Ask the Author: Marc Nash
Answered Questions (14)
Marc Nash
Actually I'm pretty indifferent to it. On a macro-scale, AI will replace ALL jobs so that we need to gear up for a post-employment world, given that many folk's identities are wrapped up in their jobs. They are going to be left bereft with unemployment unless they start doing the processing work NOW. Lockdown gave us an inkling towards this. But it means we can all move into a leisure lifestyle, in which artists can make art to challenge the authenticity of AI generated art.
As to me as a writer, I have had one of my 13 books fed into the AI training matrix. Good luck reproducing/cloning my work. neologisms will always stymie AI. So will wordplay. So will words that have more than one shade of meaning and which I use deliberately to offer that ambiguity. Etymology of words, whereby the current meanings have decayed from the original etymological root. I hold no fear of any challenge to me from AI generated work. I can't speak for other writers however.
As to me as a writer, I have had one of my 13 books fed into the AI training matrix. Good luck reproducing/cloning my work. neologisms will always stymie AI. So will wordplay. So will words that have more than one shade of meaning and which I use deliberately to offer that ambiguity. Etymology of words, whereby the current meanings have decayed from the original etymological root. I hold no fear of any challenge to me from AI generated work. I can't speak for other writers however.
Marc Nash
funny story. I first posted that list to a writers collective blog I was a member of. The blog was hosted on a Wordpress platform and it kept changing my '8' to nonsense. So he only way round that was to replace the 8 with viii. And when I cut and pasted it over to Goodreads, it wouldn't let me change it.
Marc Nash
Afraid I'm all about this world and any book I read helps me contemplate the real and the now. I have no yearning for escapism, hence I don't read Fantasy, Steampunk, Magical realism etc. So in answer, none!
Marc Nash
I don't really do books by season! When I used to go away on holiday, I did take 8-10 books with me, no need to with e-readers now of course. But in truth my holidaying times are behind me. This summer I will be getting ready to celebrate the release of my 5th novel "Three Dreams In The Key Of G" published by Dead Ink Books.
Authors on my TBR pile include B.S.Johnson, Dave Eggers, Jonathan Lethem, W.G.Sebald, Matthias Ensard, Georges Perec & Victor Pelevin.
Authors on my TBR pile include B.S.Johnson, Dave Eggers, Jonathan Lethem, W.G.Sebald, Matthias Ensard, Georges Perec & Victor Pelevin.
Marc Nash
Great question!
I want to date the female protagonist in "A,B&E" yet she also terrifies me. She is far stronger than me, having to hold her own as a woman in two very male worlds, that of academia and gangsterism.
She's funny, brutal, but somewhere there's a heart that can be reached. There are so many facets to her, so many disguises she's had to don, that I always referred to her as a hydra- you pin down one of her personas and two new ones grow back in place.
I want to date the female protagonist in "A,B&E" yet she also terrifies me. She is far stronger than me, having to hold her own as a woman in two very male worlds, that of academia and gangsterism.
She's funny, brutal, but somewhere there's a heart that can be reached. There are so many facets to her, so many disguises she's had to don, that I always referred to her as a hydra- you pin down one of her personas and two new ones grow back in place.
Marc Nash
the writing is never a problem, I always have more on the go than I can complete so there are never blocks. the hardest thing is in publishing, how to find and reach readers. Still haven't cracked that one yet!
Thanks for asking
Thanks for asking
Marc Nash
I didn't start off writing flash, it sort of developed during the gaps between my novel writing. But having encountered it, I found it only informed all my writing. The beauty of flash is you have no time but to dive in, no time to set up with an introduction, no room for long descriptions. Therefore it places a high importance on word usage which appeals to me anyway. And the length of 1000 words allows you to really examine a central theme or metaphor from several different facets and really get to the meat of the thing. It can be so intense.
Marc Nash
I'm not one for nostalgia really, plus I have a hard time recalling anything pre- the age of six, don't know if I blocked it all out, I just wasn't very aware of things happening around me or nothing much actually happened!
