This interview with Erik Ryman was first published in October 2007.  Erik Ryman is the author of God's Game, Doctor Mooze, and The Tsetsefly Chronicles. Visit our Erik Ryman page.

Where were you born and raised?

Born late sixties, a product of the summer of love and arrived just in time to see West Brom win the FA Cup for the only time in my lifetime. I was somewhat intrigued that my dad was stationed in Canada at the time of my conception, but later in life found out that my mother was there too for a short while. I think I've been screwed up about time ever since.

What was it that first got you into writing and when did you start writing?

I've always written and I honestly can't remember when or why I started. I think initially it was re-writing songs who's lyrics I couldn't understand - "Nights With White Matting", "Jailhouse Sock", "Hazy Horses" that sort of thing. So the when, was probably before I knew the letters to write, as it all happened in my head, but then it still does. As to the why, it always sounds so pretentious when you hear writers saying 'that they have to' as though it is a curse, when what they really mean is that they like to, they like being writers. Personally, I'd prefer to be in My Bloody Valentine or Radiohead, but we can't have everything. (Though if they are reading, I've got a Jazzmaster and a Fuzz Face and I'm ready to go).

Which writers have influenced you the most?

I'm not sure any particular writers have, though when I read God's Game now, I see lots of little things that I had read around that time, that maybe aren't obvious. People like Gore Vidal, Camus, DM Thomas, William Gibson, Coupland, and the start was a bit of a Terry Pratchet piss-take. I think films have probably had more of an impact though,and certainly the structure of God's Game wouldn't have happened if I hadn't seen Blue Velvet, Jacob's Ladder, Pulp Fiction etc. Not that I was trying to ape them, more that it opened my eyes to the fact that books really don't have to have a classic start-middle-end structure. I
probably took it as far as I could though, with the random/chaos thing.

What kind of things do you write?

Alway fiction, my poetry is horrendous. I try to make everything I write unique and the three books I have been lucky enough (with a big emphasis on the lucky part of that) to have had published are completely different from each other.

God's Game is a novel, and is quite a surreal thing. It had a very odd structure, and it was actually dictated by a computer program, which I guess makes it unique. Or crap, I don't know. Basically, there were six main strands to it, and three of them were chopped-up into little pieces and assigned numbers. I then wrote a Mandelbrot generating program - you know, fractals - and basically as the chaotic numbers popped out, I did this bingo caller kind of thing where I copied and pasted the next chunk of the text into the manuscript. I notice that the Authortrek review says self indulgent, and I can't really argue with that, though what writer isn't? Shit, I called myself a writer then. Tosser probably fits better.
The story though - well, God's Game was a film in a book really, and all about fathers and sons, different people trying to find a meaning through religion that suited their lives and a dark conspiracy that was ultimately pointless and gruesome. I may have been on drugs.

Doctor Mooze, was different, it was a straight forward diary of a young boy that got up to some dark stuff - a bit of a revenge thing for an imagined sleight. All very zeitgeisty, but deliberately so. That probably comes from Coupland & Gibson though. The thing I like about them is that they write about things that are very "now" - brands/people/society, without worrying that it will date the book. In reality I think it gives two bites at the cherry - initially it is cutting edge, later it is a period piece. Read Microserfs or Generation X now and they look slightly dated - give it a few years and they will read like documentaries.. What made me laugh about the Authortrek review of GG was that it talked about up-to-date Virtual Reality, when I wrote that 12 years ago. Doctor Mooze though, its a nasty little novella, but I do think young Panton pretty cool.

The other one is the Tsetsefly Chronicles, which was originally a web site where I wrote a blog, with each 'chronicle' in the book being that day's entry. Any themes are just because that was where I was at at the time. Again, its very dark though, but then you should have seen the paintings I was doing at the time...

In summary then, quite dark, nasty characters, hopefully unusual in a good way and generally self indulgent. That is what I write. But then, that is me.


What are you working on now?

A few things. I'm doing a second draft on a novella called Doggone which is a bit of a surreal Orwellian thing, and am halfway through a first draft for a novel. Recently, I've had some fun and been collaborating with a Japanese artist/poet called Nenko Joretsu, which is a first for me. I've never written with anybody before, but then we haven't written together either, just had odd conversations about things. The first fruits of it are his extremely limited collection TM: Corporate Brand Dreams 69 which is extremely odd and funny, and will probably get his arse sued off him. My side of the bargain is the novel, but that is an age away.

What is your writing day like?

I don't have one. I tend to be obsessive in purple patches, rather than doing a bit every day. GG was mostly written over a long bank holiday weekend in '95, DM in a couple of weeks in 2002/3, Tsetsefly, well, that took a few weeks and was day-to-day, but it was more of a screwed-up diary. So in truth, in 12 years I've probably spent a couple of months actually writing on paper, with the rest of the time spent building all these odd stories in my head. I'm easily distracted and put it off whenever possible - 364 days a year. Mainly because it totally screws me up.

What’s the most exciting thing about writing for you?

Without sounding like a complete prat (I hope) it is the characters. They are my dark side really. If you met me in real life you'd find me very boring and mundane, but the characters I write about are the complete opposite in some way. Writing as therapy then, call dial-a-cliche 0845-696969

What’s the most frustrating thing about writing for you?

Not getting the time to finish things. I do a lot of other stuff and certainly over the last few years I only seem to get to write on trains or in hotel rooms. Doggone has been entirely written on the move, and in one hour bursts, over about the course of a year. Which is a bit of a pain as I have so many ideas I want to get down and out there.

What’s the best piece of feedback that you’ve had from your audience?

I'm not sure about an audience, because you never really know who the people who buy your books are. Recently, Laura Hird (a writer I really admire) described Doctor Mooze as a book that she liked and said something about it being 'Brave & Bold', in a Pulp.net interview thing, which from her I was really chuffed about. Of course she was talking about the original edition which had come out in the name of the lead character 'Panton di Villa', as a bit of a concept thing - 'Dead Joy Rider 's Diary Discovered - Shock' for the Daily Mail readers out there. But I'll take compliments where I can get them, they are rare
and well distributed. Another was a review from The Third Alternative which totally slagged DM off, which I found quite amusing in a love & hate kind of way. I don't know, I guess I'm just pleased that people don't tend to say 'so what?'

Do you write for a particular audience, or is your first priority to satisfy your own creativity?

Selfish though it sounds, it's just for me. In fact I'm kind of scared to try and write for an audience as I don't think I'm qualified - a good enough writer - to pull it off. Saying that, I did have a hankering to write a Mills & Boon for a while, but I don't think I ever could in truth. I do know a couple of other writers that have - under assumed names - and good luck to them, but it isn't for me.

Do you have a homepage? Do you have any short stories or poems published online? (If so, please provide the URLs):

Yes, I've got a web site www.erikryman.co.uk, and you can download a copy of the Tsetsefly Chronicles there. I don't write many short stories, but there is a piece I wrote on Laura Hird's web site under her 'The Devil Has the Best Tunes' section. I think I missed the point on that somewhat though, as everybody else seems to have written about the music, whereas I tried to write a short story based on it. Quite a different style for me as well, but you have to try these things, keep it fresh