3Q’s – Ray Cluley is here to make you cry!
I know many people HATE social media, but I’m one of those odd ducks who love it. I love seeing what people are up to, what they’re creating, where they’re travelling and how big the kids are getting (or how cute their pets are!). One thing, I think at least, we can all agree on, is how many doors social media has opened and how it’s allowed so many of us to connect and discover new and exciting authors. Today’s author came onto my radar via one of my personal fav authors, Ian Rogers. Ian has been raving about Ray Cluley’s work and even pitched it being made into a movie in his own awesome 3Q’s. Naturally, I had to reach out and try and get even more eyes on Ray’s work, as that’s the whole point of these 3Q’s!
I’m super excited to welcome Ray as today’s 3Q’s guest!
Steve: What does your process look like once you finish your first draft? Do you immediately dive back into it, or do you take some time away?
Ray: I consider my first draft to be draft 0 and I do immediately dive back in, making obvious fixes such as amending spelling or cutting accidental repetitions, removing specific words I favour too much, things like that. Once it’s accurate and trimmed a bit, it’s a first draft, which I leave for a while so I can return to it with fresh eyes. I’ve usually still been thinking about it in that time, though, so I can often hit the ground running and make some adjustments right away, mostly concerning characters or particular scenes. The fresh read through helps with pacing and structure and consistency, and with strengthening rhythms, emphasising themes, building on symbolism, all that juicy stuff. I have as much fun with that kind of redrafting as I do with the ‘making it all up’ stage. When that’s done, I’ll read it through again and, if there’s time, leave it to settle before repeating the steps above if necessary. And then it’s good to go. If I’m going to send it to a trusted beta reader, this is when that happens, but I don’t tend to do that much.
Steve: Do you believe cryptozoological creatures exist? If so, which one do you think has the best chance of being proven to exist?
Ray: I want to believe. And I kind of do, really, to a certain extent, because I think all those things are at least based on something real. The most likely of them to ever be proven or found is probably a sea creature of some kind, I expect, as our oceans are so rich in biodiversity and still relatively unexplored. Something like the kraken, for example, I can easily imagine being ‘discovered’ some day, as we’re already finding evidence of giant squids on the bodies of other ocean animals, like whales, without having ever seen one. Speaking of which, the blue whale is the largest creature (we know of) on our planet, and we still don’t know much about their migration patterns, so it’s not a great leap to think there might be more out there in our oceans than we’ve seen so far. Whether we’ll ever find them amongst all that fucking plastic, though…
Steve: Of the books or stories you’ve released, which is your personal favorite and why?
Ray: Well, I’ll always be fond of ‘Shark! Shark!’ because with the British Fantasy Award it opened a few doors and led to Probably Monsters getting picked up for publication, but honestly, I really like them all or I wouldn’t write them in the first place. Wherever I send them, they’re always written for me first. With that in mind, my favourite is usually whichever one I wrote most recently. Currently, it’s a toss-up between ‘The Wrong Shark’ (you see a favourite theme here?) or ‘The Final Girl’s Daughter’. Both of those appear for the first time in my new collection, All That’s Lost.
Steve: Bonus Fun Question – What was the best practical joke you’ve ever been involved in?
Ray: I don’t really like practical jokes; I think because so many of them seem to come from somewhere a little bit mean? That said, I did once frighten my partner to tears when we were watching the wonderful Marianne, a French horror series I thoroughly recommend. It seemed like a funny thing to do at the time, but once the tears came all I felt was regret. Before that, I once dressed a fake skeleton we have before positioning it elsewhere in the house, and that had a similar result, so I should have known better. See? A little bit mean. (Sorry Jess.)
Steve: Thank you so much for doing this, Ray – and for not making me cry from one of your practical jokes!
To find more of Ray’s work – check the links!
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RayCluley
Website: https://www.raycluley.com/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Ray-Cluley/author/B092DYXJT9