Don't know about it being a favourite, but it does stand out probably because it says something about my character, but I had been learning to swim for an age with armbands and was on holiday when I was challenged to a race in the pool with a cash prize; one of my armbands had a hole in it and wouldn't inflate, but I just jumped in the pool & took the race cos I wanted to win that cash which I did and never needed armbands afterwards!
Don't know about it being a favourite, but it does stand out probably because it says something about my character, but I had been learning to swim for an age with armbands and was on holiday when I was challenged to a race in the pool with a cash prize; one of my armbands had a hole in it and wouldn't inflate, but I just jumped in the pool & took the race cos I wanted to win that cash which I did and never needed armbands afterwards!
Marc Nash
If you want my honest answer, being a writer is a very cowardly way of trying to change the world. I'm quite a political author, I've written about people who seek to change the world and they do not pursue their aims with a pen believe you me! Writers hold no power other than the ability to transport a reader through their imagination. Now if a writer were able to do that to millions simultaneously, then you might have a force for change. Or you might have "50 Shades Of Grey" which had millions of women all imagining the same sexual fantasies as written by the author. I found that a bit disturbing but there you go. Good luck to the author!
Marc Nash
Depends on the author, but I write really quickly once I sit down to start a 1st draft. I have let the original ideas simmer in my sub-conscious for 6 months prior, barely making anything but a few notes, certainly not starting to write it. Then 6 months later it's ready to emerge. So although I haven't drawn up a plan, it is pretty well formed in my mind, but still fresh enough as I'm writing it because it can change between the mind & the pen.
My last novel I wrote the first draft shadowing NaNoMoWri and completed the first draft in about 6 weeks from start to end. And that was with no planning whatsoever, it was 'provoked' by my irritation with a novel I had just read and sat down the very next day and began writing my response. I suppose the ideas of my book must have been lurking in my mind, but my irritation pulled them all together and into the creation of a new work for me.
My last novel I wrote the first draft shadowing NaNoMoWri and completed the first draft in about 6 weeks from start to end. And that was with no planning whatsoever, it was 'provoked' by my irritation with a novel I had just read and sat down the very next day and began writing my response. I suppose the ideas of my book must have been lurking in my mind, but my irritation pulled them all together and into the creation of a new work for me.
Marc Nash
I don't write in genres so I can't really answer this question. However I believe authors who write in a genre have a real passion for it, which I would assume makes writing in that genre for them easier than writing in a less familiar one.
Marc Nash
You will get a lot of advice from people and some of it will be contradictory from different people. How do you know which one to follow? If you stick to your own artistic vision, the very reasons that made you want to write novels in the first place, that will guide you through the confusion. Stay true to your vision!
Marc Nash
I have too many ongoing writing projects to suffer writer's block. If a project stalls, I put it to one side and move on to the next.
Marc Nash
as it's a collection of 28 short stories, there were 28 ideas behind them. I produce those in the back of the book, but here's a couple to give you an idea:
“Happy Sour” - reading in the bath a book of stories by Brian Evenson and he used the simple phrase “Happy Hour” in a story and my brain went into association overdrive. What if happy hours weren’t actually happy? I had about seven sentences formed in my head by the time I climbed out of the bath and they were the skeleton of the story. Whole thing was completed in an hour.
“Unsighted” - waiting to meet someone in central London who never showed up. I think I hung around uselessly for 90 minutes. Revenge is writing a story about it, though this went through so many drafts, the story ended up being at the expense of the person waiting, not the one who failed to show.
“Happy Sour” - reading in the bath a book of stories by Brian Evenson and he used the simple phrase “Happy Hour” in a story and my brain went into association overdrive. What if happy hours weren’t actually happy? I had about seven sentences formed in my head by the time I climbed out of the bath and they were the skeleton of the story. Whole thing was completed in an hour.
“Unsighted” - waiting to meet someone in central London who never showed up. I think I hung around uselessly for 90 minutes. Revenge is writing a story about it, though this went through so many drafts, the story ended up being at the expense of the person waiting, not the one who failed to show.
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