Bullet Points . .

By DAMIEN SEAMAN

Damien Seaman: You broadcast regularly on the radio and often write articles for the UK broadsheets. Do you ever find these activities get in the way of your writing?

Louise Welsh: They can do. The thing is to try and pace it properly. A novel is a very long undertaking and there is a point where you need to immerse yourself in it and not get distracted by other things. Sometimes you have to turn things down that come your way. When researching a novel you end up with tonnes that you’ll have to throw away and maybe you can use it for an article or for the radio. And you do have to get out into the world as well.

A writer also needs to earn a bit of money, because you can’t rely on novel sales. I’m lucky; I just now got a decent advance for this one, but sometimes one or two articles can help see you through.

DS: Is it true you got the inspiration to set part of The Bullet Trick in Berlin after writing a travel piece about the city in The Guardian newspaper?

LW: Yes and no. It was for the Observer. After the first book they invited me to write a travel piece and said, ‘You can go anywhere you want – within reason’. I hadn’t been to Berlin at that point and I really wanted to go. I had a fantastic time and went back. It grew within me, the idea to set something there. By the time I came to do the novel I’d visited four or five times.

DS: So in this case writing for the newspapers helped your writing?

LW: I think it does. It’s an obvious thing to say but I write in my bedroom like a teenager, and after a while of just doing that you’re not going to have very much to write about.

DS: What makes you keep coming back to Berlin?

LW: It’s a lot of things, really. In my eyes Berlin is a really accepting place. When you’re in a same sex relationship it’s nice to be somewhere where you can just relax.

DS: And you don’t find that in Glasgow?

LW: I don’t want to put Glasgow down. Things have changed a lot over the last 20-30 years. Most people are not quite as negative as they used to be – they don’t think you’re necessarily going to go to hell. But I wouldn’t say it’s as relaxed as Berlin. In Berlin we would see gay people walking down the street holding hands or kissing. Well, maybe kissing too much, because kissing in public’s just disgusting! I’m joking of course, but you would hesitate before you did that in Glasgow. I wouldn’t walk down my street holding my partner’s hand because you never know what people are going to say or do. You might end up with a ruined evening.

And it just seems like every fantastic art exhibition comes to Berlin, especially photography, which gives me a lot of stimulation and inspiration. Because so many streets were lost in the war there’s a lot of very interesting architecture, like the Hauptbahnhof or Potsdamer Platz. And walking near Alexanderplatz can be beautiful. You know…I was brought up in the 70s in British council housing and if we in Britain think of modern socialist or social architecture we think of ugly, boxy buildings. But walking along Karl Marx Allee you realise social housing can be beautiful.

DS: Do you see the literary crime writer tag as more of a blessing or a curse?

LW: The only time I got really cheesed off was with a Mark Lawson review in The Guardian when he discussed the classification of the book. I just though, ‘Oh, fuck off…’ I got annoyed because I felt he wasn’t really discussing the book itself.

But on the whole it’s done me more favours than anything. It possibly helped me sell more books, because people buy a lot of crime books. The only possible negative is if people expect you to keep on doing that and don’t allow you to deviate.

The book I’m writing now will still be a quest but I’m not sure it fits into the crime niche. But then when you’re writing you shouldn’t think about marketing. I mean, you only have a certain number of books in you and you should write what you want to write.

DS: What sort of writer would you describe yourself as?

LW: It took a long time before I said I was a writer. And that’s what people ask you – what do you write?

I try to write things with a strong narrative because I like things that have a strong narrative. I’m not sure

how I would describe myself. I try to be entertaining and have deep political thoughts underneath.

When I wrote The Cutting Room I was aware I was writing a ‘Gothic’ book and using crime conventions. I find it annoying when writers say they are using crime conventions but in an ‘ironic’ way. I mean, either you’re using them or you’re not and there’s nothing ironic about it.

DS: Obviously Robert Louis Stevenson was an influence, but which other writers influenced your work?

LW: I read so much, especially as a kid. The writers you remember reading as a young person stay with you. I think all Scottish writers would say Stevenson. Graham Greene – what he does again is write cross-genre. He was very modern in so many ways, especially the way he was tuned in to films or the visual aspect. Now we’re very tuned in to movies and it influences the way all of us write. I love JG Ballard. I really like the fact we’ve got so many oldies at the moment doing really good work. I read all of John Le Carré’s books recently and I think he’s just getting better and better.

Muriel Spark. She wrote comedies of manners, but she’s hard as nails. Her Scotland is not my Scotland. It’s very middle class and yet I can relate to it.

DS: How much of a Scottish writer do you think you are?

LW: On a very simple level of course I’m a Scottish writer. I was brought up here, I have Scottish parents, Scottish syntax or language. It’s a small country yet there’s such variety and breadth of talent, from queer to straight, ethnic, urban, rural, islands. So I’m definitely a Scots writer but you can’t say that a Scottish writer is any one particular thing. I’m not a nationalistic person but I do tend to marvel at the breadth of writing talent here over the last several generations.

