I was recently interviewed by Stuart Clark for the Eclectic Authors blog. Here’s an excerpt:

Are your first drafts as streamlined as the novels appear to be or does a lot end up on the “cutting room floor” so to speak?

“I edit as I go along. Each time I sit down to write, I start at the beginning and read through to where I finished at the end of the last section, making changes as I go. This means that by the time the first draft is completed, it’s actually been edited many times. That said, I did cut 20,000 words from Silversands.”

Following on from that, can you talk us through your self-editing process?

“A piece of writing – whether it’s a sentence, a paragraph or a whole page – has to have some sort of rhythm and flow to it. This is doubly true for lines of dialogue. I go back through and try to find that rhythm. I cut out unnecessary words and exposition; ditch adverbs; and replace everyday words with phrases that are more direct and striking.”

You can read the whole thing here, and read Stuart’s review of The Recollection, here.

You walk into a spaceport bar, a thousand light years from home, and meet four friends. The lights are low. Cutthroats and bounty hunters lurk in the shadows. The bar serves drinks from a hundred different worlds. You can buy almost anything here. You order a round of beers and look around the table at your friends. You’re glad they’re here with you.

But who are they?

Here’s the game: select four science fictional characters that you’d like to have a drink with, and place them around the same table. It’s a variation of the old “fantasy dinner party” game, only set in a tavern at Mos Eisley.

Here’s my answers:

1. Halo Jones – Alan Moore’s reluctant interstellar heroine paced the galaxy for two decades, looking for a way out. In her time, she was a stewardess, a soldier, a renegade, and a drunk – so I figure she’ll have some pretty good stories to tell, as long as we keep the catsblood flowing.

2. John Truck – The amoral loser and archetypal spacer from M. John Harrison’s Centauri Device is a man born to frequent such establishments. He’s been all over the sky. He’s a spaceship captain because he hasn’t got the energy to be anything else. He’s too lazy to avoid getting himself into trouble, and too stubborn to back out once he’s in it.

3. Slippery Jim Di Griz – Interstellar criminal mastermind, card sharp, con man, gourmet, and connoisseur of fine wines and spirits. Life would never be dull with the Stainless Steel Rat at your table. Listen to his stories and get involved in his schemes. Just don’t play cards with him.

4. Louis Wu – The protagonist of Larry Niven’s Ringworld novels is a two hundred year old man from Earth. Every couple of decades, he tires of company and launches himself into the unknown on a “sabbatical”, all alone in a one-man starship. He’s a man of culture and sophistication, yet he’s also been a wirehead, an explorer, a hyper-intelligent “protector”, ambassador to a savage alien race, and a god. Wu would be the voice of reason at the table. He’d be able to think his way out of any situation we found ourselves in, and having explored the Ringworld, he’d also have some pretty entertaining stories to tell.

That’s my selection. Who would you choose, and why?

If you follow the link below and click on over to Dolly Garland’s blog, you’ll see that I’ve answered a few questions for her about the books that have meant a lot to me over the years.

Link.

Here’s a revised list of upcoming dates:

• 14 Jan - The Liminal,  7-10pm, at Dr Fox’s Tearooms on Knightstone Island, Weston-super-Mare; with readings from myself and fellow authors Emma Shortt and June Bastable.
• 25 Jan - Oxfam Cotham Bookshop, Cotham Hill, Bristol. I will be doing a short reading and answering questions about my work, the craft of writing, and science fiction in general.
• 3 – 5 Feb - SFX Weekender, North Wales. I will be one of several Solaris Books authors at this event.
• 2 April - Anarchy Books publishes digital versions of my first two books, Silversands and The Last Reef.
• 6 – 9 April - Olympus 2012, Heathrow. I will be at Eastercon as usual and, although the programme hasn’t be unveiled yet, I hope to be participating in a number of panel discussions.
• 18 – 20 May – Discover Festival, Leicestershire. I will be a guest at this event, along with many other fine authors.

I’m very pleased to note that The Recollection appears at number 6 in Forbidden Planet’s list of favourite books.

