Monday 12 January 2009

An Interview - Paul Nagle


Paul Nagle was born in Dublin to a large close-knit family of nine boys and two girls. After dabbling in a number of entrepreneurial businesses in the eighties and early nineties, he settled in Johannesburg in 1995 and began a career in computer software. At the time South Africa was taking a giant leap towards democracy, leaving behind its apartheid past, and the initial idea for Ironic was born. Paul now divides his time between his homes in London and the Algarve.

Q1. What are you writing at the minute?

I am writing a screenplay adaptation of my novel Ironic.

Q2. Can you give us an idea of Paul Nagle’s typical up-to-the-armpits-in-ideas-and-time writing day?

I only write when I'm in the 'zone', which is usually when I get a bit of free time away from the bedlam of the kids bustling around the house.

I find my most productive time is between 9pm and 1am, so I'm a bit of a 'night owl'

Q3. What do you do when you’re not writing?

My day job is in property development in the Algarve, in Portugal.

Q4. Any advice for a greenhorn trying to break into the crime fiction scene?

Don't take no for an answer from publishers. Keep trying and believe in your work.

Q5. Which crime writers have impressed you this year?

Kate Summerscale

Q6. What are you reading right now?

I am reading two books at the moment.

The Trillion Dollar Meltdown by Charles Morris, to understand how we got into this 'credit crunch' mess and The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, for some good quality whodunnit entertainment.

Q7. Plans for the future?

I plan to do a sequel to Ironic at some stage in the next 18 months.

Q8. With regards to your writing career to date, would you do anything differently?

I would have started writing seriously much earlier. My priorities were in business and you can never take back time!

Q9. Do you fancy sharing your worst writing experience?

Yip, my first draft of Chapter One of Ironic was terrible.

I had to leave it alone for about six months and start the whole story over again.

Q10. Anything you want to say that I haven’t asked you about?

I would urge your readers to support their local bookshops as much as possible. In these difficult times they will suffer more than most.

Thank you, Paul Nagle!

5 comments:

seana graham said...

This looks very interesting, and I'm drawn to the international scope of it. Has Peter Rozovsky at Detectives Beyond Borders gotten wind of this one yet?

Not sure how soon it will hit U.S. shores, but I will keep an eye peeled.

And thanks for the plug about supporting local bookstores, Paul. As a bookseller in an independent bookstore in California, this comes up all the time. It's easy to forget that if you want a bricks and mortar shop nearby, you actually have to support it.

Gerard Brennan said...

Seana - I had a search through his site and I don't think he has just yet. Give him time, though.

gb

Ironic said...

Agree with Seanag, the support to the local book stores, which I could not live without, was spot on from Mr. Nagle. I have now read the book 3 times and apart from the story itself, I am trying to find the "cryptic clue" which is hidden in the story...

seana graham said...

This cryptic clue stuff is bound to draw in an audience if marketed correctly. I like this kind of stuff as well, though I am not usually persistant enough to figure out the answer. Although I am plenty good at letting my life be taken over by a puzzle for awhile.

Ironic said...

I am persistant, but I do not have the brain capacity :o) This with the cryptic clue gives definitly another dimension to the story. Actually it makes you read with different "eyes" and you notice small details put there by the author. Maybe this have changed my way to read, I pay more respect to details in any book...