The Bellows #4 – Life, and other Exciting Pursuits

A beard makes everything betterAuthor Simon Kurt Unsworth has had a very difficult few months. How will his change in circumstances affect his writing?

Read Simon’s previous articles here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

This is how it happens.

At the end of November, I finally finished all the amendments to the novel, was really happy with it and sent it off to John Berlyne. ‘Don’t expect anything fast’, he told me, so I didn’t, trying to forget about what might potentially happen next, about whether he’d like it or not, about whether he might be able to sell it to publishers. It’s not easy to clear something like that from your mind, though, and every day I opened my e-mail hoping to see something back from John. In the last month of last year, to be honest, I was making myself more than a little stressed about it, until I managed to find a way of stopping worrying about the novel. So, how did I do that?
Continue reading

The Bellows #3 – On How a Novel, If Not its Author, Matures

Novelist at Work

Horror writer extraordinaire, Simon Kurt Unsworth, brings us up to speed on the life of his new novel. And he’s had some very exciting news…

I shouldn’t have been so cocky.

It all felt like it was going so well; I’d sent the novel off and I was proud of what I’d accomplished in it. The final draft felt like it worked as a thriller and as a horror, I was happy with my imagery and its pace, and I liked my characters enough to have some emotional investment in them. I had two writing courses lined up to teach which I was set to be paid for, and life felt good. And then things started to, if not go wrong exactly, then at least yaw. I like the word ‘yaw’; it’s got a dizzying, oscillatory sort of feel to it, and it’s pretty much exactly how life’s felt these last months.

Continue reading

The Bellows #2 – On Writing a Novel

Bosch's vision of HellFollowing last month’s introduction, horror author Simon Kurt Unsworth returns to chart the vagaries of writing full time for a living.

So, where in Hell are we? This is a pun, of sorts, but not one that’ll mean anything to you. I may choose to explain it later. Bear with me.

Last time we talked, I introduced myself; this time, I need to introduce my novel, seeing as that’s sort of what these columns are supposed to be about. Well, I can tell you it’s been a long, long time coming. Don’t believe me? Picture it: it’s 1995, and I’m 23 and sat in a fairly grim bedsit in Leeds, near the Faversham Public House. I’m waiting for my then girlfriend, Susie, to come home from work and three things collide like damp tissue paper in my head.

Continue reading