INTRODUCTION
I’m always slightly torn when it comes to writing anything about my own fiction. After all, the stuff should surely be able to stand for itself. I don’t particularly like looking back at old projects either; any writer worth his or her salt, so I reason, should always be looking toward what they might create in the future rather than back toward what they’ve done in the past. Then there’s always the risk that re-reading and re-examining my old work will cause me to conclude either (1) it’s so much better than what I’m writing now, or (2) no good at all, and I’m not sure which outcome is more disturbing. I might even become like the caterpillar who’s asked by a passing ant to describe how it manages to walk, and discovers it can no longer move at all after it’s done so.
Nevertheless, I love discussion, debate, criticism, argument, and all kinds of information of how any piece of writing I admire came about, just as I do when it comes to music, movies, and every other form of art, craft and entertainment. I even enjoy listening to the post-match views of football pundits—in fact, I sometimes think I prefer them to the actual games—and I’ll happily sit through a director’s commentary of my favourite films.
In other words, letting daylight in on other people’s magic, be it Lionel Messi or Nicholas Roeg, doesn’t ruin the experience me in the slightest. In fact, the more daylight and detail the better. To discover why Ennio Morricone’s brilliant score for Once Upon a Time in New York wasn’t even considered for an Oscar, for instance, or the circumstances of the break up of a particular incarnation of King Crimson, or where and how Tender is the Night was written (and re-written) only increases my insight and enjoyment. Of course, there’s a nerdish element to all of this (I’m also happy to learn about what kind of microphones are used in a particular recording studio) but there’s also the writerly part of me to satisfy, which is always on the look out for new insights into how the creative process can go right, or wrong.
I’m sure this schizophrenic approach to personal analysis is fairly common, if not close to universal, amongst writers, even if those readers who’ve encountered many actual writers will also have noticed that, once you can get them started on the subject of their own work, they can be very hard to stop.
So, in writing this introduction and the afterwords (which at least avoid the risk of spoilers) to the novelettes and novellas which make up this collection, and the following one, Nowhere, which includes a large sampling of my shorter works, I know I’m likely to find myself both drawn and repulsed. In one sense, I’m happy to look back, but in another, I’m not. You may or may not agree with my standpoint, either as a reader or a writer, but to argue my case further would be pointless. At the end of the day, and despite whatever I have to say about them, I hope my stories speak for themselves.