Michael Linford
Born in Boscombe, Dorset in 1977. I have always had a
passion for 3 things, books, music and people. Having worked in music retail
for 10 years I was able to immerse myself in music both at work and at home
which was a joy. My other interest being people and helping them,
I eventually moved onto carework and have spent the last 7 years looking
after the elderly and troubled, both in their own homes and now as the
supervisor of a large care home. I am a fully qualified hypnotherapist and am
currently training to be a counsellor.
Having had aspirations of being a writer since very early
in my life, I started to write poetry as an outlet for various issues I
have suffered from throughout the years, such as depression and I finally put
over 400 poems on my blog in 2011.
Throughout my life, music has always provided an inspiration, a support and a soundtrack to my life and I have always been interested in different people and their musical taste, so in the summer of 2011 I came up with the idea for my debut novel, Music for the end of the world, and this novel combines both my love of music and my passion for human emotion.
Throughout my life, music has always provided an inspiration, a support and a soundtrack to my life and I have always been interested in different people and their musical taste, so in the summer of 2011 I came up with the idea for my debut novel, Music for the end of the world, and this novel combines both my love of music and my passion for human emotion.
Music for the end of the world was released in December
2012 and has an average of 4.8 / 5 from Amazon reviews.
A
huge thank you to the lovely Author ‘Tara Reid’ for providing the questions for
me to answer on this filler blog! I promise to find some more interesting
authors for the next Writers Wednesday feature!
Questions for Michael Linford
1 - How do you manage working (day
job), writing and running a healthy and active blog?
After I finished writing my second novel, I decided to
take a break from writing whilst I figured out my next step with getting it
published. In this time I decided to launch a blog to help try and promote
creative people across different genres, from music right through to
performance artists. When I started the blog I worked nights and had 4 days a
week off so it wasn’t too difficult to fit everything in, but in the last
couple of months I’ve changed jobs and now work 5 days a week with just
weekends free, so it has been more of a struggle but I’m finally enjoying all
areas of my life at long last.
I might find it impossible to keep up with the blog when
I’m writing again, but I’ll give it a good go and can always encourage others
to pick up the running of it if needs be. I believe that people need a
promotional platform for their creative outputs, especially one that is free
and comes from the heart of someone who loves all aspects of creative minds, so
I wouldn’t ever want to finish the blog altogether.
2 - Do you plan your writing
projects or just blurt it all out and then jiggle it around to fit the purpose?
To be honest it’s probably a bit of both really. I come up with the original idea and have a rough outline of where I want the characters to start from and end up, so it’s the middle of the story that I then try to let it weave itself in my mind. I won’t force anything out with my writing and have a tendency to just play around in my mind with the characters and the basic idea, letting them come to life in my subconscious and tell me their own story. When the story starts to invade my daily life to the extent that I need to get it out of my head, that’s when I write the story on paper and give my brain some peace, hoping that what comes out makes some sort of sense!
3 – If you could go back in time,
what advice would you give your younger self?
I never knew what I wanted to do
with my life really but when I look back at my time at Junior school, I showed
interest in writing back then for a prolonged period of time, especially
children’s books, and really wish I had carried on nurturing that train of
thought at a much earlier point in my life than I eventually did.
The only non-writing advice that I would give myself is
to believe in yourself more and when people want to run you down and try to
make you feel like nothing, keep your head held high, be true to yourself, and
do your best to show them that their negativity won’t stop you from doing
anything you want to.
4 – What advice would you give
others wanting to write a book but unsure about where to start?
That’s a tough question for many reasons but I’ll break
it down into 2 parts to put it as simply as possible.
With regards writing, my best advice is just to write as
much as you can and not think about editing or anything else. Just let the
words flow and see what comes out. Another bit of advice that I hear from many
people is to make sure you would want to read the book you write because if you
wouldn’t, how could you expect anybody else to?
With regards publishing, to be honest I haven’t fully
decided what the best option is yet. I’m in contact with a lot of writers
through the internet and just as many people say to go down the route of
self-publishing, as do the people that say get it to a publisher and use the
traditional routes. In my honest opinion as long as it’s professionally
proofread, edited, designed etc… then whether you use a publisher or not you
can still have a wonderful looking book and can remove a lot of the trouble
that comes with having to attract publishers.
The main pitfall of going it alone is the promotional
aspect of getting the book seen by people but if you can conquer this, then the
world’s your oyster!
5 - What have readers got to look
forward to in the future from Michael Linford?
Well, my second novel ‘As the wolf howls’ is written but
needs to undergo a lot of editing and checking before it sees the light of day.
It couldn’t be further removed from my debut novel ‘Music for the end of the
world’ if I tried. It is very much myth and magic and incorporates another part
of me that not many people get to see, the spiritual side that has always been
interested in both Tibet and Native America.
Other than that, we’ll have to wait and see! All I will
say at the moment though is that once I’ve spent a bit of time in an airport
later this year, I’m hoping that my third novel will be well into the planning
stage at least!
It all depends if anyone wants to read more of my words I guess? J
It all depends if anyone wants to read more of my words I guess? J
Links for Michael Linford
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/michaeljameswriter
Website – www.michaellinford.co.uk
Music for the end of the world (Buy
on Amazon) - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Music-End-World-Michael-Linford/dp/1780034938/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1399404500&sr=8-1&keywords=music+for+the+end+of+the+world
Lovely informative interview! I've 'started' writing a book and understand what you mean about getting it written and editing later. Ideas can be very disruptive lol. I loved your book and look forward to reading your other books :) xx
ReplyDeleteThank you :) xx
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