Updates

How long did it take you to go from idea to finished manuscript?

A short story written in 2010 was the first chapter of the novel until its final draft, when I had to kill my darling as it remained stubbornly what it was rather than part of the whole. Rather than a novel I was thinking at first of nineteen tales set loosely around a golf club and its members. Richard Osman’s ‘Thursday Murder Club’ from 2020 had as much to do with the title as my weakness for alliteration, while the COVID-19 pandemic brought into focus the concept of a tontine, where the whole of a fund goes to the last survivor. The drafting and redrafting were mainly over a period of two years among various other projects.

Which part of this book did you most enjoy writing, and why?

THE END are always the most satisfying words to write in a book before publication. In ‘The Tuesday-Thursday Tontine’ I enjoyed the plotting process of beginning with a large cast (think Michael Corleone introducing Kate to the family at his sister’s wedding) and ending with just three people making a quiet toast. It was a challenge to engage all the characters at the right time, and the reader all the time.

What was the biggest challenge you faced while writing this book?

As a member of a Tuesday-Thursday golfing gang myself, to the members of which ‘Tontine’ is dedicated, I worked hard to ensure it was a genuine fiction. While some elements are common to many such groups around the country, I was mindful not to draw on the lives or personalities of my friends – the right decision I am sure, though the novel might have been richer if I had, since there are and have been many characters among them with colourful stories to tell.

When did you first realise you wanted to be an author?

I have been a writer since my earliest years, keeping a diary on a regular basis from age sixteen and writing fiction more sporadically. Part of the impulse for that might have been wanting to be rich and famous, in the only way that seemed open to me. About five years ago I realised not that I wanted to be an author, but that I COULD be one, publishing since 2021 five volumes in different genres. Realistic about their merits as well as their (lack of) commercial success, I am satisfied that I put in enough of my best hours on each one and am still improving as a writer.

Do you write full time or do you have a ‘day job’?

My wife will tell you the only ‘work’ I do is writing (inverted commas hers). Producing technical reports on insurance markets around the world for over fifteen years, as a consultant for a company which publishes these, not only provides the financial support for creative writing, but has improved my discipline and research skills, key factors in maintaining and improving my personal output.

Where is your writing space and how does it affect your creativity?

At home I have a crammed office space and crowded desk where I feel comfortable. Everything I do is now straight to laptop, even my diary. I regret this, but time is too short for transcription of handwriting as with my earlier works. Although I will produce words wherever there is a socket and a flat surface, most of what comes out away from home I would classify as typing rather than writing.

Do you have a writing routine or ritual that helps you get into the flow?

I wish I kept a stronger routine. My ideal is to write a minimum of 1,000 ‘new’ words every morning. I always stop at a point when I am ‘in the flow’, so that the next day I can reread and edit the previous one’s output knowing I have somewhere to go beyond it. This may not always be in the direction I had thought.

Which writers or books have influenced your style the most?

I hope the many classics of European literature I studied at school and university had SOME positive impact. The writers I read then for pleasure were no doubt also an influence, for good or bad – Dennis Wheatley, Graham Greene, Hemingway, J P Donleavy, Amis father and son, Tom Sharpe, Philip Roth. I greatly admire Latin American Nobelists Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa, the one for his genius and the other for his work ethic. It is harder to say how novels in a foreign language may have influenced my own style, but I would love to have their story-telling craft. And to write shorter sentences.

What do you hope readers take away from your book?

Above all, the feeling of having been entertained. There is no message behind my work, though ‘Tontine’ may be more forceful than my previous novels in showing degrees of repentance and reconstruction among males (particularly) who have previously seen no need of either.

Do you already have ideas for your next writing project?

My 2026 publication will I hope be ‘Wendy’, the third volume chronologically but second to come out in my non-fiction, autobiographical series ‘Memories of a Fenland Boy: When Life Gives You Strawberries’.

Do you see yourself continuing in the same genre, or exploring something new?

Having just published my fifth work, my next five-year plan is similarly varied, with ‘Wendy’ to be followed by a more ambitious Young Adult novel than my earlier ‘Seventeen’, albeit set in the same imaginary world of Cibola: ‘Joe Kingmaker’. Two more volumes of memories (‘Cambridge’ and ‘Ecuador’) already exist in draft, as do 130,000 words of what I hope to develop into ‘The Caribandia Trilogy’, contemporary novels extending from 1980 to 2030 and from England to Latin America. That might be enough, though I have ‘My Dad’s Romance’ in reserve and more than enough raw material for separate memoirs on life in Puerto Rico, North Carolina and Colombia.

If you could collaborate with another author, who would it be and why?

I don’t have any dream to collaborate in producing fiction with another author, living or dead, since one of the main aims of my writing is to make my own mark, something unique to me. There speaks perhaps the selfish only child, or simply a lack of imagination. I would, however, love to learn how such collaborations work from a master like Stephen King, who seems to have achieved them while still writing Stephen King novels.

Finally, where do you see yourself as an author five years from now?

On the victory laps. If I live to complete the works mentioned above, I believe I shall have put in a good shift. Absent any public desire to hear more from me, I will decide whether to jog along at a more leisurely pace or write THE END.

Thank you, David, and best of luck with the book tour!

(Sneak preview, review from Kay – @kaykett1967 )”This novel surprised me with how touching and thoughtful it is beneath the humour. While it begins as a story about three men bonded by golf, drink and routine, it soon becomes a deeper exploration of friendship, mortality, loyalty and the unexpected moments that shape us. A heartfelt, wise and very human story.”

All the best, David.