DS: Do you think your Gothic influences will ever desert you?

LW: I think the Gothic will always be there in my work. I guess in a sense I’ve always been a writer of sensation. Sometimes I can be heavy-handed but I’ll always have that undercurrent. I like a cheap thrill! It’s an elemental part of our natures.

DS: Sex or the promise of sex exerts a powerful pull in your work. Does that reflect how you feel about sex?

LW: Scottish people are meant to be repressed and frightened of sex but I’m not scared of it. Maybe it comes back to the sensation thing as well, to the need to entertain. Sex is enjoyable! I don’t mind if the reader occasionally reads my books with one hand, you know? Though as I get a little older the sex gets a bit less graphic.

You know, in British culture it’s okay to be gay as long as people don’t think of you actually having sex, as long as you’re funny or asexual. That pissed me off a little bit. So that was an element of it, to show that gay sex is fine, it’s normal. Not a big deal. Of course I made a big deal out of it so there’s an inherent contradiction there!

DS: Why are your novels always written from the point of view of male characters?

LW: Yes, that’s a strange one. I don’t really have a good answer. I have written short stories from the female point of view. I could try to construct an answer, but it wouldn’t be real. I don’t know if it’s a sort of literary transvestism or what.

DS: How did you get a publishing deal for The Cutting Room?

LW: I went to a public party held by a publisher, a prize-giving thing anyone could go to. I basically door-stopped the commissioning editor. I did it as a dare with my friend who was there with me, in return for a drink. It was quite desperate but I laid out the story as best I could. The editor said it sounded interesting and she said can you send it to me. So I sent her the first 10,000 words, and later they commissioned it on the strength of the first 30,000 words.

 

DS: How long did the novel take to write?

LW: It took a year to 18 months to write the book, with editing on top of that. It didn’t take long but I did spend every waking hour on it.

DS: How did you get an agent?

LW: As soon as I had interest from the editor, I was uncharacteristically pushy. I wrote to an agent and said I had a deal and would they like to represent me and they said yes. Using email made a lot of all this possible. I would never have done it if I’d had to use the telephone. You need to have your business head on you. I was lucky with my timing. I was fortunate with what they were looking for at that period and fortunate with the editor.

The biggest thing is making sure your manuscript is really clean. When I was younger I thought it wouldn’t matter if it as grubby or wine-stained, etc. I did do a creative writing course as well and that really helped.

DS: Which creative writing course did you do?

LW: I did a masters at Glasgow University. It was really the first full year of the course. There were 14 of us or something. It gave me a lot more confidence and introduced me to a community of writers, just to the idea that you can talk about writing and not be a wanker, really. Talking to people who are not just talking about writing, but really doing it too, because there are lots of people who can talk a really good novel but never actually get round to writing it.

I was about 28 when I did the course. I was doing a night school creative writing class and saw the course advertised at university with my friend Laura. Laura was super-organised. She typed up my stuff and put it in an envelope and sent it off for me. Without that kind of support I’m not sure I would have done it. You need your pals around you.

DS: Tell us about the Arvon Foundation crime writing course you’re co-tutoring with Al Guthrie?

LW: It’s a week-long residential course hosted by two published writers and you work with writers who want to improve their craft. It’s a mix of workshops and tutorials. It’s the third one I’ve done. They’re really intense. You get no time off at all. There are vampiric aspects – Al and I will suck the life and ideas out of these writers and they’ll limp off and wonder what happened to them.

I got Al involved. I know he’ll be really good to work with. You’re looking for someone who’s going to be conscientious and pull their weight. I also wanted someone whose style was different from mine so the writers can look to different strengths. I think we’ll have a lot of fun and you can learn better when the atmosphere is nice and relaxed. I did both of the previous ones with Val McDermid and she’s a complete star. And it’s very interesting to hear how the other writer works, because of course everyone works differently.

DS: How do you feel about teaching in the crime writing genre?

LW: It’s a genre I’m interested in, especially the ethics of crime writing. You’re working with a genre which at its centre eventually includes a murder. How do you deal with the victim? You don’t want to have at the centre a naked dead woman or a gay, queer or transgendered killer. All too often it’s basically the outsider, the stranger who’s the person who done it.

DS: What can you tell us about your latest novel? When is it out?

LW: I never want to talk too much in case it doesn’t work out. I will tell you it’s set in Scotland. It’s about an academic writing a biography of a poet who died in the 70s, and how come academics make so much money when they wouldn’t have anything if it wasn’t for us writers creating! It’s about the tension between academia and art. I need to work really hard on it, but it’s not due until December 2008. It’s the longest deadline I’ve had.

How did I manage to get such a generous deadline? I just asked. That’s the thing about not being the kind of writer publishing houses depend on. They know I’m reliable. I hope. It’s due 31st December 2008. And I do expect my publisher to open his email on 1st Jan 2009 with a hangover, ready to read it!