A
day in my writing life:
I teach during the day and my wife and I
have a young son (Jack), so I don’t have much time during the week. To be
honest, I’m too tired when I get home to summon up the creative energy you need
to write a novel. During school terms, I write in the weekends. Usually both
days. I can get on a bit of a roll then. In the holidays, I’ll write every
weekday for about the same time. I have the weekends off.
I write in the garage. I can’t concentrate
inside. As I try to tell other people – I’m immersing myself in a world. If you
talk to me or otherwise distract me, the world image I have before me has an
annoying tendency to disappear.
If I write for a whole day, I’ll usually
get about 4,000 words done. That’s 20k a week. You do the maths – you can have
a whole novel written in about 4 weeks. Of course, it may be terrible, but
that’s what the editing process is all about. For preparation, I get on the
rowing machine in the morning and listen to my ipod. That’s when I do most of
my thinking. I visualize the scenes in my head and the exercise clears my head
and gets me charged up. I probably drink about 3 cups of coffee in any given
writing day. I’ll start writing at 8am and write solidly until lunch when I’ll
have half an hour off. I find it doesn’t pay to have too much of a break –
especially if I’m really into the creative process. I’ll start writing again in
the afternoon and usually finish around 4pm. I don’t like to work much past
that otherwise I don’t get to spend any time with my family. Besides, I’m
pretty shattered by that point and my writing gets lazy. I do find it hard to
sleep after a solid day of writing – I’m usually too worked up and I often go
to bed thinking of better ways to write the scene. My wife tells me she talks
to me in the evenings and I answer her but I often forget can’t remember the
conversations (it gets awkward when we’re preparing to go out for the weekend
and I say ‘where to?’ and she of course says ‘we’ve talked about this.’)
Ya Dystopian
Date Published: 12/1/2011
The Rapture has occurred - the end of the world. The faithful have risen up to Heaven.
Those left behind are in a living hell. Armed only with his swords and his wit, a teenage boy
wanders this post-apocalyptic world alone, separated forever from everyone he loves. Cursed
by his demonic heritage, he must now embark on a quest that will take him across the US to
the City of Angels.
Phillip W. Simpson
Author Bio:
Phillip W. Simpson is an author of mostly children's books - both fiction and non-fiction.
As well as being a writer, he is an elementary school teacher. Career highlights include being in the
army, gaining a Masters in Archaeology, owning a comic shop, becoming obsessed with martial arts
and oriental weapons and turning down a job at the British museum.
His YA novel RAPTURE (the first in the Rapture trilogy) was released Sept 1st, 2011 by Pear Jam
books. RAPTURE is a dystopian/post-apocalyptic story about the end of the world featuring demons,
angels and a half demon protagonist caught in the middle. RAPTURE was shortlisted for the Sir Julius
Vogel award for best Youth novel.
Book 2, TRIBULATION, was released in December, 2012. The final book, APOCALYPSE, will be out
early 2013.
On a personal note, he is married to Rose, has a son (Jack) and two border terriers, Whiskey and
Raffles. He loves fishing, reading, football (soccer) and single malt Whiskeys.
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