Before I became a published author, I worked as a picture restorer for the museums and art galleries of the city of Sheffield (1986 – 1999). An unexpected redundancy at the age of forty-five left me with time on my hands to revive an earlier ambition I had to write fiction. I first became interested in writing fiction in my early twenties, being influenced by writers such as Mervyn Peake and Frank Herbert – later by authors like J.J.Connolly and Neil Gaiman. I found the process of story-telling interesting and absorbing, and developed a way of writing genre fiction with a slant on mixing several genres together into one story.
Initially, I had the usual problems all writers have in getting their stories off the ground, but slowly, and with a lot of patience over the years, I evolved a way of writing and a personal style I could truly call my own. It is always a thrilling experience for any newly published writer to receive their first box of books from the publisher. Seeing my own story in print for the first time, gave me a feeling of what the story was really like and a good idea of whether or not the book would sell.
No literary agent can tell you this – it just happens. As to the best way of dealing with a rejection slip, all I can say to any aspiring writer is just to put it all down to experience and send another copy of your manuscript to the next agent or publisher on your list. It’s the only way.
Here’s a little about Ian’s book!
In the world of organised crime, Stuart Cassidy, a small-time criminal, is sent on a mission by his boss, Jimmy Silver, to Venice. There he must locate a tomb, but he soon discovers that it has been disturbed and desecrated with four black candles and a circle of salt placed around the coffin which is now empty…
Meanwhile, Silver’s Italian hitmen in England are being executed one by one and a single black rose is left at the scenes of the murders; a calling card with a single meaning and terror.
Who exactly is Sterling? Has she been resurrected to exact revenge upon the people who killed her? And how exactly do you hunt a down Victorian criminal mastermind still alive in the world today…?
Cassidy, trying to piece together all the details he has discovered, finds himself caught up in the very dark and dangerous world of organised crime, Hells Angels and the supernatural. Who can he trust and how can he survive?
