Interview with the Geordie Tennyson: S.A Todd
Before I get started on this interview I will confess to being biased. S.A Todd is a local poet and a very good friend of our very own LENORA. I have devoured his collection of poetry which is exceptional and Lenora will also be posting her review later this week… Steve it is a JOY to finally meet you, tell us as much as you can about yourself?
At the time of writing I’m a few weeks shy of 35 years on the planet, very happily married with two daughters of 7 and 2. I had a burning passion for literature of all kinds as a kid, with a very early edition Alfred Lord Tennyson poetry book being probably my most prized possession. I work in complaints resolution for a national regulator, which keeps me extremely busy and various energy drink companies financially sound. When not being witty and yet slightly jaded, I’d describe myself as ‘a decent bloke with marginally too much to say for himself’.
You can NEVER have too much to say for yourself and having worked in a complaints department for a well known insurance company previously I would say that wit is probably a useful tool to have in your kit…So clearly writing is not your full time career at the moment…
It’s not, but there’s still time. I have a million and one good concepts for poems and stories, but I’m not exactly a prolific writer and it takes some time for the germ of an idea to mature into something worth putting pen to paper for. I also have that ‘I’m-knackered-from-work-and-just-want-to-doss-about’ thing going on when I get in for the day, which often robs me of motivation. If I can beat that, I guess we’ll see.
Motivation and juggling the work -life – need to be creative balance is a problem for most indie writers. I am lucky that I have had over 1 year now without having to work a regular job, however my husband is self employed which is always a worry and I am currently considering whether I need to find a part time job on top. The thought of not having enough time for my writing gives me nightmares…Speaking of jobs, what is the worst you have ever done, and why?
I think my very first job was an agency contract for a week, basically photocopying bits of paper (the purpose of which I can’t recall, though I think it was some sort of University paperwork) stapling them and then stuffing them in envelopes. Still, when you’ve never had a wage and then you get paid for the first time, it’s a small fortune. I’ve been quite lucky in that I’ve never really had what you’d consider a really, really bad job. Even the most repetitive, basic tasks had a certain clarity to them in that you could see that the task at hand had a definite end. Some days, I would kill for that kind of clarity – it tends to get lost in the mists of continuous improvement and reassessment of future goals.
If you could have written any other book by any other author, what would it be, and why?
Probably The Bible, if only for the ongoing royalty payments. Besides that, probably Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman. I have a kind of love/hate relationship with Terry Pratchett novels; I think he’s a fantastic writer and an amazing fellow as well, but I had half written my first novel before I read Good Omens and then realised that my writing style was pretty much identical to his. ‘Well, it’ll be well received then!’ you might think, but my thoughts were ‘Mine will just look like some cheap knock-off, so I better let it go’. It kind of knocked the wind out of my sails a bit. As a writer, you need to find your own voice and I guess I just wasn’t old enough or confident enough at the time to go with it. I could use the endless cover versions of songs these days as an analogy – they make lots of money, some younger folk might even think that they did the original song after all (as their first exposure to it) but in 99% of cases the original was just better and should have been left resplendent in the quiet dignity of its own excellence. I take this approach with most things in life; if I don’t feel I can do it as well or better than the top 10% of people doing it, I won’t do it at all. Best leave others to shine in their sphere, and I’ll shine in mine.
NOOOOOO that is a dangerous attitude to have because you could talk yourself out of a potential gold mine. Write the book and be damned. Sod the consequences and stick two fingers up at the haters. Write the book, I want to read it! How would you think your parents would describe your poetry? Does this differ from how you would describe it?
I’ve lost track of the amount of really bad early poetry I exposed my parents to, but they were always very supportive. I think they knew that it was my release valve, and didn’t do too much of the ‘the sun is shining, you should be out running about’ thing. They did some of that, sure, and I did spend much of my childhood running about playing Armies and taking my cricket stumps home in a huff when I was bowled out, but the urge to create was always there. A lot of my early work was incredibly macabre, laughably so now. But I can look back at it and see the beginnings of a writer, hacking blissfully away at awkward rhymes with all of the clumsy yet vigorous inexperience of youth.
Do you have any plans to work outside of your comfort zone?
My problem, with prose, has always been that I am incapable of prolonging suspense. This is probably a nod to my own personality of really not liking surprises, even good ones. With any new book I read, I read the first few pages then skip to the end and read the last few pages. You may clap your palms to your collective cheeks in The Scream-type poses, fine, but my enjoyment comes from appreciating how it gets from point A to point B. I like to know what’s coming, so I can appreciate the nuances of how it got there. I think by nature I’m a fairly risk-averse person.
