DARRYL GREER
- GUEST AUSTRALIAN AUTHOR -
G'day folks,
Today, I interview an Australian author who has been busy writing.
Welcome, Darryl ...
1. TELL US A
LITTLE ABOUT YOURSELF AND YOUR WRITING JOURNEY.
I
began writing seriously in the early 1990s when I was living and working in
London. Until then I had a hankering to
write but kept telling myself I couldn’t.
Eventually I convinced myself I should at least try. At first, I managed
to get published – and paid – for about a dozen or so of my articles in British
and International magazines. When it was time to try my hand at writing a
novel, I sat at my computer, wrote a title, then a line, then another line
until I eventually had what could loosely be termed a novel, though after
hawking it around for a while and getting the inevitable comments from agents
and publishers, I binned it. When I
started on my next book, The Election, a political thriller, I’d learned
a lot from my experience on the first.
It ended up, I think, being a great story but I still couldn’t get
published. Years later, I decided to self-publish that novel.
For my next novel, Calvus, a historical
thriller, I secured a publisher, Morris Publishing Australia. They eventually
went out of business so I republished a second edition as a self-published
author. Following that, I secured a three-book publishing deal with Custom Book
Publications, Hong Kong and they published Agnus Dei and Sleeping
With Angels, both of which are legal thrillers, and A Dragon In The Snow,
a general thriller. As I was not entirely satisfied with how my books were
being promoted, I decided to return to self-publishing for my sixth novel, Bounty
last year. This year I published a memoir, …Passing Through… and
since then I have been focusing on online marketing of all my books. Just for fun, in the background I’m grappling
with the script for an eight-episode television drama series.
2. WHAT DO YOU
ENJOY MOST ABOUT BEING A WRITER?
I
love the research. I also love the way it takes you away from your day to day
problems and disappointments and deposits you in another place.
3. WHAT IS THE
HARDEST THING ABOUT BEING A WRITER?
Marketing.
4. WHAT WERE
YOU IN A PAST LIFE, BEFORE YOU BECAME A WRITER?
I
was a solicitor. During most of the time I was in the U.K. I was a commercial
litigation lawyer, in various City and Central London law firms, at partner
level. In 2004, I semi-retired and returned home to the Gold Coast where, for
the next ten years before I finally retired, I operated a consultancy
litigation practice assisting other law firms.
5. WHAT IS YOUR
GREATEST WRITING ACHIEVEMENT?
Getting
six novels and a memoir into print. I guess I am a little proud of my latest
novel, Bounty. Because a lot of it is set in the Middle East, including
Lebanon where I have never been, it did take years of research to put it together.
6. WHAT ARE YOU
WORKING ON AT THE MOMENT?
Another
novel which I am calling Zeno, a sequel to Calvus. It is set in
first century Rome, Phoenicia, Galilee and Judea.
7. WHAT
INSPIRES YOU?
Things
I’m passionate about. For example, Calvus is partially set in the first
century in Roman times and I’m fascinated by the ancient Romans. Bounty, as I have said, is set in the
Middle East, another region in which I have a deep interest.
8. WHAT GENRE
DO YOU WRITE?
I
break the rules a little and don’t always limit myself to the one genre. Given the “write what you know” rule I should
always write legal thrillers. As I have said before, I have written many books
that do not fall into that genre.
9. DO YOU HAVE
ANY TIPS FOR NEW WRITERS?
If
they’re passionate about writing, don’t ever give up, no matter what comments
they get from agents and publishers.
10.DO YOU
SUFFER FROM WRITER’S BLOCK?
No.
11.DO YOU HAVE
A PREFERRED WRITING SCHEDULE?
No,
though when I was working as a lawyer, I had to work around that and, as you
can imagine, that was a bit challenging.
12.DO YOU HAVE
A FAVOURITE WRITING PLACE?
I’m
somewhat limited—I have to write at my computer in my home office.
13.WHAT IS YOUR
GREATEST JOY IN WRITING?
Getting
positive reviews and readers’ comments.
