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Well there’s this talking monkey who won me in a game of Othello in a coffee shop in Amsterdam. He came back to Cornwall with me and has become a prolific reader and dabbler in magic. He also has past life flash backs – the most prominent of which are the Nam special forces ones. We have partially deceased girlfriends who apparently eat dead bodies. The Monkey created a sort of black hole in the spare bedroom and now we have a team of nerds investigating it and trying to stop ‘things’ coming out of it. A bunch of Oriental hit men who appear to believe he is a god attempted to steal The Monkey’s magic lolly pop sticks, but he managed to blow them up in their caravan. We are off to Cambodia in search of a temple from which came a monkey faced pendant with glowing eyes and we seem to have upset an international cabal who are out to get us. Oh, and did I mention that The Monkey likes a cigar and we regularly get very drunk on Jack Daniels…
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Q&A
– When and where do you prefer to write?
I wrote Me and The Monkey on my phone or iPad or laptop while sitting on trains, in airports and on planes, in motorway service stations, in hotel rooms, backstage at events, and even sometimes while sat at home with a glass of Jack Daniels. I am writing Vol 2 with pen and paper as I am no longer traveling. I do most of my writing sitting in bed of an evening with a pen and notebook. That one to two hours is always more productive for me.
– Do you have a certain ritual?
I don’t really have a ritual, but I do have a very nice leather covered notebook for which I can get blocks of recycled cotton paper and I always use Pilot V Ball Grip 0.7 pens (I buy in bulk!). So, not really a ritual – more of a fetish!
– Is there a drink of some food that keeps you company while you write?
Sometimes a Jack Daniels while I write, but while I am typing my handwritten stuff up on the PC I like plenty of coffee. I have a Nespresso machine which gets heavily abused.
– What is your favourite book?
I think I have to have two: Circe by Madeline Miller, 1984 by George Orwell.
– Do you consider writing a different genre in the future?
Yes, I have quite a few storylines on the back burner and none of those are monkey related!
– Do you sometimes base your characters on people you know?
Yes, rather a lot, or sometimes people I have met only briefly. They tend, at least with Me and The Monkey, to be hybrids or extreme versions, or though one or two are quite close…
– Do you take a notebook everywhere in order to write down ideas that pop up?
No. I have a pretty good memory but if I come up with something that just has to be written down, I will make a note on my phone. I will sometimes email it to myself, so it is in more than one place.
– Which genre do you not like at all?
Jazz… I will pretty much read anything if it interests me so I can’t say I dislike any genre. But I don’t like jazz…
– If you had the chance to co-write a book. Whom would it be with?
Michael Moorcock.
– If you should travel to a foreign country to do research, which one would you chose and why?
Probably Iceland – I may write about another country while I am there, but I would just like to go to Iceland!
Thank you, Andy Darby and Rachel’s Random Resources
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About the author
Andy Darby, would-be Viking, and lover of the bizarre. Mission – infest the world with his strange creations. He is the author of Me and The Monkey.
Son of a WW2 Commando, growing up in 1970s Birmingham, as a teenager Andy became a fan of heavy metal, fronting several metal bands over the years. His passion for martial arts also began in the 70s and has continued to the present. Competing as a bodybuilder and playing American Football for the Birmingham Bulls took up much of his 20s.
Following a mixed career involving working in a jewellery factory, spraying cars, and office work, he finally managed to follow his other passion, art, and began a career as a designer. A marketing department honed his skills, and he became aware of the world of designing for live events, joining a small production company, and eventually becoming creative director of their larger parent company. Moving to Cornwall he decided it was time to go freelance setting up his own business focusing on motion graphic design.
In the late 1990s he began to get the urge to write and his laptop drive is littered with the unformed creations that have popped into his head. Me and The Monkey is his first novel, coming to life as an experiment in having the discipline to write something every day during a period when he was travelling extensively for work. The story was written during train journeys, flights, backstage at events, 2am in hotel rooms, even during stops at motorway service stations, and was often written on his phone or iPad.
Andy lives on the north coast of Cornwall with his artist wife, teenage daughter, cat, two ponies, and constantly growing library. He still secretly thinks he could be a big wave surfer regardless of what reality tells him.
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Author Links
https://www.meandthemonkey.co.uk/
https://twitter.com/MeandTheMonkey0
https://www.facebook.com/WhatWouldTheMonkeyDo
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Book Link
http://getbook.at/MeandTheMonkey
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Giveaway
Win a signed Hardback of Me and the Monkey, limited edition print and more
1st Prize
1 x Hardback book – author signed and numbered (out of 250)
1 x spliff bookmark – author signed
1 x promotional limited edition print – author and illustrator signed (out of 250)
1 x Monkey death from above T-shirt
9 x Runners up prize.
1 x signed spliff bookmarks &
1 x signed and numbered promo print
*Terms and Conditions –Worldwide entries welcome. Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below. The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over. Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data. I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.
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