my next big thing

I hope the year has started brilliantly for all of you.

UK writer Samantha Memi has asked me to interview myself about my next big thing, which is a long short story due out in March.

1. WHAT IS THE TITLE OF THE STORY?

Two.

2. WHERE DO YOU GET THE IDEAS FOR YOUR STORIES?

From the wastepaper baskets of famous dead authors.

3. WHAT’S THE GENRE FOR THE STORY?

Literary fiction. The next thing I write, though, is likely to be vampire erotica. A friend has challenged me to write popular fiction under a pseudonym, so that my popular writing can fund my less popular writing.

My first vampire erotica trilogy will be called Suck Me Dry. Total romance.

4. IF YOU HAD TO PICK ACTORS TO PLAY THE LEAD IN ONE OF YOUR STORIES, WHOM WOULD YOU PICK?

James McAvoy can play every character. Businessmen, lawyers, teachers, tennis players, fathers, mothers, sons, brothers, babies, dogs, cats, goldfish, aliens, monsters, pairs of breasts, singing bowls, windswept dandelions.

5. HOW DO YOU DESCRIBE YOUR STORY IN ONE SENTENCE?

Moby-Dick without the whale or the whaling ship or Queequeg or Ishmael or Patrick Stewart — just a lot of water.

6. HOW WILL YOUR STORY BE PUBLISHED OR WILL YOU BE HANDLING IT YOURSELF?

It will appear in the Sleepers Publishing anthology, The Sleepers Almanac No. 8, to be launched in March 2013.

7. HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO WRITE THE FIRST DRAFT?

My first draft was my last draft. I wrote it in short bursts then one long, final burst — about a month in total. It’s my longest piece to date.

8. WHAT OTHER STORIES WITHIN YOUR GENRE ARE SIMILAR TO YOURS?

I’m not sure.

I’ve been told that this story sounds a bit like Roald Dahl.

I’ve also been told my style resembles that of every cookie-cutter MFA graduate and that you’d have to be on magic mushrooms to like my writing.

So, opinions are clearly divided. It would be better if you were in the Roald Dahl camp, although that might make him turn in his great glass elevator in the sky.

9. WHO OR WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO WRITE THIS STORY?

A friend. We fell out, I was angry, I pulled out a notebook and a story outline was born.

Never be a former friend of a writer. He or she may well sacrifice you to the gods of literature.

10. WHAT ABOUT YOUR STORY WILL PIQUE THE READER’S INTEREST?

Its incredible quality, due to my upgraded new writing name — J.Y.L. Koh.

Also, if you believe my critics, this story is a handy excuse to go on a mushroom trip.

Authors who might want to tell the world about their Next Big Thing:

Authors who’ve already written about their Next Big Thing:

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