Robin started writing as a young boy because his Dad’s old computer could barely play Minesweeper. Despite purchasing a modern gaming computer to play Minesweeper today, it turns out Robin is terrible at it and doesn’t understand the rules anyway, so he’s taken up writing again. He is over twelve thousand days old and lives somewhere in Manchester, England. He is genuinely not a hundred percent sure exactly where. Vampire Metropolis is his first book.

I’ve just been kicked out of a plane and dropped into a walled-off prison city for the world’s fantasy creatures. It’s a sprawling metropolis of segregated boroughs, desperate poverty and tyrannical vampire overlords who feed upon their lowly subjects.

Here I’ll encounter rag tag elves, an ambitious warrior vampire, street-wise goblins after a quick buck, a hapless halfling up a certain creek without a certain paddle, and a young and headstrong vampire girl called Alma, who isn’t a vampire, and who incredibly can’t be fed upon by those tyrannical vampire overlords I mentioned earlier. She might be the key to changing this unjust and cruel metropolis into a better place for everyone. Or not. Depends on what I do next, I suppose.

1. What was your first published work?

I’ve had a few short stories published, most recently in Crystal Lake Publishing’s Hotel Macabre Vol.1: Tales of Horror, but Vampire Metropolis is my full length debut.

2. Is there a story inside that you have seeds of but can’t seem to connect that’s dying to get out?

Too many to mention! But I wouldn’t say anything’s dying to get out. I’m very much a “it’s a marathon not a sprint” kind of writer, so I’m happy to have stories bouncing around inside my head until they’re ready to come out.

3. How do you handle a rejected story?

Badly. Only joking (not really). Honestly, I write for myself so if I’ve finished something and I’ve sent it off, it’s because it is what I want it to be. If other people don’t like it or don’t understand it, yeah that sucks, but it’s not going to change what I want my stories to be.

4. What does literary success look like to you?

I’d be happy with having something out there that some people have looked at and sometimes think about. My dream is that my books become those weird, dog-eared books you find in second-hand bookshops. My pipe dream is that one day I can write for a living, but then I’d be worried that writing would become a job and not a hobby.

5. Do you read your book reviews? How do you deal with bad or good ones?

 I’ve only had half a dozen so far but I’ve accidentally read them all several times. Luckily, I haven’t had a bad one yet but we’re still very early days. Interestingly, the reviews I really like are the ones that talk about what they liked but also what they didn’t like or understand. It’s thrilling to see people react to something I’ve put out there, both the good and the bad.

6. What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?

I don’t know if I can say any of it is difficult. Absolutely there are times I struggle to think of what to write, and I’m usually bedevilled with doubts about what I have written, and I’m so out of touch with the modern writing community I feel like a fish flopping about on the deck of a boat, but despite all of that, writing is still my hobby. It’s something I do to relax, it’s a kind of therapy, and above all else it’s fun. I always remind myself of this and it helps throughout the whole process.

7. As in most times, the truth is stranger than fiction. What has been the hardest scene or chapter you’ve had to write, if you were channeling personal experience?

I think the hardest thing I’ve written so far is actually the sequel to Vampire Metropolis, although I wrote this only for me when I thought Vampire Metropolis would never see the light of day, so whether the sequel sees the light of day is very much up in the air. If we’re talking Vampire Metropolis, I think I’d have to say the ending. I won’t give any spoilers away but it’s definitely not a traditional ending and it’s had a polarizing reaction amongst early reviews. 

8. What inspired your latest work?

I started writing Vampire Metropolis because it was fun, but then all my ideas about the struggles of trying to live in our modern world started worming their way into what I was writing and that’s how I found myself raging against the machine! Or at least making snide comments against the machine. But mostly it’s about having fun!

9. If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?

How young are we talking? Because if we’re talking really young I’m handing my younger self a big pack of crayons and a detailed description of all seven Harry Potter books. Honestly though, I don’t think I’d say anything, but if I had to, I’d tell my younger self to forget about trying to write something cool and fashionable and instead write what I want to write. At the very least, it’s more fun that way.

10. What the best advice you’ve ever gotten from a fellow writer?

Get a real job! Ha ha (cries inside)

11. What is your go-to comfort horror/Sci-Fi book?

I don’t re-read many books so I don’t think I have a comfort read, but I can definitely talk about books that have stuck in my mind long after I’ve read them. Weirdly, I haven’t read that many sci-fi books, which is strange because I’m a huge Doctor Who fan and a big fan of Star Wars and Star Trek too. I really liked Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. As for horror, there’s a book I read nearly ten years ago that I remember had me seriously on edge, nervous to even turn the page, but I CAN’T REMEMBER IT! It was a gothic ghost story and I’ve forgotten the plot and the title and the author! I can only assume my brain wiped all evidence of the book to prevent further trauma, but a few scraps survived. It was a country manor house, there was a lake (or a pond) in the gardens and I think the ghost was in the lake. I will say Pet Sematary had a lasting effect on me and on how I approach writing, and other books that I really enjoyed are The Whistling by Rebecca Netley, The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell, and Heart-shaped Box by Joe Hill.

12. If you were to genre-hop, which genres would you most like to try writing?

I’d like to write an all-out horror. Something that really tingles the spine and churns the stomach. I really do love horror but unfortunately I’m a terrible wuss so it might take me a while to write.