Words Against Mental Illness Part 4 - A Passion for Prose With George Paterson

Transcript

Nobody gave me sin for this That’s reason why I try both This is all that’s old, I can see a thousand times of this I’m here with George, George introduce yourself I’m George Patterson, I’m a writer, broadcaster and a former musician and I’m here in Oktoradur to be part of the Oktoradur Book Festival the third one and I’m really happy to be here And what are you doing today? I’m hosting a panel called Fact vs. The Book Festival I’m hosting a panel called fact versus fiction with Val Penny and Mark Bridgeman. Okay fact well so I certainly know Mark Bridgeman and Val and so fact versus fiction so what tell me about that what does that mean? Basically it’s both are crime writers but Mark writes factual books about real crimes that have happened in recently quite an entertaining exciting way. Val is a fictional writer crime writer who has started a series called the Hunter Wilson, DEI Hunter Wilson series which has now had an offshoot into the Jane Rennick series as well so it’s having a wee chat about both disciplines the fact versus the fiction and why do they prefer you know writing in that state that type of the genre and the other type of the genre and just to see what you know what differences and what similarities they may have. Yeah amazing and and so and what do you do as a writer? I’ve written two books that have been published the the guys I’ve interviewed they’ve written between them I think they’ve written about 30 yeah so I’ve only two published so far. The first one’s called The Guild The Crow, The Writer and The Fighter which was a sort of big sweeping adventure book that was picked up by in two books Small Independent Label in Glasgow in 2021 they published it and it was it became quite successful it’s sold off very few and the publisher picked me up from a second book which was a supernatural psychosexual thriller set in the west end of Glasgow and on the fictitious island of Westerwick which are made up so those two books are very very different and they’re not they’re not part of any series or standalone books so I tend to enjoy writing standalone stories and despite my publisher and other people pushing me for sequels and prequels and you know series I’m quite happy just at the moment to write stand-alones unless somebody comes along and gives me a big chunk of change change my mind yeah we’re all anybody’s for the right price and so well I can really relate to that because I’m a visual artist I’ve fallen into the trap in the past of thinking listening to what other people think oh you should do more of this or do more of that and it makes me bloody miserable because I’m like I don’t want to do this I want to be doing my own stuff I want to be doing what resonates with me at that moment and I mean there’s one thing for me because I can pump out paintings like you know a couple of days if I want but a book’s quite a big endeavour and so you know is this a lot of time spent on your own yeah yeah there’s I didn’t initially start with the idea of writing a book I was a musician for a number of years what sort of musician I was a singer and a band and songwriter so I was I’d been doing that and one of the reasons I went to London back in the late 80s was to try and make it with my band and we didn’t we just fell short a few times so but I found that writing songs a lot I still love writing music and songs lyrics and stuff but I felt that I needed to expand beyond the confines of a five minute piece I wanted to write something a bit longer form so that’s when I started writing pieces for articles and you know short stories and it just got bigger and bigger until during Covid when we’re stuck at home and my daughter was very young at the time she was a baby and I was at home with her all day so when she slept I would write and it just got bigger and bigger and bigger and then it sort of eventually blossomed into this sort of proto novel and try to knock it into shape during the Covid period and I still didn’t know really what to do but it was really something for my own well-being just to try and get this nonsense that’s in my head all these people that are talking in my head get them out and down and on that page and it just continued from there and it’s a really good outlet for the madness that’s going on inside my cranium so because I can relate obviously you know well getting out what’s in your head I think creativity as a solitary exercise is highly therapeutic and especially I mean we all suffered during Covid in one degree or another and and I think I find that amazing that you you managed to not only find something to do in that time that stopped you from going nuts um you’d remember it yourself it was it was a really I know a lot of people who loved being you know having the space and the freedom and I was and I’m quite a solitary person generally but I felt as if I just needed I felt my mind was quite confined at the time I would not be allowed to go out and do things and just walk around on my own yeah beyond you know the length of my street I found quite quite tough to take so Covid for me was a really hard hard time thankfully I had something to focus my attention on and focus my energy on because beyond that I think I would have struggled even more than I did. So how do we jump from a sanity maintaining exercising in during Covid to a published book? Well I’d been writing as I said I was writing longer-form pieces for reviews and just little think pieces for this website and the website was run by a publisher called Stephen Cameron and he’d published a few books but not many fictional books and I was chatting to Stephen on one of our few lockdown walks we’ll go for a wee walk because it lived not far from me and we’d get chatting just to shoot the breeze and obviously as a publisher everyone comes to you oh by the way I’ve got a manuscript or I know something with