Chad Taylor

How did you become a writer? I started as a music journalist, reviewing music and films, and interviewing people. I wrote some short stories, and they got longer. I submitted my work to publishers and editors – this was in the days when you mailed paper copies of a manuscript to people. I believed in myself and I got a little lucky. Even if I'd had nothing published, I would still be writing. I like doing it.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.). I read English and Fine Art at university. My art teacher was an abstract painter, Ken Robinson who introduced me to a way of working with images that continues to influence how I work with words. He was a Buddhist, very experimental. So although I've always loved pulp fiction and narratives that are plot-driven, my roots are in the avant-garde.

Growing up, I read everything that fell under my eye. When I was a kid I read *Doc Savage* novels and Yukio Mishima – the local library had a full collection of Mishima's work, in translation, so I read those cover-to-cover. I picked up science fiction (Philip K Dick) and 20th century lit (Anaïs Nin, Hemingway), Joseph Conrad, and lots of crime: Patricia Highsmith, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Jean-Patrick Manchette. I went very hard-boiled for a while. I like clear prose and good stories, and I do like a short novel. If a book's bad, you tell yourself "I can do better than this"; and if it's good, you think "I have to work harder". So anything can be an inspiration.

When and where do you write? I write very late at night, when it's quiet and everyone's in bed, or first thing in the morning, before the phone starts ringing. In the last few years I've gone back to writing by hand, which is slightly laborious, because I work on computers all day (as does everybody, now) and sitting down at a keyboard does not inspire me.

When I'm beginning a work I'm very precious about the pen or pencil that I use, or the pad, or the font on the machine but once the work is going I can write on anything. I think I have three good writing hours in my day: if I stay longer than that, I'm tempted to second-guess myself. When I enter the text into my laptop, I make revisions. It's important to let the work sit. My worst habit is to over-revise: I fight that constantly.

What are you working on now? A novel which I'm really, really enjoying working on. It's become quite surreal. I don't think anyone will publish it. I don't care. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? No, because I've never been on anyone's schedule. For screen and TV writers, writers' block is a very real thing. A novelist's schedule is self-imposed. If something stalls then it's a sign that I'm not interested in it enough – in which case, I wouldn't expect a reader to be – or that I'm still thinking about the last thing I was working on, which means it isn't finished.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received? Finish the work. Finishing a work is the most important part of writing. Otherwise it will loiter in your imagination and prevent you moving forward. Hate what you've written? Put it aside and come back to it. Still terrible? Take the bad writing out. Cut it down to the parts that interest you. 

What’s your advice to new writers? Be practical. Avoid debt. Get a job. Write before you go to work and when you come home. Believe in yourself. Don't spread yourself too thin. Write what interests you. Never chase "the market" or what someone tells you "the market" is. 

You're going to be stuck with a novel for a couple of years: it's a relationship. Treat the ms as you would treat yourself: respect it and see where it goes.

A lot of people find it helpful to workshop ideas and share them online or in groups. I wish I could be like that. I work alone while telling myself "no one will ever read this". Fiction is a dark secret you share with strangers.

Chad Taylor is the author of Blue Hotel, Departure Lounge, Electric, Shirker, Heaven, Pack of Lies, The Church of John Coltrane, and many short stories . He was awarded the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship and the Auckland University Literary Fellowship. Heaven was made into a feature film and his novels and stories are in translation. He wrote the movie Realiti which was selected for Fantastic Fest. Blue Hotel was a finalist in the Ngaio Marsh Awards.