Displaying the same forward planning that saw him study law just in time for a glut of overqualified and underemployed legal graduates, Paul abandoned a career in law to become a writer just at the precise moment the publishing industry collapsed.

Undeterred by such auspicious beginnings, Paul ploughed his lack of business experience into a publishing venture with the only other writer he could find who was crazy enough had the vision and enthusiasm to join him. This website, and this anthology, are the fruits of that crazy idea. They are however possibly the slowest growing fruits in history, as Paul has very clear memories of telling people that paperbacks would be available in early 2010!

Not content with being a founding partner in eMergent Publishing, a joint-editor of the Chinese Whisperings anthologies and taking control of Write Anything as Managing Editor, Paul has somehow managed to be appointed as an English teacher in a further education college in southwest London. Lord alone knows how that happened!

As you can tell, Paul rarely takes anything seriously, least of all himself or his business ventures, but it’s that sense of self-deprecating humour that makes him so darn endearing…

Paul calls West London home these days. He lives in a centuries old alms house with his wife Julia, an enormous leopard gecko called Jabba, and an increasingly dysfunctional and dusty typewriter.

One in the Chamber – The Red Book, 2010
Epilogue – The Yin & Yang Book, 2010

Writing To Reach You – 50 Stories for Pakistan, 2010
Five Rings – 12 Days of Christmas 2010
An Exquisite Edition – Literary Mix Tapes: Eighty Nine, 2011

Once Upon A Time in the West of London
Write Anything – Managing Editor

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There is an ancient proverb, I think it may be Sumerian, or perhaps Babylonian – but it goes like this:

If Jodi asks you if something is too crazy, think long and hard before you give an answer

Had I heard this proverb earlier, life might have been a little bit different.

Certainly, it would have been less stressful. The past seven months or so have been, and I use this word in the most understated way possible, “interesting”.

When we first began to press ahead with this project, I had no idea how hard it would be, and how many mistakes we would make along the way. After all, how hard could it possibly be to put together an anthology of new writing from emerging artists, with a slightly “out there” concept? 90 days? Bah, we’ll do it in 80…

Amongst the problems that arose:

1. Recruiting writers. There are a lot of women out there writing, but it seems that the men are either hiding away, or they just don’t do a good job of advertising themselves, because finding guys to take part was the first hurdle.

2. Retaining writers. Just when we got to ten writers, we’d drop back to nine (at one point eight!). And so the process of finding new writers would begin. At the start of the project that wasn’t so bad, but when you’re close to the end? Welcome to Stressville, population you.

3. Timelines. Good in theory, not so good in practice. They started as mandatory, passed through the purely advisory stage, and then became an inconvenience. I think after version 12 of the timeline we gave up revising it. To give you some idea of how far off the timeline we got, had we stuck to the plan in the last timeline, we’d have been finished in August.

4. (In)Experience. Almost all of the writers involved were unpublished, or had very little experience of being edited. But that’s ok – your editors had very little experience too! Jodi has extensive experience with non-fiction editing, but me? Nada. Zilch. None. I’m amazed that people actually took my suggestions on board (in fact, I’m amazed that some people are still talking to me…)

5. Communication breakdowns. Not once, not twice, but three times I think spanners have been delicately placed into the works due to miscommunication. Things did work out in the end, but I still cringe thinking about the mistakes I made.

It also coincided with an incredibly turbulent period of my own life. A car crash followed by emotional upheaval and severe depression rendered me at times unable to do anything, and in those dark moments Jodi had to shoulder the burden of being an editor, a project manager, and a friend all at once.

But we bounced back, the project kept going, the writers kept writing, and somehow it has all come together. Because of my contributions, and sometimes in spite of them, everything is falling into place.

So yeah, had I said “no” rather than “yes” all those months ago, life would be very different. Less stressful, less busy, but a lot poorer for my not taking part in this. I am privileged to have been involved with such a diverse and creative group, and I’m looking forward to the next one.

But maybe after a long holiday…

There are two questions a writer dreads: “where do you get your ideas” and “what does your story mean”. The first one is unanswerable. There is no cheat sheet of ideas that writers consult, we have no ideas hotline – I wish we did, it would make things so much easier. The second is horrible to confront, because if it has to be asked, it means we’ve failed as writers to convey our message and meaning.

In some respects these posts come close to asking those questions. No wonder it is often the last post that our writers come up with. But rather than ideas in general, we’re talking about one story in particular, and particulars are always easier to answer than generalities. And, since nobody has yet read the story, I don’t need to explain what it means. I can afford to be vague.

The story was born out of one character, Jake. As with all these stories, my main character was invented by someone else. In Emma’s story a private investigator is mentioned in passing. He helps Joe track down his father. From Emma’s father we know that Joe’s family has high political connections. Why would they need to resort to a PI?

So I imagined that this private eye works for them, a fixer for powerful politicians that cannot be seen to be doing the things that Jake does for them. How would they come to know such a person? I imagined Jake as being on the outside of their circle; rather than an intimate acquaintance, he is known to one of their inner circle – an ex-army buddy perhaps. And so Jake become a former soldier turned freelance investigator.

What would see him take such a path, when his army buddy is on the inside of a political family? Jake needed a secret. An incident from his past that saw his army career end in disgrace, something that his friend could hold over him, to make him do things that may not sit well with him, and to keep him in line.

All of this came to me whilst lying in bed one night, building up the life story of Jake. A good man who had taken a few wrong turns, trying to reconcile the good he wants to do, with the terrible things he has done in the past. Hard drinking, hard smoking, cold and distant when he needs to be, but drawn to caring for people. Like the clients he helps free of charge. Of his neighbour Miranda, battling with her own demons.

I gave Jake a scene that has been in my mind for a long time now. A variation on Russian roulette that repeats throughout the story, but based on skill rather than luck. Jake doesn’t want to die, but he doesn’t see his life as living. Taking a risk makes him feel alive, and diverts him from the places his mind takes him.

One in the Chamber is about Jake, and the events of his past that are only hinted throughout the story. Even his final case is largely immaterial to the story – he could have sat in his room for the whole story talking to the walls, the result would have been the same.

Curiously there is an alternative ending to this story, that would have been challenging to write. Each of the stories in this anthology deal with madness, paranoia, fear, deception, violence, redemption and other worldliness. Jake’s story is no different, and in the alternative version Jake’s actions would have impacted each story in the anthology. Had I been prepared to play fast and loose with the timings of the other nine stories I might have done it.

But in the end Jake, as was the intention of the anthology, only directly impacts the events of Emma’s story before it, and Jodi’s story after it (coming full circle). Though there are hints at the end that what has touched Jake’s life has insinuated itself into the other narratives.

But you’ll have to find that out for yourselves…