Scottish author, Ron McMillan - his Bangkok Belle was on the blog yesterday, here - takes a turn in the stocks as I fire a few question in his direction.....
I see from your biography on your website you have had a successful photography career, are you still operating in this field?
Ron: I was really lucky to be a freelance
photographer during a golden era, just before digital killed film, and before
the Internet smothered the print media. For ten years I was based in Hongkong,
and visited on assignment almost everywhere from Afghanistan to Japan. It was a
great life that taught me a lot, and gave me a huge stack of memories that I
pick from for my fiction.
Any anecdotes from your times spent in China and
North Korea? North Korea, what little I know of it, sounds like a real fun place!
Ron: Many of the most vivid memories involve
dodging death on wild road trips in places like China and Pakistan and North
Korea. I once badgered a North Korean taxi driver to slow down so insistently
that he started swinging punches at me. And I was in the back seat at the time.
I was young, brash, and had little respect for authority, which meant I was
forever getting into sticky situations. It is no exaggeration to say that I
lied to men carrying guns in at least a half-dozen countries. For now, at
least, only the conceit implicit in setting out to write an autobiography holds
me back.
How did you get into writing?
Ron: In 1983 I drifted
into South Korea during exciting times. The military regime didn’t know it was
on its last legs, and the upcoming 1988 Seoul Olympics were on everyone’s mind.
I was able to start freelancing as a photographer and a business journalist for
overseas publications simply because I had almost no competition. Massive
student demonstrations that threatened the Olympics meant I got photo
assignments I didn’t deserve and business magazines were hungry for stories
about one of the emergent global economic powerhouses. With a lot of
luck and a bit of determination, I got toeholds in photography and writing.
What’s been the most satisfying moment of your
writing career so far?
Ron: The publication of my first book, a travel
book about the Shetland Islands: BETWEEN WEATHERS, Travels in 21st
Century Shetland (Sandstone Press, 2008). I had been dreaming for at least
twenty years about having a book published. Up until then attempts with fiction
had found no success, so I went back to travel writing and was fortunate to
find the fine people at Sandstone Press (www.sandstonepress.com), who put me in
print for the first time. Two years later, Sandstone also published my first
crime novel, Yin Yang Tattoo.
What’s your typical writing schedule?
Ron: I wish I had one. I write what I can
when I’m in the right frame of mind. That can mean early mornings or quiet
afternoons or sessions that don’t even begin until after midnight.
Do you insert family, friends, and colleagues into
your characters?
Ron: Not consciously. Almost inevitably,
every character is a construct of many people I have known, though I relish building
traits from people I dislike into the bad guys in my books.
Are you a plotter, or do you make it up as you go
along?
Ron: I usually set out on a new novel not
knowing much more than the beginning and the ending. When I began writing the
first Mason & Dixie thriller, Bangkok Cowboy, I had nothing but my
two central characters and an opening scene that was based on an actual event
that a friend witnessed – a vicious assault on an Australian tourist outside a
Bangkok night club. That poor bloke staggered off after being repeatedly kicked
by club bouncers, and allegedly died later in his hotel room. In Bangkok
Cowboy, my Australian died on the spot, setting off the main plotline.
Are there any subjects off limits?
Ron: The supernatural and politics.
You’ve had two books out so far in your Mason and
Dixie Bangkok series, plus one earlier crime thriller – a standalone – Yin Yang
Tattoo and some non-fiction. From your books is there one you are more proud of
than any of the others? Which and why?
Ron: I always set out with the goal of
writing books that I myself would enjoy reading, and that I can still enjoy
them, years later, is a small source of pride. As for a favourite, that’s
always the next book, the one that’s a work-in-progress.
Regarding Mason and Dixie can you tell us a bit
more about your main characters? Where did they spring from?
