About Richard Harland:
I was born in England and grew up in the farming countryside of Suffolk. I dreamed of being a writer from the age of twelve, but a few years later I won a national prize for a short story – which turned out a total disaster. I had a natural instinct for telling exciting, imaginative stories, but I won the prize with an oh-so-clever literary story. SoI thought I ought to be writing literary fiction, and when I tried – writer’s block!
For twenty-five years, I started and abandoned endless stories and novels. I still have a wardrobe full of unfinished mss! Even when I went back to imaginative storytelling, it was too late. The habit of writer’s block had its grip on me.
Meanwhile, I migrated to Australia at the age of twenty-one. I never intended to stay, but fell in love with the sunshine, beaches and easygoing lifestyle. I drifted around for years as a singer, songwriter, poet, and fringe academic, then finally became a university lecturer. And really enjoyed lecturing! But I never gave up the struggle to complete a book of fiction.
At last I did! When The Vicar of Morbing Vyle, came out in Australia, it gained a cult following and led to a contract with a bigger publisher. I glimpsed the chance of writing full-time and resigned my tenured lectureship. I had to follow my original dream!
Since then, I’ve had nineteen books of speculative fiction published. My biggest international success has been with my YA steampunk fantasy, Worldshaker and its sequels. I’ve won the Prix Tam Tam du Livre Jeunesse in France for Worldshaker, six Aurealis Awards in Australia, and now I’m starting to win awards for the Ferren books in the US – the Reader Views Teen Fiction Silver Award and the Moonbeam YA:Fantasy/SciFi Silver Award.
I live south of Sydney with partner Aileen and Yogi the labrador. We’re not far from the biggest steelworks in the Southern Hemisphere, but we’re even closer to a string of golden beaches with an escarpment like a green cliff for a backdrop. Living the dream!
What inspires you to write?
I don't know, but it must have been a really deep urge that kept me struggling through 25 years of writer's block. I guess I always had ideas and stories bursting to come out – I just couldn't turn them into words.
I've never understood people who want to be writers, but then admit that they're still looking for something to write! What sort of rewards are they looking for? For me, writing's a necessity, and I feel blessed that I can finally, finally do it!
I guess there are two rewards for me now. One is when ordinary readers email to tell me they really loved a book I wrote – and there's that great sense of connection. I imagined the story in my head, and now it's crossed over into other people's heads! They're imagining it too!
The other reward is when I'm coming towards the climax of a book – generally from about three-quarter way through – and, if I've set it up right, all the pieces come together, work with each other and surge towards the climax. That's when the story takes over and tells itself, and I'm just hanging on for the ride. Love that feeling! I call it the toboggan glide …
What authors do you read when you aren’t writing?
Garth Nix, China Miéville, D.M. Cornish, Philip Pullman, Walter Wangerin Jnr – and I still read Lord of the Rings about once every two years.
Tell us about your writing process.
I start writing every day straight after breakfast and keep writing until about half past one – late lunch time. I used to think my best ideas came at the end of the day, and maybe they still do, but morning’s the best time for motivation, which I need for turning ideas into words on a page.
At half past one I stop, even if I’m in the middle of an exciting episode – because then I have something I’m eager and ready to get back to next day. I’ve learned to be very strict with myself, ever since regular writing habits helped me to beat my writers’ block.
In the afternoon, I do what I call ‘pre-filming’. I’ve never heard of any other writer doing it, so perhaps it only works for me and my very visual imagination. But I mull over the episode I’m going to be writing tomorrow, I see it in my mind’s eye, how it unfolds, how it looks and sounds, I live through it like a character in the scene. Then – and here’s the trick – I sleep on it overnight. I really believe in that phrase ‘sleep on it’! I think the unconscious mind goes to work, firming up ideas and making them solid. Because, next morning, it’s no longer possible scenes, it’s the one definite episode of story – and as real as if it really happened. All I have to do is record it!
Then there are all the other times of day when ideas for scenes later on in the story pop into my head. People ask, where do your ideas come from, but mostly there’s no answer, ideas just appear, no rhyme or reason. But maybe it helps if you have a sense of your story, world and characters always at the back of your mind – like a space held open for ideas to jump into. I don’t know, I don’t think too much about it – I don’t want to think too much about it. That’s one part of the writing process that’s always come easily and naturally to me!
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
Yes, all the time. There are different parts of me I siphon off to become my characters, and I always read their dialogue aloud in the voice that belongs to them.
Funny thing is, they're so close, I think I know them, yet they still keep springing surprises on me. In Ferren and the Invaders of Heaven, there was a twist in Asmodai's character that I hadn't seen coming, and a development in Kiet that changed the way I thought of her.
What advice would you give other writers?
1. Never give up.
(With me, it was writer's block, but it could've been publisher knockbacks – persistence is everything!)
2. Never stop learning.
(You discover things you can do that you never knew! If you're not improving, you're going backwards.)
3. Enjoy the writing for its own sake.
(For me, it's a blessing being able to finish a book at all! For everyone, fame and success can come and go – but no one can ever take away the satisfaction of a story that works out right and ends up telling itself.)
How did you decide how to publish your books?
My first book, The Vicar of Morning Vale, came out from a small, writers-cooperative publisher. When it received glowing reviews in major newspapers, then also turned into a kind of cult, a mainstream publisher approached me about bringing out my next novel. I guess I was lucky, but I can't say 'be lucky' as advice! I'd recommend trying for a mainstream publisher as a first option – there's so much of the hard slog they can do for you! – but don't be discouraged if what you've written doesn't grab their attention or fit with their marketing schedule. Go self-publishing!
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
It seems that big success requires a film or TV tie-in – but creating a book is dirt cheap, creating a film or TV series is hellish expensive. So it seems to me that truly original ideas are always going to pop up first in writing – authors can afford to experiment in ways that the studios can't! And the truly original is what matters most to spec fic authors like me.
What genres do you write?: Fantasy, steampunk, SF, horror. Adult, YA, sometimes Children's
What formats are your books in?: Both eBook and Print, Audiobook
Website(s)
Richard Harland Home Page Link
Link To Richard Harland Page On Amazon
Link to Author Page on other site
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All information in this post is presented “as is” supplied by the author. We don’t edit to allow you the reader to hear the author in their own voice.
