For every sin, a sword
For every sword, a curse
For every curse, a death
Reymond joined the Crusades to free the Holy Land from the Saracens and win glory for himself. Instead, with six others, he found himself bound under a sorcerer’s curse: the Seven Sins personified. Doomed to eternal life and with the weight of the deaths he has caused dragging his soul into the torments of hell, Reymond must find his former brothers-in-arms and defeat them. Riding across a thousand years of history, the road from Wrath to Redemption will be deadly…
Q&A
I would like to share this interview with you. Enjoy!
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1. When and where do you prefer to write?
I have a desk in what we grandly call the library but is in fact the spare room. The desk is built into the wall in the four foot between chimney and window. It has a set of drawers I keep things like pencils and printer sundries in and a set of 4 shelves above it which have books I’m using for research and reference as well as all my writing related books. I do the majority of my writing on a laptop at the desk. However I also have an iPad and a Bluetooth keyboard for when I travel and I’ve been mostly writing my new novel (The Certainty of Dust) in a blue notebook with a pencil which I’ve scribbled in in various places, most recently on a flight to Poland I took as part of my day job.
2. Do you have a certain ritual?
I don’t. The best advice I’ve been given is don’t have special tools (pens, pencils, notebooks etc.) or any special place to write or activity that needs to be performed. Write anywhere, at any time, with any available writing tool.
3. Is there a drink of some food that keeps you company while you write?
I drink Earl Grey tea, several cups, before lunch if I’m writing during the day and have a refillable bottle of water for the afternoon and evening. I mostly write in the evening though and usually start any writing with a cup of tea. I don’t usually eat at my desk. I prefer to have a break to have food –when I write in the evening it’s usually after dinner anyway.
4. What is your favourite book?
For someone as bibliovoracious as myself that is such a cruel question! I have somewhere between 1000 and 2000 books on my bookshelves – how could I possibly choose just one?
5. Do you consider writing a different genre in the future?
My first published book was a collection of dark short stories, A Tiding of Magpies, which some people have called horror, which use fantasy, scifi and supernatural and psychological horror tropes. The second, Sick City Syndrome, was cross-genre (I called it an architectural fantasy horror) set in the modern day and about urban decay and grief. Seven Deadly Swords, as a historical fantasy, is quite different from my previous writing in both genre and tone. The book I’m working on right now –The Certainty of Dust – is more like Sick City. I have plans for an Arthurian low fantasy and an alt-history set in the 1600’s. One of the first guest posts I did was a piece that was entitled “Genre is just a marketing category” and, as I don’t restrict myself to reading just one genre I won’t restrict myself to write in just one either.
6. Do you sometimes base your characters on people you know?
I think that all characters are gestalts of people you’ve met, people you know slightly and people you know well. Certainly mine are jigsaw puzzles – I may choose the looks of someone with the sense of humour of another and the bad habits of a third. No characters come from whole cloth – even the ones you think are 100% invention can’t really be after all.
7. Do you take a notebook everywhere in order to write down ideas that pop up?
I used to be conscientious about this, after all it is common advice to authors. I also used to keep a notebook by the side of the bed for those hypnagogic revelations you have on the edge of sleep. Until I realised two things – those revelations never made much sense in the cold light of day and that I had trouble reading my scrawls from the darkness. I tend nowadays to jot myself an email or text message on my phone if I am suddenly struck by inspiration. I do still have a small notebook I slip into a pocket when I’m out too.
8. Which genre do you not like at all?
Not a genre as such but I don’t really get on with YA books – I don’t think I’m the target audience at all and the ones that people have raved about have left me cold. I don’t understand what adults get out of reading them.
9. If you had the chance to co-write a book. Whom would it be with?
Tough one. Co-writing could be very interesting but would my ‘process’ (such as it is) gel with someone else? It’s certainly different from Stephen King’s (he overwrites then cuts 25% – I underwrite then add a similar amount.) But assuming that it would I’d like to work with people I can learn things from. I’d like to work with Mike Carey (MR Carey) – as a graphic novelist he’s used to collaborating and he’s written some great books with his wife and daughter. Neil Gaiman maybe – although his voice is so strong it’d be very difficult I think. Jeff VanderMeer likewise. Nicola Barker maybe.
10. If you should travel to a foreign country to do research, which one would you chose and why?
Several locations from various holidays have previously made their way into my writing. If I was to be paid to go somewhere for “research” purposes where would I go? I got the travel bug after I left university and although I’m not as well-travelled as some I have been to a fair few countries. I’ve also been blessed (or maybe cursed it’s hard to tell with business travel) with a job that’s included foreign travel. And yet the world is massive and there is still so much to explore. A bit like the favourite book question I’m having a hard time to narrow it down to one! But one place that I’d really like to set a story is Tasmania…
Thank you, Peter Sutton and Love Books Group Tours.
About the author
Peter Sutton has lived in Bristol since the late 80’s on and off and now considers it his home. He is one of the organisers of Bristol festival of literature and is published by Kensington Gore. You can follow him on Twitter at @suttope and read his blog at http://brsbkblog.blogspot.co.uk/ & see more at his website: https://petewsutton.com/
B for Bookreview 