I write in a shed at the bottom of our very small but lush garden – a wonderful space that calms and encourages when nothing else makes sense.
One of my first paid writing jobs was adapting a series of the Moomins for the BBC using transcripts translated from Japanese. Almost indecipherable but a great learning exercise except for trying to fit the words into mouths with the forward and back buttons of an old VHS player. Six weeks that almost led to madness.
I started my working life as a junior civil engineer but after five years knew I wanted something more lucrative, so I trained as an actor – hah!
Why I do what I do.
I love telling stories. For a long time, as I said, I worked as an actor – film, tv, radio and theatre. It tested, exhilarated, excited and terrified me all at the same time. I played, depending on size – mine or the part’s – policemen, villains, best friends and any other character I was offered that I thought would be interesting and fun.
Sometimes even second/third/fourth director’s choice but who cares? An actor’s ego is a thing of endless change and amenability: at least, mine was.
I loved the social side of it all, the challenge and, on rare occasions, the praise. Then I stopped enjoying it and lost confidence. I moved to production and writing, still storytelling. I had written poems and stories since I was 12 about simple emotional reactions and this is what still interests me; people, what drives them to do the things they do, the strength of the human spirit. I wrote scripts and screenplays and found I could do it and, to my surprise, sell them.
Big things that changed me.
My father died when I was twelve. I learned to use humour as a shield. I had a choice to keep all inside me or let it out. I chose the latter, and it gave me a short cut to my emotions but led to heart before head decisions – not always the best way but useful for a writer.
Twenty-five years ago, I was introduced to Mangalakara, a Children’s home and School in Southern India. It was in a small-town slum and had about fifty street children. They lost their building but eventually through the generosity of some wonderful people who provided money for land and buildings became a centre of excellence for education and has vocational training, junior, degree and Masters colleges on its beautiful campus. It has changed the lives of thousands of young people. The mix of love and discipline and the children themselves changed mine and continues to do so.
On and off, for ten years, I was a freelance project consultant for Foundations and NGOs, mainly working in India.
I co-founded Funky Medics, a production company focused on health messaging through humour and story. We worked on campaigns in the UK and internationally and developed a pan-India awareness and communication initiative. Sadly, promised funding never appeared and it didn’t happen. We couldn’t personally support it anymore. But who knows… one day!
I write best from ten to three then edit and read the next morning before I start again.
Crime Cymru Blog. How I write: Phil Rowlands
October is the time for Conkers, Crime, and Halloween but I wonder if Stephen King had little hiccups like these as he created his worlds of horror…
I have a mantra when I start to write…
- Always keep the storyline in sight
- Dialogue must earn its space
- Repetition must be avoided.
Writing is not easy, it plays with you, tests you, frustrates you, but also gives you hope, joy and purpose. From concept to completion, the journey is full of twists and turns, some right, some wrong. Some help some don’t. Words you use to create a story seem to be inevitable, seamless and subtle – until you read them again and they are repetitive, boring and have no place or reason to be there. As this paragraph demonstrates.
Not an optimistic start to this little jumble of thoughts but here’s the thing…
I am in the middle of writing my next book and it’s taking for ever. I am so bored with saying to those who kindly ask about it that I should have, would have, could have, finished it. Other things got in the way – life, day job of books and screenplays that seemed to be asleep but have now woken – demanding attention.
Our small indie press, Diamond Crime, is a constant source of mostly happy distraction as we collaborate with our wonderful authors to produce the best for their books. We are a tiny team and do everything with the skills we had or those we have learned. If one of the three of us is ill, the pressure mounts on the others. Not complaining, just saying.
My next book is set in Wales and Spain, both in contemporary and historic times. It is about a particular incident and its repercussions. It tells the story of a jeweller in Alicante during the Spanish Civil War and how the theft of a hugely valuable diamond causes trauma and tragedy then and impacts dangerously on the life of his great grandson now. I love writing it but sometimes in bursts of only a couple of hours before I must prioritise my ever-increasing to-do list, I wonder if I should leave it, dangling, until I can steal a month or two to be alone in its world. That seems an impossible dream. It’s my own fault. When I managed to have a holiday and research respite in Alicante, I happened upon another story, so closely connected to my diamond tale, of an unsung Welsh hero of the Spanish Civil War who rescued nearly three thousand people fleeing the fascists by taking them on board his small cargo ship. He will, in a mix of fact and fiction, appear in the book. Talk about rabbit holes. It was a warren that led to Algeria and Spanish film producers who knew more of the man than anyone in Wales, apart from his wonderful ninety-two-year-old son, whom I met.
But I will finish the book this year or early next. I must. Definitely. I just have too many stories swirling, fighting for a place.
