MM: Your stories tend to revolve around individualists who stand apart from the herd. Sometimes they're loners, sometimes they're rebels, and sometimes they're just misunderstood. What about this particular archetype do you find so compelling?

PJL: As far as I’m aware (and I’m not very aware most of the time) these characters are me, and sometimes they’re what I’d want to be, and often they’re what I never want to become. It took me a long time to let my subconscious take over when I write, it just so happens that my subconscious produces those loners and rebels and misunderstood creatures that now populate my fiction. There’s a line in the Operation Ivy song 'Knowledge’ and it goes “All I know is that I don’t know nothing.” When it comes to my own writing and the characters within that writing, I believe that quote sums up exactly how much I know about what I do.

MM: While much of your writing can be interpreted as social commentary, The Rorschach Sands struck me as perhaps your most overtly political story to date. Do you think the writer has a role to play in our social discourse? Is it too much to expect fiction to have a tangible impact, to be able to change minds or serve as a call to action?

PJL: Writers have to be involved. They have to show that the world has touched them on some level or other. Writing without this kind of involvement is useless, it is nothing but the buzzing of a vuvuzela horn. I’m not an actively political person, I don’t like politicians and I no longer believe our votes count, but I do believe that fiction (along with music and all the other arts) can be a force for change. Good writing always has a tangible effect on the reader. It stirs emotions, it makes us think, sometimes, if we’re lucky, it will change our whole perception of the world. If we’re even more fortunate it will inspire positive actions in others.

MM: Your stories often involve strong images and symbols - for instance, the photograph of the girl in I Remember Yves Montes or the image of the oil-splattered beach in The Rorschach Sands. Do you tend to start writing with a particular image in mind, or do you start with characters/plot and construct the imagery around them?

PJL: I have absolutely no idea what I’m writing until it is written. I’m entirely driven by what I feel. I never plot, I don’t plan, I don’t jot down notes or character descriptions and I never do research of any kind. If it isn’t there when I start writing, then it will never be there and I just walk away from the story.

I Remember Yves Montes started with the image of the girl (which became the front cover) and the honest expression of love by the photographer in his words to describe that image. That simple declaration, the beauty that the photographer saw in the girl, touched me and all I wanted to do was write a story about that photograph. The story I found was only possible because I didn’t know what story I was writing to begin with. They say write what you know, but I believe I’m writing to discover what I know more than anything else.

One great author interviewing another! Thanks, Moxie!

I've also heard that this here Mr. Lyon is [...] king of both karaoke and the disco!

I've also heard that this here Mr. Lyon is devastatingly good-looking, has oodles of charm and he's king of both karaoke and the disco! Also, he's the cure for the common cold and he comes with a mail in rebate, he slices he dices, he warms your feet on a cold afternoon and colds your afternoons when you have warm feet. He's self-sharpening, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound and with this coupon there's at least ten percent of all future purchases. Act now or forever hold your peace. This once in a lifetime author comes with a 100% guarantee of satisfaction*.

*not a guarantee

I've also heard that this here Mr. Lyon is devastatingly good-looking, has oodles of charm and he's king of both karaoke and the disco! Also, he's the cure for the common cold and he comes with a mail in rebate, he slices he dices, he warms your feet on a cold afternoon and colds your afternoons when you have warm feet. He's self-sharpening, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound and with this coupon there's at least ten percent of all future purchases. Act now or forever hold your peace. This once in a lifetime author comes with a 100% guarantee of satisfaction*.

*not a guarantee

I expect video proof on your Tumblr by the end of the week.

But it had also been suggested by the book that he had just taken out of the drawer. It was a

peculiarly beautiful book. Its smooth creamy paper, a little yellowed by age, was of a kind that

had not been manufactured for at least forty years past. He could guess, however, that the book

was much older than that. He had seen it lying in the window of a frowsy little junk-shop in a

slummy quarter of the town (just what quarter he did not now remember) and had been stricken

immediately by an overwhelming desire to possess it. Party members were supposed not to go into

ordinary shops (‘dealing on the free market’, it was called), but the rule was not strictly kept,

because there were various things, such as shoelaces and razor blades, which it was impossible to

get hold of in any other way. He had given a quick glance up and down the street and then had

slipped inside and bought the book for two dollars fifty. At the time he was not conscious of

wanting it for any particular purpose. He had carried it guiltily home in his briefcase. Even

with nothing written in it, it was a compromising possession.



The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary. This was not illegal (nothing was

illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain that it

would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a forced-labour camp. Winston

fitted a nib into the penholder and sucked it to get the grease off. The pen was an archaic

instrument, seldom used even for signatures, and he had procured one, furtively and with some

difficulty, simply because of a feeling that the beautiful creamy paper deserved to be written on

with a real nib instead of being scratched with an ink-pencil. Actually he was not used to

writing by hand. Apart from very short notes, it was usual to dictate everything into the

speak-write which was of course impossible for his present purpose. He dipped the pen into the

ink and then faltered for just a second. A tremor had gone through his bowels. To mark the paper

was the decisive act. In small clumsy letters he wrote:



*



April 4th, 1984.

Here's a fun one, at I Write Like you can paste in your writing and it 'analyses' the text to tell you who you write like. Apparently I either write like Cory Doctorow or James Joyce (I would have accepted anything other than Dan Brown )

http://iwl.me/s/d760c1b4