a manuscript will you have a look at it and he’s like I don’t want to read any of this I don’t want to read anybody’s stuff and he knew what it was like as a writer and he respected my work but he was I’m really no interested in getting any fiction out there at the moment just not interested but he said I’ll have a look at it I’m a slow reader I’ll take a while to get back to you on this and I’m no promising anything but if I can if there’s someone who I know that may be interested I’ll put it onto him but don’t expect to hear from me for quite a while so I wasn’t expecting to hear from him but I heard from him within about three hours he sent me a picture of page 72 or 73 and he said we need to talk so he picked up that day so he was that day was like this is special and I want this so from that moment on it was like oh right okay maybe I’m doing something right after maybe it’s it has got legs so from then on in it was published um maybe I don’t know about eight and nine months later it was published and put out in the world and it’s just developed legs from there and it’s amazing that’s such an amazing story it’s great but it’s very unusual for what good writers are like reject after reject yeah yeah first publisher I hit you want to get a success it’s like it’s not the norm so no I’m aware of that and I’m aware of how fortunate I was to to have well again as a as a visual artist I got lots of paintings by the painting by the painting right but some of them take quite a while but not novel length yeah you know I mean and it’s like you put all this effort into something it’s your baby all these people all these people in your head are on the page and how do you feel about that when someone goes on I don’t really like that oh well you get it a lot right well because the thing is people are usually quite nice right um but the one that really does my head in is um oh I love this patient you talk to them about it’s amazing they’ll tell you about this piece of artwork and and you sort of look at them expecting it and they’ll be like yeah but it doesn’t really go with the decor in my dining room right and you’re just like ah I get that sometimes even with books as well it’s um if if you don’t fit in a particular genre there’s people who pick up on books or pick up on literature as an accessory rather than this is a piece of art you know this is something that someone you know I don’t know how long it takes you to make your pieces of art but I know it takes me it can take me up two years it can take me longer than two years to make something that’s going to cost a tenor yeah you know and it’s not an accessory I want to be part I want you to engage with me and go we’re going to write an unwritten contract here and it’s we’re going to we’re going to agree a contract that you’re going to jump into this book I mean this wee world of mine and you’re going to inhabit it for you know the next week or two that is is worth more than just being an accessory on a bookshelf or on a dinner but you’ll take the sale anyway I’ll take I’m more in a position where I can turn it then yeah no I couldn’t agree more and I think well for me as a reader I do a bit of writing obviously and I’ve got a podcast and stuff but me as a reader of fiction and I’m dyslexic I have to do things usually by audiobook for me it’s you know it’s almost like dating yeah I have to I have to find authors that can that will resonate with me that I can spend that much time I think that’s absolutely fine yeah not everybody not not you it’s like no everybody likes fish you know everybody likes chicken yeah you’re going to have to find the things that work for you but when you when you do love it love it with all your heart say we are you know there’s artists I love you know there’s artists I like and there’s artists I know really that first of it but for somebody I love I love them you know intensely yeah yeah yeah exactly yeah totally um and so how do so there’s one thing writing for yourself over Covid whatever um there’s no real pressure there right um to jumping from novel number one to novel number two where you’re now published off with expectations or even to do things like sequels or whatever well what changes in that transition to the outside world quite a lot but to me nothing genuinely I have not deviated from the path that I set on when I first started writing that’s the probably thing it’s keeping me in love with doing it other people’s reaction to my work has changed but my my own reaction to my own work has not I continue to do what I did back then I find the time and I guard the time to write you know I absolutely guard that way all of my life and I write and I write and I write I try not to get distracted by events or if somebody nominates you for something that puts your name forward for this or you get a nice review or a bad review you know I try to you know when I get a nice a nice review or a you know a nomination I’m like for a day I’m like yeah but it distracts me too much so I tend just to go right the thing that I like most about this is the actual art of doing it of sitting down and right I get more out of that than I do of oh I loved your book and don’t get me wrong I love that I really enjoy that but for me to keep my passion I have to keep my discipline yeah I have to keep focused on the thing that got me into this in the first place so whatever happens out there won’t affect what’s in here yeah I mean I love that right I love it and it’s so appropriate for the the sort of the core thesis of this whole podcast set out in episode number two which is the process is what’s important right and so I do advocate making art doing writing or in poetry and never showing it to anyone right you should not feel pressured to I think you should I think there’s so much to be gained from that but the point is doing the thing and you’re never going to produce something that you’re going to care about if you’ve got