MY INTERVIEW WITH ME! (Updated... again!)

My American publisher, Publerati, has just issued their Fall (Autumn to you and me) catalogue. A bit early. It's not bad and my books are included on the last page. The link is http://freepdfhosting.com/e2c49a5609.pdf

Over the past month I've posted a weekly interview with both well-known and less well-known authors, all of whom had an interesting story to tell. During the next few weeks I have a number of interviews (some scheduled and others completed) and every on of them will have the Wow! factor,,,,,, I promise!

But I decided tonight to interview myself, so here goes!



My guest tonight is an author (most of the time), a dog walker some of the time, and a blogger (quite a lot of the time). Married with two kids and a cocker spaniel he has reputedly been to 47 countries around the world and actually seen some of them.
Yes, my guest tonight is me.



Hello Richard. It's great to have you here tonight. I'm so glad you could join me, rather than amusing yourself and having fun.

Did I have an option? One minute I was watching a rerun of QI and the next I was plonked by me in front of a laptop and told to answer questions I have to ask myself! How fair is that? Having said that, Dave repeats the same QI programmes month after month so it'll be on again tomorrow. Ask away!



That's as maybe, and please stop fiddling with the mouse. Tell me, why on earth did you decide you could write. Sorry, I mean of course when did you decide to write books?

Chose your next words carefully! I blame my next door neighbour. He put me forward to the then producer of the Gang Show for Scouts & Guides as a volunteer to help write the thing. The first I knew was this phone call wishing me a Ging Gang Gooley. How could I resist. Trouble is I ended up writing the next 4 shows and even producing one of them. The captive audience seemed to like the stories and I decided one of them was ideal for turning into a novel. The show, not the audience! They were turned into rabbits.


Understandable as your main charater is Merlin. What happened? Did it become the overnight best-seller it fully deserved to be?

I wasn't any good, that's what. The agents were too clever for me and presumably actually read what I sent them. A sneaky trick. One lady did take me on, purely on the strength of .... er, something. Thanks, Mum! It took 5 years, but eventually we got there and she decided to split. Such is life being an author! What she did though was to convince me to rewrite the book (numerous times) and to reduce it from nearly 500 pages to 230 (reminiscent of JK Rawling at her rambling best. I have so much in common with her, except she's a woman and I'm a man,,,, oh, and she sells million of books, whereas I sell.....but I digress!). She, the agent that is not JKR, also taught me GOWTS (Get On With The Story), or in this case Get On With The Interview!



Sorry.So  how did America come into things then?

I haven't mentioned America yet! Ok, I will now. I gave up on the UK (I hadn't heard of the wonderful Crooked Cat then) and looked around the States and eventually came across this small bijou (probably means the same thing) publishing company specialising in eBooks. The CEO had run publishing companies for other people and now wanted to do the same thing, but be the owner. He snapped me up and we launched Leap of Faith in May last year, a landmark in American publishing circles,,,, at least in small circles. Trouble With Swords came out in December and a third book is planned for release in May / June time this year. That's if I you / I stop blogging and Facebooking and get back to writing again!



Do you enjoy writing?

I must do. I'm doing it for virtually no money. I always had this ambition to be a struggling author and I've successfully achieved that! Nobody struggles more than me... except my readers, of course. I love writing, especially when I know exactly what's going to happen and it's just a matter of tapping on a keyboard before I forget. The plot thinking can be a bit of a black hole. But you know that, of course.



Certainly do, Richard. Black Hole is my middle name. My parents had a great sense of humour! Where do you write.

Like you, I write in my study (my study? I share it with my son who plays war games on the main computer). I sit on the settee with my laptop. I use one of those TV trays because the laptop gets red hot after an hour or two of constant thumping! Mind you, so do I after an hour of being thumped! I usually have a cocker spaniel curled up next to me until 2.00pm when it's time for the afternoon walkies. Who needs a watch when you have a dog?





What's your latest project?

Interviewing. Other than that, it's the third in the Temporal Detective Agency series, loosely called  The Bigger Bang Theory. I've written the first 45 pages and the last 30, so it's just the middle bit I need to do now. Actually I'll leave that bit to you.



Have you got other interviews planned?

Of course I have! There's a fantastic one already finished and I'm posting it this coming Friday. The one for the week after that is nearly ready and there are three famous TV people coming up soon. Watch this space! There may be one or two surprises.







Richard, many thanks for talking to me tonight. I know you're a terribly busy person with a legion of potential readers waiting for your next book (I hope!).

Can I go? Now QI has finished, I want to watch Brian Cox telling everyone we're full of space and that if there were no spaces between atoms the whole of mankind could be squeezed into the size of a walnut. That would solve the housing crisis at a stroke!



Give me a couple of minutes while I give your books and website a plug, then I'll join you for a quick whiskey. I'll have the single malt if I'm pouring. Better make it a double if we're both drinking. What do I mean there's no single malt! 



Richard Hardie has an incredibly wonderful website at www.rhardie.com which also links to his fantastically interesting blog, which of course you're reading now.

His blog is on http://richardhardies.blogspot.co.uk/ as if you didn't know.

His books are available on all good eReader sites and some pretty awful ones as well, but the Amazon link is http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=richard+hardie. Trips off the tongue, doesn't it!