"I've lived in six different countries" - Nick Hirst
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Tell us a little about yourself and your background.
I’m from England, just outside London and trained as an actor. After working in theatre and television for four years I followed my interest in broadcast media and started working in radio for the BBC in London. This led to a stint working in the Middle East as a TV and radio presenter. When I returned to London, I worked for the BBC mainly in music radio. I have been lucky enough to travel round the world making programmes about and interviewing musicians including Paul McCartney, The Bee Gees, Lemmy, Cher, Marvin Hamlisch, Susannah Hoffs (The Bangles), Ozzy Osbourne, Bill Wyman, Lynryd Skynrd, Megadeth and many more - even some I've forgotten over time. I've written over two hundred articles for various magazines and websites and I worked on the script of the film ‘Sugar Blues’ by acclaimed Czech director - Andrea Culkova. I’m a keen traveller and have lived in six different countries, most recently spending 13 years in the Czech Republic. I now live in Brussels, Belgium, where my wife works for the European Parliament.
What are your ambitions for your writing career?
To continue to write and publish my kind of books - fun, accessible, page-turning mysteries with (I hope) something to say. And one day see one of them turned into a movie or TV serie
When did you decide to become a writer?
I don’t think there was a point when a conscious decision was made - I was always a writer. When I was 9 years old I ran a school newspaper - The Daily Trash - with a friend of mine; we shared the writing between us – a mix of actual news and comedy. Then, a couple of years later, I was writing short, secret agent genre stories for my schoolmates that I was allowed to read out in class during our English lessons. So I have always written, I just had to decide to do other things to pay the bills, but those ‘other things’ generally involved writing like radio and TV scripts
Why do you write?
Can’t help myself. Once I get started, I just love to tell a story and play with words. The English language is such a wonderful instrument of communication.
What made you decide to actually sit down and start something?
The inspiration bubbles up inside me until I can no longer hold it back and I have to sit down and get the ideas out into some tangible form. In the case of my novel, the conspiracy thriller ‘The Shape of Rain’, it started out as something quite different, then I heard a news story about an English professor who was one of the weapons inspectors going to Iraq to discover whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He had allegedly committed suicide. I started investigating this case and the whole Iraq war situation and something did not seem right. So I wove a story around the fact
Where do your ideas come from?
Quite often, real life as you will see from the previous answer. Although my next novel - 'Second Spider from the Right' - is set in 2084, so the real life is something I am projecting, but many of the technological and geopolitical predictions I make are rooted in events of 2020 and '21.
What is the hardest thing about writing?
Clint Eastwood’s character ‘Dirty Harry’ in the film of the same name says at one point - ‘dying ain’t hard, it’s the living that’s hard.' Let me adapt that - ‘writing ain’t hard, it’s the selling that’s hard.' Actually, that’s not entirely all – I can spend hours over a small piece of dialogue or exposition trying to get it right!
What’s the easiest thing about writing?
Once I finally sit down at the computer, the words (mostly) will just flow especially, for me, when it comes to writing descriptive passages setting a location or describing a character. I love that.
If this book is part of a series, tell us a little bit about it.
‘The Shape of Rain’ (available on Amazon) could be the first part of a trilogy. It’s conspiracy thriller showing collusion between media and governments over the Iraq war. In it the moon landings are referenced in the context of a possible conspiracy. At the end of the book the protagonist - journalist Jack Conrad - is at a crossroads and we’re left wondering what he will do next. So I may turn it into a 3 part series. Working titles for the next two are ‘The Edge of Rain’ and ‘The End of Rain’.
What are your thoughts on writing a book series?
Don’t outstay your welcome, know when you’ve reached the ending.
What is your favourite positive saying?
Always have fun doing what you do - if you're not, you’re doing it wrong or you should do something else.
Where can you see yourself in five years time?
Hopefully able to afford to just write my books and nothing else and, if the dreams of a film come along, living in a small farmhouse somewhere in Tuscany!
What advice would you give your younger self?
Don’t forget to brush your hair! Oh, and start writing manuscripts earlier - don’t be frightened of rejection.