Interview: Douglas Bruton, Author of Blue Postcards

Fairlight Books will be publishing the latest four titles in its Fairlight Moderns list of literary novellas over the summer – mine, included – and during the past few weeks I’ve had the pleasure of getting acquainted with the other three authors. In the first of my series of interviews, I speak to Douglas Bruton, whose novella Blue Postcards will be published on 8th July.

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Loree:  I’m always interested in where writers get their ideas. For me, I often start with a nugget of information from a newspaper or a book. Just something that intrigues me and starts me asking questions. And before I know it, a story starts to build in my head. Your novella Blue Postcards is set in Paris in the 1950s, right? Why Paris? Why the 1950s? How did the story come about?

Douglas:  As part of the research I did for another piece of writing (a short story) I came across Yves Klein’s ‘A Leap into the Void’. I thought it was such a fabulous lie. That led me to IKB (International Klein Blue) and I was playing with the idea of writing something ‘blue’. Some research into the life of Yves Klein made me want to tell his story and to do something fun with it. That led to the Paris tailor. I was interested in lies too – maybe because of Trump – and that sort of filtered into the writing. And I was interested in experimenting, which led to the structure. I read about Yves Klein sending out blue postcards to advertise his art show in 1957 and I set myself the challenge of writing in postcard sized bites with each postcard being ‘blue’, and at the same time the whole collection of postcards telling a complete story (the three stories of Blue Postcards fit together like a jigsaw puzzle and hopefully work as a complete thing). I often set myself crazy writing challenges like this. The time and place of the novella was dictated by the subject, Yves Klein.

Loree:  Thanks to the internet, I happen to know you’re quite a prolific author. You’ve published two previous novels and have a dozen or so others waiting in the wings. That’s pretty impressive. Are these novels that you continue to work on and hope to publish?

Douglas:  Wow – I didn’t know I had given so much of myself away online. I don’t do much work on the novels once I have written them, but I do hope one day some of them will find their way into print. I am really only just beginning to send work ‘out there’. For years they just stayed in folders on my computer. If ever I did send something out and it came back ‘rejected’ that was always hard and discouraged me from sending out more. I wrote short stories for many years – hundreds of them. I entered hundreds of short story competitions – the stories that bombed really hurt but I had enough successes in quality competitions to make it all worthwhile.

Loree:  Coming from the States, I was interested to see that your first novel, Mrs Winchester’s Gun Club, is set in California at the turn of the 20th century (I’ve just ordered a copy from my local book shop, by the way). And of course we know Blue Postcards is set in Paris. Do you spend time ‘on location’ to get a feel for the setting?

Douglas:  Never been to California or Boston (Mrs Winchester’s Gun Club); not really done Paris (Blue Postcards). It’s all out of my head, supported by a little research reading. I recently wrote something about Vincent van Gogh’s time in Arles and I did so much want to go there to, as you say, get the feel of the place, but lockdown prevented that. I may go there one day.

Loree:  You should. I cycled through there a few years ago. The van Gogh Foundation, there, has a good number of his paintings. And the hospital where he was treated after cutting off his ear is still there, too. It’s very peaceful.

You were, I believe, born and raised in Edinburgh – are any of your books set closer to home?

Douglas:  I have written short stories set in Edinburgh and one novel. I have ideas for at least one more Edinburgh novel bubbling on the back burner. Actually, when I think about it, I have two ideas for Edinburgh novels.

Loree:  Missing Words is the first longer work of fiction I’ve published, and I wasn’t sure what to expect from the whole publishing process. The manuscript I submitted to Fairlight Books was shorter than what they were seeking, but I sent it in all the same. That taught me a valuable lesson – not to worry too much about guidelines (within reason, obviously), and to take a chance. If the publisher likes it, they’ll work with you to make it happen. I found that really reassuring. Have you learned any particularly valuable lessons over the course of the three books you’ve published that might help in publishing the fourth?