This has led me to the conclusion that poetry (of all forms) should be my weapon of choice, as it is by nature much tighter and distilled than a full novel. Short stories, especially flash fiction, is something I want to explore further though.
I do the same. I ALWAYS read the end before the beginning, purely because I am a nosey cow and NEED to know how it ends before it starts. I do the same with T.V shows. I always hunt out the spoilers before watching. It drives my husband nuts because I can’t keep my mouth shut! You should definitely give flash fiction a bash, however I STILL think that you should take a leap of faith and write that novel…What inspired you to write your first collection?
It was less an inspiration than an exhalation – it was all stuck inside me, and just had to be got out. Between the ages of 15 and 18 I would regularly write into the early hours, furiously pouring out onto the page everything that came to mind. Some of the scribblings I’ve kept from those periods look like an epileptic spider stood in ink then had an episode before expiring at the bottom of the page. But it was ideas… raw, unfocused ideas. I still go back to them sometimes, to remind myself of where I was and where I am now. My book Esto Perpetua has a core of that early work, though much refined, and surrounded by a far denser muscle of more mature pieces.
Apart from that poem about the Farting Rocks of Majuba Gorge. That wasn’t very mature, but it was a lot of fun.
I do have a copy of Esto Perpetua however I have moved house recently and a lot of my books are still packed away in boxes, so LENORA please post THE FARTING ROCKS OF MAJUBA GORGE along with your review… Do you ever get ideas at random moments, and if so how do you hang onto them?
All the time, especially on the bus going to and coming back from work. I tend to write them down at the time on my hand or a scrap of paper, or sometimes I text them to myself for review later. I used to keep a pen and notepad next to my bed as a young kid because I would have incredibly vivid dreams but by the time I’d woken and remembered to write, the memory was gone. Check out my earlier post Hold that dream!
Do you have a structure when you are writing, and if so what?
Not a structure, as such, but I do like to experiment. I always critique what I’ve written and ask the question – ‘Did I say the same thing that this poem is trying to say in an earlier one, and is it better?’. If it’s not, it goes back into the grinder. Or, just sometimes, I re-evaluate the earlier poem and see if it can be made better by incorporating elements or images from the later one.
Do you read for pleasure or out of habit?
Definitely for pleasure. Though I try not to have a book on-the-go when I’m writing, because I subconsciously absorb the style of the writer and it comes through too much in my own work!
What are you reading at the moment, and why?
I have just finished reading the whole of the Song of Ice And Fire series by George R.R Martin (the Game of Thrones series). I came late to the TV series, but after watching two episodes I got all of the books and just devoured them way in advance of the TV series progressing! I had read a number of fairly generic fantasy novels in the past so had low hopes, but it was just absolutely incredible. It was so hard to put down, even the books in the series that other people who had reviewed it said were the ‘weaker’ or ‘slower’ ones I adored. Besides those, I tend to revert to my other favourite author, the absolute genius that is Dan Abnett. I periodically re-read his Eisenhorn and Gaunt’s Ghosts novels just to remind myself what a real master writer can convey in terms of characterisation, plot and descriptive flair.
Meat eater or vegetarian?
Meat eater. I saw a funny quote not so long back which summed it all up for me, in relation to a vegetarian abroad trying to get a veggie dish who was responded to with ‘But…vegetables is what food eats.’
Left or right and why?
Left, just because it’s more sinister.
Rubbish Latin jokes aside, I was one of the last of the primary school generation who had their pen forcibly taken out of their ‘incorrect’ hand (the left one) and put in the ‘correct’ hand (right). Hence my classwork was often very messy, and my homework was better because I could write left-handed. I ended up being one of those classic left-handers who now write with their left hand, but do everything else with their right. If I was ever a ‘Columbo’ villain, they’d never catch me.
What is your favourite movie and why?
Tough question, as there’s so many to choose from. I like my sci-fi (am a bit of a Star Wars nerd) but also love fine pieces of film-making such as Shawshank Redemption, and Malcolm X. They both had a real power and depth to them that resonated with me long after I’d watched them.
Do you have an opinion on life after death, and if so what?
My own personal view on this is cobbled together from various bits of Science that sit well with me and I am completely comfortable with. I’ll try to explain it in basic terms, and hopefully won’t sound too much of an intolerant wacko while doing it.
