf they’re chasing in The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf was basically the Big Bad Wolf, straight out of a fairy story. But as I read Fables and watched Once Upon a Time, it became clear that was well raked ground, and I came up with this crime-drenched modernity instead. Like the old gangster days where every business is a front for criminal activity, except with more contemporary enterprises. And still a Wolf, because making it fit without the Big Bad aspect was almost more fun.
Which part of the writing process did you find the most difficult?
The hardest part of the writing process by far is actually having an idea. The typing and editing takes longer – and self-publishing does admittedly contain some quite monotonous tasks – but it’s nowhere near as stressful as getting my thoughts together.
A short story by Nick Bryan will generally have involved half a day of drumming my fingers trying to work out what to do for every one day spent actually writing it. This is one reason I like novels and serialisation – I get much more use out of the ideas.
Oh, ideas. If only they arrived fully formed rather than full of gaps that require a lot of hard thinking to fill in. Which part of the writing process did you find the easiest?
For me, the part where you sprint away into a first draft, no longer chained down by the leaden chains of having an idea and before the sudden stop of having to bring the story into a sensible shape in order to finish your first draft and edit it into something socially acceptable.
Finishing later, more arduous edits is more satisfying, but pattering out first draft is definitely the easiest bit for me.
Oh, except for the part where you sit down the pub with your mates, talking about how you’re going to write a book but never actually doing it. That’s also kinda straightforward.
Yeah that is not something I’ve found a particular struggle, though when progress is slow I find it kind of embarrassing to talk about. Back to The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf, which character is your favourite? Is it hard to choose?
Hobson and Choi, probably jointly. Hobson is more fun to write, but Angelina is more like me. Turns out, channelling my inner teenage girl comes pretty easily.
Outside of the heroes, probably The Left Hand, the evil discount pub. It’s not a character, obviously, but it’s just such a ridiculously OTT concept. And in the broader context of the entire Hobson & Choi series, I think The Left Hand probably did the most to set up and establish where it’ll all end up going. It was such fun, I decided to go harder in that direction.
That’s set up a nice segue into my next question, thanks. The Hobson & Choi series is set in London, and there’s quite a lot of travelling to different locations. What area is your favourite to write about? Is there a location that you haven’t featured but would like to write about in the future?
Outside The Left Hand, I enjoy writing about South London a lot, actually. It’s easy and fun to make it into a character. So look for more Peckham and Brixton stuff in future books.
In the future: I may have to bite the bullet and take the team into Central London, properly in town with all the tourist attractions. Don’t know if I can put it off any longer. They gotta meet the Queen.
Do you think you could have written the book, albeit under a different title, if Twitter had never been invented? The Girl Who Facebooked Wolf? The Girl Who Put A Wolf in her Myspace Top Friends?
Without social media, I imagine they’d just have read about it in the paper. Or maybe someone would’ve come into the office and hired them, like all the classic detective storylines, and I’d have needed a different terrible wolf pun.
Of course, Twitter could become redundant in the future, but the beauty of self-publishing is I could just go back and update it into The Girl Who ZapKibbled Wolf or whatever replaces it.
Probably won’t really do that, but do all remember to friend me on ZapKibble. I really think it could be the next big thing.
Back in 2014, you can follow Nick on Twitter at @NickMB, or visit his website to find out more about The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf and his other writing.
I hope you enjoyed reading this interview! If you’re a book blogger, have any of your friends or family members published books? Do you review their work or have you found other ways to support them?
