3Q’s has allowed me to connect with so many people with the dark fiction community and today’s guest is one of those who I’m so happy to have connected with! A talented author, a super supporter of so many and someone who absolutely should be on your TBR, I’m really happy to have Richard Clive stop by today!

Welcome Richard!

Steve: What does your process look like once you finish your first draft? Do you immediately dive back into it, or do you take some time away?

Richard: Once I have a first draft, I know I have a starting point. I tend to keep working on a piece until it is finished. Then I leave it for a while, edit it some more, and leave it again. And repeat!

If I get really stuck, I switch to another story and come back. But I read a quote recently. I think it was in Stephen Volk’s Coffinmaker’s Blues (highly recommended). The quote was ‘writing IS writer’s block’. So, it’s about perseverance – not giving up if you know the story is worth telling.

I see writers complaining when they’ve written just a few hundred words in a day. But three hundred words a day is equivalent to a novel in one year. So even if you write one good sentence, that’s forward progression. If I’m moving forward, I’m happy.

Steve: You win a very prestigious award and are invited to receive it. The award is a bronze plated copy of the book that means the most to you in your life. What book is it and why?

Richard: I don’t know what I’d do with a bronze-plated book!

But I’d probably go with Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I read the book when I was quite young after falling in love with Hammer Horror films I watched on my grandfather’s old projector.

I was obsessed with monsters and ghosts as a child and particularly with vampires – I’ve never actually written a vampire story, though! Perhaps I should.

Steve: Of the books or stories you’ve released, which is your personal favorite and why?

Richard: It’s between Made in Hell and my novella On Air. Both can be found in my collection Strange Frequencies.

On Air has difficult themes. I was worried about the story being published. It’s about intrusive thoughts, about thinking the worst things. If you are a good person and think terrible things, does that make you a bad person? The story is about a character with a form of OCD known as pure OCD, which causes sufferers to experience terrible intrusive thoughts.

It’s almost a cliché that horror writers are often nice people. But we all think such terrible things, and we even take comfort in these stories. What does that say about all of us?

Steve: Bonus Fun Question – You’re on a camping trip when suddenly a wild animal confronts you. You take off running and it follows. What animal are you confident in thinking you could outrun?

Richard: I chased down a seagull at the supermarket car park yesterday!

So, I’ll say a seagull.

Leaving the shop, I put a packet of sweets (candy) I had just bought and a bottle of hand sanitizer on my car roof while I opened the car door. The seagull swooped down and stole the sweets! I ran after it and threw my hand sanitizer towards it – just to scare it away, not to hurt it – and got my sweets back.

In the US, you have bears, wolves, rattlesnakes, and alligators. In the UK we have seagulls…

The tourists feed them, and they turn into psychotic maniacs!

Steve: Ha! That’s amazing. We got some crazy seagulls here in Canada as well, but nowhere near as crazy as the Canada Geese!

Thank you so much for doing this, Richard!

To find more of his work – check the links!

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Richard-Clive/author/B098PHRD4K

Website: https://richardclive.com/