Welcome to second of an occasional series of Q&As, where we will get to know a little bit more about the people who make up the Nethergate Writers.
This time, it’s Richard Gillies.
1. How long have you been a writer?
I only started writing seriously in my late forties, but have written on an off all my life.
2. Have you had anything published?
I have not had anything published though little bits of this and that have appeared about the place.
3. Do you have a writing routine?
Not recently, but I find you are at your most creative in the morning and leave the afternoon for editing.
4. Who is your literary hero or heroine (real or fictional) and why?
Doctor Johnson once said to admit someone else’s greatness is to admit your own littleness, so I don’t have any heroes, though I admire wordsmiths like Rabbie Burns, Sir Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, Samuel Beckett and others.
5. Do you prefer working in a particular genre?
I have had a go at most of them but find sticking to a particular genre restrictive.
6. Do you have any writing ambitions?
I would like to get a book published.
7. Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
Practise.
8. What are you reading at the moment?
I am reading five books at a time and making very little progress with any of them at the moment. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens; The Political Unconscious by Fredric Jameson; Selected Writings on Art and Literature of Charles Baudelaire translated by P.E. Charvet; Frankenstein by Mary Shelley; and finally, Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism by Larry Siedentop.