Nick Morrish – The Perfect Fool

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I delighted today to welcome to my blog the lovely Nick Morrish aka Chris Blackwater.

Nick is an engineer-turned-writer from Leeds, who lives in Hampshire, England. Written under the pen name Chris Blackwater, Emergency Drill, the first novel in his Danny Verity, PI series was set on a North Sea oil rig and shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger Award. The second book in the series, Dead Crude, is set in an Orkney oil terminal.

Hi Nick, thanks for agreeing to pop my blog today to talk about your latest release The Perfect Fool. I always like to offer my blog guests some sort of refreshment (obviously at great expense!) so what would you like tea or coffee? And anything to eat – there’s usually a tin full of Fat Rascals in our house, being from Yorkshire yourself would you like to try one? Ours don’t have the faces on, I have to admit I’ve always thought they looked a bit creepy.

I’m more of a parkin person, myself. A cup of tea would be nice, so long as it’s Yorkshire tea, hand-picked from the fabled Harrogate tea plantations. Milk, no sugar, please.

Of course, coming right up – can you say something about the book?

The Perfect Fool: A Madcap Modern-Day Fantasy

On his way to an interview with a national newspaper, jobless journalist, Dillon Wright is confronted by armoured knights tearing up the motorway with a mechanical digger. Dillon is not impressed by their claim to be on a sacred quest, but the newspaper is seeking a fearless reporter to investigate cults and alternative religions. His near-death experience with the knights is just what they are looking for.
Aided and abetted by his accident-prone housemate, Sparks, and his sceptical girlfriend, Charlotte, he sets out on his own quest, in search of truth and regular employment. On the way, he meets a Gnostic sect who own a brewery, a convent of hostile nuns, and a cult whose non-stop party lifestyle is hard to resist.
Dillon suspects he has been tricked into undertaking an increasingly hazardous mission, but every choice he makes drags him deeper into danger. When his investigations antagonise a volatile religious militia, his home is burnt to the ground and is forced to go on the run.
Can he escape his perilous fate? Will this company of quirky cultists help him prevent a massacre? Or is he just their perfect fool?

I was delighted to see The Perfect Fool come up as a recommendation from Amazon, as fantasy is not a genre that I’ve read a lot of before, but I was really glad for the suggestion and loved reading it and I spent a very happy few days in the presence of Dillon, Charlotte, Sparks and others. I don’t want to give too much away at this stage, but it’s quite a departure from your normal writing as well, isn’t it? Although the humour is still there. I know you saying in the acknowledgements that it started as a short story idea that you went on develop but how did this idea come about in the first place?

I used to see a small group of latter-day puritans gathered outside Lloyds Bank, handing out leaflets and haranguing passers-by. They seemed like nice people, but had some strange ideas and were very much out of step with the modern world. They couldn’t convence me to join them, but I wanted to write a story about people with such a different perspective on life. And just suppose – what if their ideas were not entirely fanciful?

Would you say you were a plotter or a pantser?

Definitely a pantser! I appreciate that plotting would save me a lot of time, but I find it impossible to engage my creative imagination in such a structured activity. At some point I have to work out where I’m going and roughly how I’m going to get there, but that’s as close as I ever get to plotting.

What must you have before you start writing? Story, Characters, Location?

I usually begin with a location or situation. I think of what sort of characters might be involved and start them talking to each other. I need to come up with a conflict or an obstacle. The story usually flows from that initial setup.

Talking of location, I loved the fact that this felt like it was set in a believable if slightly strange world. Was this a conscious decision. How did you create the settings for this novel? And what made you decide to set this book in Lincoln?

I lived in Lincoln for many years. It is full of historic buildings and narrow winding lanes. It always seemed the sort of place that supernatural events might occur on a daily basis. I enjoy reading fantasy and particularly stories which are mostly based in the real world. I like the idea of taking a normal mundane situation and adding a dash of magic.

I loved the idea of Dillon’s and Spark’s home, I’m afraid I’m probably from the Charlotte camp here, I would have been in there with her cleaning up. Do your characters share any of your habits? And is there anything you want to share about flat-sharing days?

Sadly, most of my descriptions of their home are a true representation of my house in Lincoln. I shared it with various friends who had similar standards. We lived off fried food and takeaways and I electrocuted myself several times. I never set fire to the place though and I am much more house-trained these days.

I think my favourite character was Sparks. I can picture and see him being played in the TV adaptation, or the film version by someone like Jesse Eisenberg or Rhys Ifans. When you set out to create characters, do you have a look and back story in mind?

Sparks is a mash-up of various lodgers and housemates I’ve lived with, so his appearance fluctuates in my imagination. Initially, he was just Dillon’s comic sidekick, but I needed to give him a more involved backstory as I developed the plot.

And to put you on the spot who would you like to play Dillon in any adaptation of the book?

I intended Dillon and Sparks to be in their mid to late twenties. Most of the actors I can think of are much older. Angus Imrie might make a good Dillon, but I’m struggling to think of a suitable actor of the right age to play Sparks.

How much of yourself do you put into characters in your books? I know you’ve had experience working on oilrigs so that’s sort of understandable with your previous two books.

I think there’s always a bit of me in my main male characters, or perhaps a smarter, braver and better-looking version of me. I’d say that Dillon is closer to the real (younger) me than Danny Verity. Dillon gets angry and frustrated when people don’t play fair, or they try to push him around. Like him, that reaction has sometimes caused me to do things that I later regret!

As a writer I have good days and bad days and sometimes the words pour out sometimes it’s a struggle to even finish a paragraph. Do you have a writing routine?

I feel the same. If I can’t get on with what I’m supposed to be doing, I try to work on something at least vaguely related. If I can’t write, I edit or work on publicity material. I don’t have a fixed routine. For the last ten years I did most of my engineering work from home and I still never stuck to a routine. I set myself a minimum number of hours to work on a project each week, but I don’t work set times.

Do you prefer the writing or editing process?

I do enjoy editing, but it doesn’t match the thrill of creating a story and watching it unfold on the page.

The Perfect Fool is quite the departure from your normal detective novels but having enjoyed both Emergency Drill and Dead Crude I have to say I’m really looking forward to the next Danny Verity book, and was very glad to hear when we met up earlier in the year that book three is on the cards, so final question – can you give any hints about it and when we can expect it to be released?

I have two more Danny Verity novels on the go, plus a couple of other projects. I promised myself that I will have The Body Under the Christmas Tree (working title) ready by the end of October. I have a lot of words written, but large percentage of them are from Danny’s partner Gemma. She tends to take over a story if I’m not paying her sufficient attention!

Many thanks for talking to me today, Nick and good luck with The Perfect Fool.

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Website: http://chrisblackwater.co.uk/