The Best Books of 2011

December’s issue of Locus features a review of The Recollection. The review is by Russell Letson, and he begins:

“Gareth L. Powell’s The Recollection is one of those multiple-puzzle adventures that is difficult to outline in a review, partly because so many of its pleasures are tied to solving said puzzles (and thus must remain behind the spoiler curtain), and partly because of the considerable variety of its motif-hoard.”

He continues:

“So we have not only two sets of characters loose in a mysterious and dangerous environment, but they’re dragging emotional baggage around with them. We know that eventually the two stories will converge–but just to keep things stirred up, those twin plot lines hatch out additional view-point characters, auxiliary actions, and mysterious environments and agendas.”

He concludes:

“The archway network, with its grab-bag of unpredictable perils, reminded me of the boobytrapped gateways of Philip Jose Farmer’s World of Tiers series, and the mysterious-alien-artifacts of the Bubble Belt and the Gnarl and the Dho Ark have cousins all over SF history – Ringworld, Rama, and the alien ruins and mysterious weapons of a thousand space operas. The Recollection is not Powell’s first novel (that would be Silversands, 2010), but it reads like a bid to join the big leagues, with big themes, a big setting, and the option to continue to do big things with the setup. Even if it proves not to be the first of a sequence, it is a promising entry in the cosmic-issues / space-opera / alien-encounter field.”

Sometimes, you just have to take a step back.

When you’re working on a story or novel, the plot can overwhelm you. You have this grand vision, but you have no idea what to write next. Your characters won’t come alive on the page, and everything you try to write feels flat and lifeless. You lack inspiration. You feel frustrated. You have writer’s block.

How do you get past it?

Step away from the keyboard. It’s no use sitting there trying to force the issue. Give your hindbrain permission to work on the problem, and then go and do something else. Take a walk. Read a book. Go swimming. Watch a trashy movie. Distract your attention away from the project you’re working on, and let your unconsciousness stew over it.

Sometimes, that’s all we need: a distraction.

I’m in the early stages of a novel, and earlier this evening I found myself stuck. I wasn’t sure where the next chapter would go, or which character it would follow. After an hour or so of sitting at the keyboard getting nowhere, I took myself off into the living room and watched I, Robot on E4. No, it’s not the best movie ever made; but what it did was distract my conscious mind from fruitlessly worrying at the problem. I had a notebook with me, and as I watched the film, ideas kept popping into my head. I had stepped out of my own way. With my attention on the big screen, my imagination had the freedom to run riot — and by the time the film finished, I found I’d written outlines for the next five chapters.

So, next time you’re stuck with a story that just won’t gel, take a bath; go for a walk; or take a long drive in the country. Swim a few lengths of your local pool. Do something that relaxes you. Take your mind off your troubles, and the solution to your story may just pop into your head.

Sometimes, I think I’m used to the weirdness that comes with being a writer; and other times it hits me afresh, all over again. Take the other day, for instance. I walked into my local branch of Waterstones and saw that they had a couple of copies of my novel, The Recollection, on their shelves. The books were sandwiched between books by Frederik Pohl and Terry Pratchett. I picked one up and opened it. There on the page were words that I had written; familiar words that I’d poured out of my head onto the page during late night writing sessions in my office at the back of the house. And now here they were, on public display in the city centre, where anyone could see them. It was a weird feeling. Cool, but weird.

You can now buy The Recollection as an ebook, direct from the publisher.

The Rebellion Publishing Ebook Store features most of the titles published by Rebellion’s imprints, Solaris and Abaddon, available to download in both ePub and mobi formats.

You can find The Recollection here.

The StarShipSofa Stories Volume 3 anthology is now available, featuring contributions from a host of writers, including Lavie Tidhar, Joe Haldeman, Catherynne M. Valente, Paul Cornell, Michael Swanwick, David Brin, Jack McDevitt, Aliette de Bodard, Mercurio D. Rivera, James Patrick Kelly, and many more.

The book features a reprint of my short story, Sunsets and Hamburgers, with an illustration by Bradley W. Schenck.

There’s also an “extras” section at the end of the book, where each of the authors has provided a photograph of their writing area, and pictures of other things that either inspire or interest them, or have sentimental value – such as handwritten manuscripts, convention name tags, holiday snaps, and so on.

You can buy the anthology here.