Ramsey Campbell
The veteran horror author can see the upside of book burning…
What is your daily writing routine like?
While I stumble through making a cup of tea I’ll be composing sentences and developing today’s scene in my head. By the time I reach my desk (six o’clock or earlier) I’ll have at least the opening sentence. A basic Parker pen and an exercise book are the other tools of the job.
Describe the room in which you typically write.
My desk is at the top of a three-storey Victorian bay, which gives me a view of the Mersey in all its moods and the dawn as the lengthening days move it from Liverpool to Bootle. Behind me are bookshelves full of author copies, which have taken over much of the landing outside as well.
Which of your books are you the most proud of?
Maybe the Brichester Mythos trilogy [The Searching Dead, Born To The Dark, The Way Of The Worm]. I was trying to develop some of the Lovecraftian notions from my first book, and I do think the three books touch both the human and the cosmic.
Which of your books was the most difficult to write?
Fellstones. It was only when I grasped that some elements should be historical, not happening in the narrative’s present time, that I fixed the problem.
Is there anything about one of your books which you wish you could travel back in time and “fix”?
The clumsy prose of many – novels and stories too. I used to try and salvage as much of the first draft in the rewrite as I could, and it shows. Now I ruthlessly improve everything I can.
Were you a keen reader as a child? Which books were your favourites?
At six Fifty Years Of Ghost Stories introduced me to my field, from Edith Wharton (whose prose gave me no trouble) to MR James. Clifford D Simak’s City when I was eight, Doyle’s The Lost World, and Keir Cross’s Best Horror Stories, not least for “Bartleby”.
Is there any particular author whose writing ability makes you envious?
Nabokov. Lolita for the revelling in language, the oblique approach to the subject, the employment of humour in a serious context. I found Pale Fire equally radical, Bend Sinister profoundly disturbing (the description of the son’s fate in clinical prose is pure horror), Laughter In The Dark unput-downably compelling.
If you could recommend one book that you love, but that’s not very well known, what would it be?
The Deadly Percheron by John Franklin Bardin, a mystery novel that turns into paranoid nightmare.
Where’s the oddest place you’ve seen one of your books?
On a fundamentalist pyre shown on American television – The Doll Who Ate His Mother. I was grateful for the free ad.
What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve either received or read?
From August Derleth when I was 15: “Don’t depend on writing alone to make you a living… When you’re out of school get yourself a decent, not too harrowing job, and write as much as possible.”
Campbell’s 1989 novel Ancient Images is reissued on 21 February, published by Flame Tree Press.
A basic Parker pen and an exercise book are the other tools of the job