I thought for sure I had posted the last part of this earlier, but had a nagging feeling I may not have after all. Upon checking, nope. My apologies, and here we go, the last part of the fascinating chat with author Roz Morris. Here’s the first.
Chila: I like your blog. What do you try to accomplish there? Do you have a daily schedule you adhere to? How do you come up with fresh material?
Roz: Thank you! I adore having my blog. Basically I love to write about writing although I only manage one or two posts a week. Ideas arise naturally from what’s around me – a card found on the pavement, a deer stepping onto the lawn, a problem in a manuscript I’m nurturing for a client. (One of my other bow-strings is critiquing novels.)
On my blog I like to go beyond the usual writing advice and take the lid off the creative life. In the 1980s the British novelist David Lodge used to write a column like this for the Sunday Times newspaper, and it wasn’t just for writers – it was for anyone who was curious about how the creative mind operates. I have a number of readers who tell me they don’t write or have any ambitions to, but they enjoy my blog. I’ve even had people tell me they bought Nail Your Novel out of curiosity to get an insider view – and never expect to put it into practice!
Chila: Excellent. I love that. I’m honing my focus a little bit more on this fledgling blog (began in March), and hope to develop it into a fun (and sometimes even profitable) stop on the net. We’ll see how that works. Changing gears now, tell me … your top five favorite movies of all time?
Roz: In no particular order…
First is Ondine by Neil Jordan. It starts with a trawlerman who fishes a girl out of the sea. At first she looks dead. Then she wakes up, and talks incoherently about escaping from another kingdom after a very long swim. She speaks with an exotic accent and is scared that someone will see her. The trawlerman takes her home and his young daughter decides she is a mermaid. From this point a charming love story is built up. The girl won’t tell him where she comes from and soon he finds it’s easier to believe this mermaid story and let things take their course. I love the blend of the unreal and real, which make a quirky, romantic story.
Second is Blade Runner. Robots teach a man how to be human (and yes, I think Deckard is human). What more could you want from a story? I’m not going to make any comment about upcoming versions, except perhaps the word ‘sacrilege’.
Third is The Cooler. It’s about a man employed by a Las Vegas casino to cool people’s luck. One day he falls in love and everything changes. It’s another story that walks the line between reality and fairy tale, and works superbly.
Fourth is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I love its boldness with structure, its cheeky humour, I love its heart (in fact all my choices have great thumping hearts).
Fifth is Crimes and Misdemeanours, although I could equally have chosen Vicky Christina Barcelona. I love its complexity, its sense of resolution in what it leaves unresolved, the struggle of characters who are caught in their own actions and decisions.
Great question, Chila – and five wasn’t enough. Can I go round again?
Chila: Sure! Add ‘em to the comment section below. I’d love to hear “the rest of the story.” 
Now, an author you’d love to meet?
Roz: Ian Fleming. There are so many authors whose work I enjoy but I think they would not be comfortable away from the page. I have a hunch that Ian Fleming – as well as being a dashing wordsmith – would be dashing company too.
Chila: Well, of course, the movie adaptations of his James Bond books are favorites around here. To wrap up, tell me whatever you wish, in as many words as you wish. Provide links and all, self-promotions, etc. Talk about your wishes for the future, your frustrations, what you want to accomplish in the next 5 years, your pets, whether or not you support the idea behind the war in Afghanistan. Feel free to address any or all of the above, or something wildly different.
Roz:
Pets… I adore horses and I have a 17.2-hand Irish hunter called Lord Byron. That may make you wonder how big I am – I’m actually a light-boned 5 foot six and a half inches, so I look like an urchin who stole a warhorse. He’s far too big for me but after 17 years of adventures we look after each other. Arthritis nearly killed him this winter but I nursed him back to fitness and now we strut about the countryside again. He is definitely destined to appear in novels.
[from Chila: love the image that produces in my mind]
Onto more serious matters… You’re so organised, asking me what I want to accomplish in the next five years. I tend to see my life in terms of what book I’m trying to nail, novel or otherwise! I get requests all the time for a follow-up to Nail Your Novel, and that’s brewing. There’s another novel too and a ghosting project.
On a wider scale, I’m excited by the publishing landscape at the moment. It’s frustrating that mainstream publishing no longer takes chances on new original authors. But readers still want originality and writers can’t help but explore their artform sincerely and truthfully. What’s emerging is a breed of savvy writers and pioneering imprints like your own, Chila. Writers will go to mainstream publishers for commercial projects, they’ll self-publish the books that appeal to their own audience and partner with niche imprints for new audiences. Agents – so my own agent says – will become like managers. We’re all trailblazers now and it should make for some terrific books in the coming years.
[Chila again: Totally agreed. And thanks for the plug; I love the direction Port Yonder Press is heading, and I expect to see some unparalleled manuscripts cross my desk in the next few years. The tedious process has been to not only gear ourselves up for producing the best work out there, but to then convince both authors and readers that we really do mean to accomplish that.]
More immediately I’m excited about the novel I launched on August 30th. It’s called My Memories of a Future Life. It’s the story of a gifted musician struck down by an injury that may stop her playing – but there’s a lot more to it than reincarnation with a twist. I’m publishing it in four 25,000-word novellas on the Kindle. Why?
1 – So that I can offer it at the magic 99c a go without throwing it away.
2 – Because Kindle seems ideally suited to shortform fiction.
3 – Because in the mainstream media people are wringing their hands asking where digital will take us – and nobody is serialising new fiction.
4 – Most importantly – the arty reason – because I want to show that literary fiction can be as compelling as an episode of Lost.
You can find out more about it here – http://www.mymemoriesofafuturelife.com
You can read my blog here http://nailyournovel.com
You can find Nail Your Novel (that li’l writing book) on the Kindle here - http://www.amazon.com/Nail-Your-Novel-Confidence-ebook/dp/B004LROOEQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&m=A7B2F8DUJ88VZ&s=books&qid=1296691437&sr=1-2 or in print here http://www.amazon.com/Nail-Your-Novel-Writers-Confidence/dp/146108136X/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_cart_2
My Memories of a Future Life is now out in full – the final episode launched on Monday 19 September. Episode 1 is here. For those of you who prefer print, there’s a print copy tunnelling through the works at CreateSpace to emerge at some point next week. And if you like audio, you can try the first four chapters for free here.
Thank you, Chila – for inviting me and for asking four pages worth of questions! Good luck with your upcoming rat – and I wish it the very best of fromage.
Chila: Thank you! It’s been more than fun, and I insist we do it again sometime.
Reading / writing blessings,
Chila