14.WHO IS YOUR
FAVOURITE AUTHOR AND WHY?
I
find it difficult to restrict myself to just one, given the myriad of great
authors out there but the author whose books I believe I have read the most is
David Baldacci.
15.WHAT’S THE
GREATEST COMPLIMENT YOU EVER RECEIVED FROM A READER?
“It’s
absolute brilliant. It gripped me from the very beginning.” I love readers to tell me my book is a
page-turner. That’s what I set out to write.
16.WHAT WAS THE
WORST COMMENT FROM A READER?
“Well,
I have to say I enjoyed the read...”
That was as much as I could get out of her and she was my literary agent
at the time!
17.WRITERS ARE
SOMETIMES INFLUENCED BY THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN THEIR OWN LIVES. ARE YOU?
Yes.
18.OTHER THAN
WRITING, WHAT ELSE DO YOU LOVE?
Reading,
cinema, theatre, music, walking.
19.DID YOU HAVE
YOUR BOOK / BOOKS PROFESSIONALLY EDITED BEFORE PUBLICATION?
I
did have The Election professionally edited and, of course, the books produced
by publishers were edited. Recently, I have tried to self-edit. I hope I haven’t
let myself down.
20.DESCRIBE YOUR
PERFECT DAY.
It
would start with a phone call from a producer wanting to buy the rights to my
television series; then around lunch time I’d get the call to tell me the
foreign rights of my novels have been sold to various overseas publishers;
around dinner time I’d get the call from Steven Spielberg!
21.IF YOU WERE
STUCK ON A DESERT ISLAND WITH ONE PERSON, WHO WOULD IT BE? WHY?
Until
her passing in 2018 it would have been my wife.
She’s was my No. 1 fan.
22.WHAT WOULD
YOU SAY IF YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO SPEAK TO WORLD LEADERS?
Give
peace a go.
23.WHAT ARE
YOUR PLANS FOR THE FUTURE?
To
keep working as long as I can and, of course, to continue writing.
24.WHAT FIVE
BOOKS WOULD YOU TAKE TO HEAVEN?
As
A Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg.
Les
Misérables by Victor Hugo.
Once
We Were Brothers by Ronald H. Balson.
In
The Company of Strangers by Awais Khan.
Preying
In Iran by Eric Weitz.
(I
deliberately omitted my own books for obvious reasons!)
25.DO YOU SEE
YOURSELF IN ANY OF YOUR CHARACTERS?
Yes. Good and bad.
26.DOES THE
PUBLISHING INDUSTRY FRUSTRATE YOU?
Yes.
27.DID YOU EVER
THINK OF QUITTING?
Yes.
28.WHAT WAS
YOUR FAVOURITE MANUSCRIPT TO WRITE? WHY?
Bounty
because of the enormous amount of research required.
29.
HOW WOULD
YOU DEFINE ‘SUCCESS’ AS A WRITER?
Being able to live on one’s writing.
30.WHAT SHOULD
READERS WALK AWAY FROM YOUR BOOKS KNOWING? HOW SHOULD THEY FEEL?
How much has gone into writing it. Hopefully, they’d feel elated.
31.HOW MUCH
THOUGHT GOES INTO DESIGNING A BOOK COVER?
A considerable amount of thought went into designing
the covers of my novels, though I did not do the graphic artistry myself. I knew what I wanted and others brought my
ideas to life.
32.WHAT’S YOUR
ULTIMATE DREAM?
To be a very successful, full-time writer.
33. WRITING IS ONE THING. WHAT ABOUT MARKETING YOU,
YOUR BOOKS AND YOUR BRAND? ANY THOUGHTS?
Marketing is the most difficult thing about
writing. Getting your book onto Amazon’s
site is one thing but making it stand out from millions of titles is
another. I find that starting small,
giving author talks at libraries and clubs is a good way to start and, since
Covid-19 raised its ugly head, online marketing.
Clancy's comment: Well done, Darryl. You have come a long way since book one, and certainly put in the hours.
I'm ...
No comments:
Post a Comment