Ron: When I was in my early teens, my Dad
recommended a book at the library, a Travis McGee crime novel, from the
wonderful series by John D. MacDonald. McGee was the one of the defining
figures of modern crime fiction, and I, along with many others, take
inspiration from him. Mason is an ex-British Army veteran of the Afghanistan
conflict; he witnessed horrors up close that left him with recurring symptoms
of PTSD. After he left the army he took his meagre pension to Bangkok and set
up as a private investigator. One of his early Thai clients was a feisty,
drop-dead gorgeous transgender woman called Dixie, who was the victim of a porn
website hosted by a Middle-Eastern diplomat. After Mason helped sort that out, she
became his business partner. They are not romantically involved (though who
knows what is to come?), but their friendship and loyalty makes them fiercely
protective of one another.
Any unpublished gems in your bottom drawer?
Ron: No gems. One complete crime novel and
two others, partly-written. Though none of them will ever see the light of day,
they were important parts of a painfully long-drawn-out learning process.
What’s the current project in progress? How’s it
going?
Ron: The third in the Mason & Dixie
series, tentatively entitled Bangkok Z, is well under way. Zed will be
known to those who have read either of the first two books in the series; she’s
the hacker who gets on the wrong side of governments and gangsters alike. The
main plotline revolves around twin threats to Zed’s safety – from American Federal
forces and the Russian mob.
I also have had a screenplay in the making for some
time. It is about a Thai blues musician stranded in Scotland after he goes
there to be with the Scottish girl he fell in love with on a beach in Thailand.
It has generated some very positive feedback, and I still hope to find a
director interested in taking it on.
After BETWEEN WEATHERS came out, a
film-maker in Scotland asked for a fictional story set in Shetland. I wrote an
original storyline that has undergone considerable development over the years.
Just yesterday I heard that it could be going into production soon, which might
mean I get to spend some time back in Shetland in the coming year. www.BetweenWeathers.com
What’s the best thing about writing?
Ron: The sense of satisfaction in
completing a new book, and getting positive feedback from anyone who has
enjoyed it.
The worst?
Ron: My pet hate: the fearless anonymous keyboard
warrior who gives a book a one-star review because he ordered it by mistake, or
received a copy with a printing error. (I have experienced both).
Who do you read and enjoy?
The Australian (by way of South Africa) crime
fiction writer Peter Temple is almost without peer. Craig Russell’s ‘Lennox’
series set in 1950s Glasgow; the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike series by Robert Crais; John
Harvey’s ‘Resnick’ series set in Nottingham; anything by Stuart Neville, Roddy
Doyle, Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke, Jorn Lier Horst; the late Henning
Mankell and the much-missed Robert B. Parker.
Is there any one book you wish you had written?
Ron: Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin.
Quite simply the best book I have read in the last thirty years. Another book I
re-read recently that inspired considerable envy was Gorky Park by
Martin Cruz Smith.
Favourite activity when not working or writing?
Ron: Cycling, watching good TV or film
drama, catching up on current affairs on the web.
In a couple of years’ time…
Ron: Writing novels, perhaps another travel book, developing TV documentary
ideas with a British TV partner, still working on an entirely speculative TV
crime series set in the Scottish isles. And more writing.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Many thanks to Ron for his time, you can catch up with him at his website.
LINKS:
Bangkok Belle: http://amzn.to/2dmeBR2
Great interview, for which thanks, both. I really like that way of looking at writing: writing books you yourself would want to read. That's a good way to think of it. Wishing you much success.
ReplyDeleteMargot thanks.
DeleteCol – Thanks for doing the interview. Interesting guy – globe trotting – visiting places I never want to see – BSing men with guns. I’ve got to read his stuff.
ReplyDeleteElgin - 30 years trotting the globe - he's got bigger cojones than me. I get homesick after a week away! I think everyone should read at least one transgender crime novel in their lifetime.
DeleteWell he's had quite the career hasn't he! Interesting interview, as ever.
ReplyDeleteMoira, he has got about a bit. Cheers.
DeleteVery nice interview, Col, and I really would like to try the books. I just wish they were available in print, I am allergic to e-books right now.
ReplyDeleteCheers Tracy, I think I'm maybe 50/50 on print and e-reading at the minute.
Delete