Literary Birthday – 6 September – Christopher Brookmyre

Happy Birthday, Christopher Brookmyre, born 6 September 1968.

Five Quotes

1. I tend to write best in office hours, really. I’m not much of a one for burning the midnight oil. I used to get a very good creative burst at some time around the hours of four and seven o’clock, but after my son came along that kind of buggered that up.
2. I hate it when you read a novel that’s got a great idea, a great plot ,and a great scheme going on, but the way the character resolves it, it could have been anyone, you know, rather than something specific to that character. I think the character has to learn about themselves and change perhaps in the course of resolving the story.
3. Stubborn perseverance. That’s what worked for me.
4. Be honest with yourself in terms of what you’re writing. Is what you’re writing really what you want to write, or what you think a publisher wants to read, because that was the mistake I was making for a long time.
5. Be prepared to improve or even have the patience to realise that it might take years to improve.

Christopher Brookmyre is a Scottish novelist who has been referred to as a Tartan Noir author. His novels include The Last Hack, Quite Ugly One Morning, One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night, and All Fun And Games Until Somebody Loses An Eye.

Source for Image: TimDuncan, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ChrisBrookmyre2013.jpg

by Amanda Patterson

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