Matthew Hughes, author of the Henghis Hapthorn novels and Archonate series, comes to the Never Have, Never Will interview and lets us know about his latest three-book contract and...er...strangling bunnies (All right. That last one is taken way out of context).
1. Is there a story you’ve written that will never see the light of day? Why would you deprive us of this genius?
In my mid-twenties, back in the seventies, I wrote a quite awful heroic fantasy novel, the first of what would have been a trilogy (of course). I consider it my “practice piece” and the reason I won’t show it to anyone is alluded to in the phrase “quite awful” above.
2. What’s a story you’ve never written, but always wanted to?
There are three. One is a historical novel I started when I was fifteen; it was a lovely idea that I’d like to do justice to someday. The other two are serious historical novels I intend to write before I die. I’ve been researching one of them for more than thirty-five years. I’ve applied for a Guggenheim Fellowship to give me a year or two in which to write it. If I get the grant, I’ll do it after I’ve written the three novels I’ve just contracted for with Angry Robot.
3. Is there a character or plot point you’ve wanted to change in retrospect?
No. Once I’ve written a book or story, I tend to forget it quite quickly and thoroughly. It’s a psychological condition, a result of having learned in my youth to live my life in consecutive compartments, not really connected to each other. That was because my father was constantly uprooting us, sometimes with literally only minutes warning, and moving us somewhere else. I learned to live in the now, because that was all there ever was.
4. Which of your characters would you never want to meet (in a dark alley or otherwise)?
I tend not to schedule meetings with anyone in dark alleys. But, seriously, I would not want to meet any of my characters, even in the most benign setting. That’s because they are literary characters, and not real people, and therefore they don’t have personalities, only characteristics. So they tend to be rather monomaniacal, obsessed with getting what they want or need; such people don’t make for good company. Also, because the fiction author’s job is to make life hell for his characters, I probably wouldn’t want them to have an opportunity to get their hands on me.
5. Which of your worlds/realities/cities would you never want to visit?
Ektop, the environmental dystopia from Fools Errant, my first novel. A lot of naked, diseased starvelings living in a forest full of ravenous beasts. Though they do leave a truly minimal footprint on the world.
6. Are there any real-world locations you’ve written about but have never visited (or never want to)?:
I used Baghdad in the Wolverine novel I wrote for Pocket Books as Hugh Matthews. I wouldn’t want to visit there.
7. Is there a piece of writing advice you’ve never followed?
Yes. I read a how-to book some years ago by Ken Follett’s agent, whose name I can’t remember. It was all about how to write a bestselling thriller. Apparently, it’s all in the outlining. But I’m a terrible outliner. I start with an idea of where I’m going, write a thousand words a day, and three months later, there I am.
8. What is an aspect of the writing craft you’ve never had a problem with (and why)?
Writer’s block. I started my professional writing career in the newsroom of a daily newspaper. It was full of ringing telephones, rattling manual typewriters, and reporters shouting for copy boys to come and take their copy to the desk men for editing. Up on the wall was a highly visible clock that told you how long you had to get your copy in before it was past deadline and therefore one with Nineveh and Tyre (i.e., dead). I learned to put my bum in a chair and my fingers on a keyboard and get something down. Then I went on to write speeches and other commercial copy for thirty-odd years, with a wife and children depending on my ability to bash it out.
9. What’s the one book out there that you wish you’d written (but of course won’t, because it’s already written, and writing it again would be plagiarism, and that’s just mean)?
There isn’t just one; there are lots of them: most of Jack Vance’s work, especially Emphyrio; Catch-22; Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five; Cecelia Holland’s historical novels, which are brilliant. The lamentably forgotten Thorne Smith’s comic fantasies. Much more.
10. What aspect of writing will you never stop working to improve in?
Making it funny and yet still saying something serious.
11. What’s one part of the publishing industry/process you wish you could do without?
Branding. Marketing has taken over from editorial, because the old-time publishing houses, run by book people, have been taken over by corporate conglomerates, run by bean-counters. So you get the sorry spectacle of Margaret Atwood denying she’s a science fiction writer because if she ended up on the same section of the bookstore as the Star Trek tie-ins, her sales would plummet and nobody would speak to her at cocktail parties anymore.
12. What’s the one thing you would never do to shamelessly promote your current release?
Strangle a bunny. Well, not a completely innocent bunny.
13. What’s a question you’ve always wanted to answer, but have never been asked?
Would you like that in bundles of hundred-dollar bills or will you just take the wheelbarrow full of gold?
And your answer?
Surprise me.
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