As it stands, Science (I will use this term broadly to reflect all currently accepted learning accrued through repeatable testing and demonstration, but in this case I refer to the Law of the Conservation Of Energy) states that almost no energy in the universe is truly lost, it only transforms into other forms of energy. All that we are, as human beings, is electrical current moving over and through biological matter. When we die, that electricity ‘earths’ and goes back into the universe. From there, it could just as well be unleashed moments later in a terrible storm as being ‘reborn’ to animate a garden slug.
This is not reincarnation, in the commonly understood sense – that electricity is no longer ‘you’, as ‘you’ were the unique action of that power over similarly uniquely configured biological material. ‘Self’ is a concept humanity needs to understand and traverse life, but I don’t see the need to put any kind of religious dogma or teaching into it. The idea of strict sets of rules of holy conduct, divine prophesy, ultimate redemption or reward seem suspiciously hollow and man-made to me; I will be content knowing that everything I am now will become every thing that is or could be when I finally shrug off this mortal coil. It’s the end of a wonderful period, but then the dice get rolled again, the energy is redistributed and the universe just keeps on rolling. Accepting what a tiny, tiny part of it I am doesn’t intimidate or depress me; it’s kind of like surfing a really, really big wave. It’s exhilarating, if you can swallow your fear and remain balanced until the end.
You know what? Strange as it may sound, I actually quite like your interpretation and it is a concept that I might pick up on again at a later point. Thank you for embracing and answering this question so fully – a lot of authors try to side step it…Totally changing the subject, when you eat out would you choose Chinese, Indian or Italian, or other, if so what?
I love Italian, so that’s usually my eat-out place of choice. There’s a really great little place in my hometown which has been there forever and I’ve never had a bad meal there in 20 years of visits.
London, Paris or New York and why?
As a born-and-bred northerner, London just felt really hostile and terribly grey to me for some reason; everyone was scowls and has pointy elbows. I’ve not done Paris, but would like to do New York again at some point in the Winter. My wife and I honeymooned there 10 years ago at the height of summer, and the heat and humidity were so high that it kind of laid me low.
What do you have in the pipeline?
Flash fiction, and more poems. I’m thinking my next volume will be a mix of both.
How do you overcome writers block?
I worked out a kind of free-association exercise which helps to warm up my brain and get things flowing again. I pick a random book in my house, or article in a newspaper perhaps, and look at the first letter of the first ten words there. I write these down in a single string of letters, so it looks something like this – ASICTPTTMD. This sentence could originally have been ‘A source in China Town proposed the twenty most deadly…’
Much in the way that myself and my older brother would make phrases out of car number plates on long journeys, I would then look at the letters, and try to make a new sentence using them. In this case, I might come up with ‘And So It CameTo Pass That The Man Died.’ – ASICTPTTMD.
I’d then do another block of ten letters, then another, then another, and try to build on the same thought or sentence I’d wrote originally as the ‘new’ one. Pretty soon I’d have a paragraph which had required a lot of thought, while being completely random at the same time. Most of the time, just the exercise itself clears out the cobwebs and lets me get on constructively. Sometimes it leads to some really weird poetry though.
That is a VERY useful tool to use and incredibly intelligent! Everyone take note! Where would you like to be in 5 year time?
Semi-retired, writing and doing voice overs for stuff. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do – commercials, animated films, documentaries, anything. It’s one of my few remaining ambitions. If I’d been a braver soul, I’d have gone into acting as a career but that boat has well and truly sailed and I don’t regret in any way how life has turned out.
What advice would you give your 18 year old self?
I spent my teenage years in true poet style, being self-absorbed, sullen and depressed when I wasn’t mistaking raging hormones and unslaked lust for for falling in love. I’d go back and just tell myself to chill out, start looking beyond the end of my nose and see the possibilities out there more. The problems I felt I faced at the time were insurmountable, but that was only because I had zero life experience and couldn’t put anything into context. Although I still do struggle with depression even now, I can usually spot the signs, take action and just keep on … well, keeping on. If at 18 I had known that before I was 40 I’d have a good, steady job that used my wordsmithing skills, was settled down and married to a wonderful woman and had two gorgeous children, I suspect I’d have found it a damn sight easier to cope. But then, hindsight is always 20:20; to paraphrase what Soren Kierkegaard once said, ‘life must be lived forwards, but can only be understood backwards.’
What a refreshingly honest and beautiful answer! Thank you Mr Todd for brightening up my weekend!
You can find out more about S.A Todd and buy Esto-Perpetua by clicking the following link. Don’t forget to watch out for Lenora’s review which will be coming up later this week…
http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/3397402-esto-perpetua
