Author Interview: Gregory James Clark

What is your favourite thing about writing books?
Books are an excellent way to convey ideas. Sometimes writing can be the only way to express ideas. It provides an opportunity to be creative and potentially to reach a large audience, helping people to understand concepts that otherwise they would never have thought of. There is also an opportunity to entertain and generate interest in specific areas.

Who is your favourite character in your book and why?
Favourite character – I would have to say Queen Katie of Kamchatka for her ability to change world order with power and influence for good, and reverse the present perception and role of both the monarchy and the one party state. I’m hoping readers with an interest in politics, and political economy in particular, will be attracted to this character.

What is your favourite drink to consume while writing?
I don’t consume drink whilst writing.

Do you have any bad habits while you’re writing?
Bad habits – probably quite a few. I never type straight into a computer, I use longhand first, which is slow. I’m definitely a scribbler, doing everything in sequence.

How do you research your books?
A lot of my ideas are derived from personal experience and past knowledge. Some has to be researched – either from books that I have read in the past, such as Professor Susan Greenfield’s ‘The Human Brain’. Others may require some work on the internet e.g. on Wikipaedia, as with the moons of Jupiter and electron-beam welding, both of which feature in The Island Prince.

Are you a plotter or a pantser?
I’m not sure what a ‘pantser’ is, but I would say I was definitely a plotter. I couldn’t see how a story could be created adequately without a plot of some kind, not that I would claim to be a great plot planner.

If you could live in any fictional world, which would you choose and why?
The fictional world I would choose would have to be something along the lines of the world that I have envisaged in the books I have written, as I think it is realistic and potentially offers a vast improvement on what we have at the moment. I believe capitalism is destroying us , yet we lack a suitable alternative. My fictional world aims to redress this and we’ll need it, or something like it, to end poverty and warfare, not to mention climate change.  

If you could befriend any fictional character, who would you choose and why?
Befriending a fictional character – this is not so easy, but it would have to be someone who stands up for cooperation, rather than competition. Luke Skywalker perhaps?