This interview with T. M.
Jenkins, author of “The
Waking”, was first published in August 2006.
Where were you born and raised?
Chiswick, London
What was it that first got you
into writing and when did you start writing?
Did puffed up essays when I was
a kid about the importance of preserving nature (even then) and the complexity
of ant colonies. Went into journalism at 19 and started writing my own stories,
though I remember my first editor reserving a special face of despair for my copy.
Have always done print journalism, including a column for "The Evening
Standard", though most of my working life has been spent in TV.
Which writers have influenced
you the most?
How I wish any of the following
had influenced me: Hemmingway, Fitzgerald, Chandler, Richard Ford, Pat Conroy,
Martin Cruz Smith, John Le Carre, Graham Greene. When I think back to my
14 year old self, which is when
you express your appetites most freely, I couldn't get into Dickens, Hardy,
Trollope or any of the other classics, but would read and reread all the great
commercial fiction of the time, i.e. Harold Robbins, Peter Blenchley, Mario
Puzo. Loved the punchy brevity of thrillers. And the testosterone.
Where do you stand on the
nature v. nurture debate? Were you born a writer, or were there factors in your
environment that enabled you to become a writer?
Bit of both. I remember doing
an exercise at primary school where you had to list as many adverbs as you
could remember. My list was longer than anyone else's in the class. Words have
always resonated and I have spent a lifetime with my nose in the dictionary
trying to find out their meaning. Which came first, nature or nurture, I have
no idea, but you're always drawn to the subjects in which you excel.
There are a lot of courses
teaching creative writing nowadays, but do you think that good writing can be
taught?
Definitely improved, though
writing is a playful thing, a fabulous, limitless game beyond the narrative and
it has to look pretty on the page and feel like it flows. Mellifluous is a word
I would use. Like honey. Not treacle. And you have to seek out the unique and
unusual in any given situation to make the experience fascinate the reader.
Lecture over.
Have you entered writing
competitions? If so, have you won any prizes?
I've been shortlisted for a
number of screenwriting competitions in Hollywood. But, alas, always the
bleedin' bridesmaid. Or is it the usher?
Do you have any short stories
or poems published online? (If so, please provide the URLs):
No. I'm shy about short
stories. They're such pieces of genius at their best, such sheer delight, and
I'm thinking anything by Raymond Carver here, that I cannot imagine being able
to come anywhere close to his sultry studies of futility and mediocrity and the
tiny nuances that slam his characters into a life changing event.
What kind of things do you
write?
Right now? Thrillers.
What, for you, is the best
piece of prose that you have ever written?
I don't think like that, cos I
always believe that it's still to come, but if there's anything, I think it's a
letter in my thriller, "The
Waking" from a convicted killer to his sister while he's on death row. I
think I captured his mind set and his odd-ball politeness in trying to make
light of the terrible calamity he is about to face. He admits that his conduct
has been 'unbecoming' at times and its like he saw the word in a book or a
court document or another letter-writer prisoner supplied it for him and he
thought it sounded good so he used it. There's almost an endearing naivety to
him, though he's done terrible things.
What are you working on now?
Second thriller for Macmillan
called "The Immortalists".
What is your writing day like?
Lousy, hopeless, playing with
cats, watching terrible tv shows about group therapy and wanting to volunteer
as a case study. Then I get up, get a drink, wander over to the machine and sit
there feeling inadequate, slam down a few pars, count how many words I've
written. Disbelieving, I count them again. Spell check them. Rewrite them, then
wander back to the house for more therapy shows. And that's how it gets done.
Where would you like to be in
10 years time?
Where do you think?
What’s the most exciting thing
about writing for you?
The voices, the voices. Hearing
the characters speak for the first time and when they do stuff you didn't
anticipate. Then they are alive I tell you, alive.
What’s the most frustrating
thing about writing for you?
All of it - but I absolutely love
it. I spent half a lifetime working in TV. After that, this is paradise. Just
have to make it pay.
What’s the best piece of
feedback that you’ve had from your audience?
Can't say but it was harsh and
I heard it and I know I will be a better writer because of it. Face your
criticism head on and then go and throw up.
Do you write for a particular
audience, or is your first priority to satisfy your own creativity?
I kept thinking of my best
friend's 16 year old son, but not only him. I envisioned a corpulent guy on a
beach with sun tan lotion slapped on his beer gut and a great sense of
satisfaction about having the time to open up the first book that he's read for
months and months. You can hear the spine of the hardback cracking and
miniscule grains of sand getting wedged between the pages. And it's my book. I
like him, would gladly have a beer or a cocktail with him at the end of the day
and then he would tell me that he's reading a great thriller and that he has to
skip away early to go finish it.
Do you have a homepage? If so,
what’s the URL?
It's coming...
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