someone else’s voice in your head but you’re doing it for them then you’re doing it will never be I don’t know who you who you make your art for but I’m making my art for me so I’m number one so if I’m happy with it then I’m allowed I’ll allow myself to share it with other people if I’m not happy with it then I’ll no share it at the moment but it’s like consider consider yourself a footballer right you do all your training you don’t have to share all your your your training methods and your training techniques and the hours and hours you spend on the training ground it’s the 90 minutes you’re playing footballing that’s what they’ll get to see and they’ll get to see your piece of art or my book that’s what they’ll get to see they don’t need to see the rest of it that’s part of my process if you want it if you’re interested we’ll talk about it sure but it’s not as important to you as it is to me no I couldn’t agree more it’s the the finished product is the tip of the iceberg and the iceberg is huge and the iceberg is your whole life it’s your experience as a musician as a broadcaster it’s I’m bringing everything to the table but you’re only seeing that little hopefully lots of little tips of lots of little icebergs and it all just adds up to make sort of one big thing that is your career which is just a continuation of your life and I also love this idea that a piece of art whatever it is is a conversation through time and space and so that you as an author are communicating with someone in I don’t know in America who’s picked up your book who are in a year in 10 years time right and the conversation is fresh to them yeah you know I mean and it’s a fresh with you now to them then in the future and I find that just such an amazing concept well I read a book when I was on holiday a couple of weeks ago by an author who’s long dead and I’ve been wanting to read this book for a while and it resonated so much I mean it was it kept me awake at night it was that important to me things were resonating from every line it was just cracking my head open and I desperately wanted to reach out to the to the author but the author’s dead has been dead for a number of years but it was it reminded me is what you’ve just said there this art goes on forever yeah it never ends it’s it’s it will find its people it will find its tribe somewhere yeah all you’ve got to do is you’ve got to be honest with yourself and you’ve got to stick with what you believe in because you will find the people that were meant to find you yeah it’s I mean I love it and I can I can I can hear the passion I can feel it coming off you and it’s such a beautiful thing and I feel I feel privileged to be able to sort of experience that because because what most people have got is the book right or one of your books and and I think that that hopefully the passion this passion comes through in your writing I feel like I really wish I’d read some before now first time we met and I’d ever heard of you was about 15 minutes ago um but um well this is how you find new readers isn’t it and uh yeah I just love that and I think the other thing for me is that when you once you what how do you know when you’re finished about well what you’ve just said you know when you finished it apart from polishing and stuff you know when the thing is done when you like it right when you like it you can’t possibly know but there is you probably recognize this as an artist yourself that that there comes a point where you have to step back from it and go I have to I can continue working on this I can continue adding another line here on our PCR but I have to step away from it now’s the time it’s like having kids you have to know when to go that’s them let them go and do this themselves yeah and that’s the moment yeah and when you release it out into the world it’s not yours anymore it’s not then you have to then you’re you’re open to all the the criticism or the love or whatever comes your way but it’s it becomes part of someone else’s story and then they fold their story into it right they find their love from other the hate of other anything for their own interpretation exactly I’m all about that you tell me what you think my book’s about you read my book you tell me how did it make you feel that’s more important to me than you sit and go and tell me what your book’s about yeah I don’t want to submit to me but you I need you to find out what the book’s about for you yeah and then I’ve made a connection I love it when people interpret my work because I used to get a bit weird about it because I know I didn’t that’s not what it means yeah but like yeah and and then they tell you all about it and I’m like oh if in my mind you’ve just created a new artwork right that I didn’t think about any of that when I was making this you’ve you’ve uh projected that onto it and now you’ve created a new piece of art right that’s new that’s how you knew that’s different that’s a different interpretation that I haven’t seen I found that the most beautiful thing in the world it’s like collaboration totally yeah you totally get it yes good right you’ve got to go and do some stuff um you’ve got to go and do a workshop or whatever that is um so I’m gonna let you go but just before you go uh where can people find you and what you got coming up uh my name is George Patterson two books Westerwick and the Girl the Crow the Right and the Fighter you can find them in all reputable bookshops independent bookshops you can get them from intocreative.co.uk shop that’s the publisher I get more money for that plug plug um and um working on my third book at the moment we should be finished by the end of the year and then I’ll go into edits and we’ll see how it goes for there but uh it’s very different from the previous two but that works for me okay good well good no I couldn’t agree more I love it thank you for your time uh and enjoy the rest of your day thanks man. Ask Against Mental Illness