I am D W Carver, English, married with
three sons and live in East London. I have been writing ever since I learned
how but have only worked on novels in the last twelve years. My writing process tends to fall into the same pattern regardless of
how I promise myself I am going to plan a book.
I have a basic plot idea; add a character
with a history he (or more often she) would like to forget and I bring them
together. It’s a bit like free-flow modelling with clay – get a lump, soften it
give it a twist and a tweak and then inspect it from all angles and see if it
is telling you what it wants to be. That doesn’t work for you? Well maybe it’s
just me then.
Of course my background: years working in
community mental health has a big impact on how situations are processed in my
head. I have sat on underground (metro) trains and watched people have anxiety
attacks that I know from long experience would have been feeling like an
earthquake to them, but went unnoticed by those around them, except for me.
That sometimes sets me thinking about plot ideas rather than offering to help.
Something else I know from experience – people are almost invariably ashamed of
their perceived ‘weakness’ suffering in this way and can feel totally
humiliated when they realise some stranger has noticed. So I stay away and just
keep an eye out in case this person does something that could be misconstrued
by other passengers.
I recall one young man I worked with – six
four, three hundred pounds and when he felt as if anxiety was going to explode
his body he had to walk close to the nearest person if he was on the street. If
that person was female and it was night time, he could be and once was, in
serious trouble but it ended well – the police were understanding, his details
were circulated and knowing he wasn’t going to be bundled into a police car if
it happened again (at his size good luck with that) he found walking alone much
easier.
So readers will understand that when I see
some street event, I am likely to interpret it in a far broader range than most
people and the possibilities are grist to any writer’s mill.
My novel ‘Nightmares and Other Therapy’
involves a young man who has to make his obsessive compulsive behaviour look
normal or as close as he can get, if he is to have any life at all and the one
time that went wrong was in exactly the worst place. This book has been
labelled a horror by some, much to my surprise, but I will admit it is dark.
Maybe you would like to make up your own mind?
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