Douglas:  Not really sure if I have learned very much. So far, each publishing experience has been very different. Getting into print is great but it’s only the first step to getting your book read. There are so many wonderful books published every year – I am in awe of that fact – and it is easy for your book or any book to slip through the cracks even if it is published by a big name publisher. A former writing partner of mine wrote an amazing novel – it got scooped up by a big publisher and was very favourably reviewed in at least one national paper by a big name critic. It’s even been translated into several languages. But nobody I know has even heard of it. I look for it on bookshop shelves and rarely find it there. Maybe I have learned from that.

Loree:  Can you tell me a little about your writing process? What’s your routine like? Are you able to switch off the self-editor during the first draft? And how do you approach redrafting?

Douglas:  I don’t really have a set routine or a set writing space or place. I tumble the idea around in my head for a few weeks or months and then just go for it. Once I start the writing it can be a bit full-on. I write like I read: I write to get to the end of the story and to find out what happens – not much planning in my writing. When I write, I write for hours and hours – sometimes as much as ten hours straight. I usually complete a novel in under ten days, and edit as I go, and I don’t do much to the work once it is written down. I am pretty poor company when I am writing because even when I shut the computer off and am sitting down to dinner or night-time TV I am still thinking about the writing. I might be even poorer company after I have written something – withdrawal is hard and I miss the characters when they are no longer in my head; then there’s the waiting for the next idea to surface, with the anxiety that I haven’t got one… at least until I have, and then the whole process starts over.

Loree:  That’s really interesting. My process is very different, largely determined by my day job and having to fit my writing around the work that pays the bills. But every writer I speak to has a different process. And that should be encouraging for people starting out – there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to go about it.

Do you think creativity can be taught?

Douglas:  I think it can be nurtured and I think it is in all of us, so it doesn’t need to be taught but rather to be fed and watered and spoken to nicely. That’s what I think.

Loree:  You used to be an English teacher, I believe. Do you miss it?

Douglas:  I cannot tell you how much I miss it. I don’t miss the marking or the stress of workloads. But I miss the teaching and the being with young people and trying to be useful to them and seeing them grow.  Teaching, as hard as it sometimes can be, is for my money one of the most rewarding occupations and I am just so grateful that I stumbled into it.

Loree:  What about literary heroes – who are the writers who have inspired you the most, or who taught you something about the craft of writing?

Douglas:  This is perhaps the hardest question so far – to narrow down my literary heroes to a short list, to pin them down like Nabokov’s boxed butterflies. I rarely read books more than once but one book I keep returning to is Independent People by Haldor Laxness. The central character is just so strong and the world created so different from my own and so hard and punishing. The book is my ‘go to’ summer holiday reading. I would also have to include Dubravka Ugresic’s The Museum of Unconditional Surrender – structurally quite experimental writing, extremely clever and beautifully written. Oh and Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous – the writing is just painfully exquisite; and John Berger’s Photocopies (or any of his fiction really); and Joy Ladin’s The Book of Anna; and Maria Stepanova’s In Memory of Memory... I could go on and on and on!

As a child there were no books in my home at all but in my final year of primary school I had a wonderful (if stern) teacher called Miss Keeble and she read to the class at the end of every day – Stig of the Dump and The Borrowers and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Family from One End Street etc. She was a lovely reader, and if anything, I learned to love the sound of words in her class.

Loree:  Is there a particular genre that you enjoy reading? What about writing?

Douglas:  I don’t really have a ‘go to’ genre. I just like reading good writing. I am drawn to experimental fiction these past few years. Stories told in unusual ways, that I like a lot. But I am wary of things being smart for smart’s sake… the narrative, for me, remains vitally important. And good characters.

Loree:  Fairlight Books specifically publish ‘literary fiction’, but a lot of people seem to have trouble defining that term. How would you define it?

Douglas:  I am not a fan of labels. I get that they might help people to buy the books that they are looking for, help people in selling the books. But I think such classifications are at best woolly. I just look for good writing and I aim for that in what I do. If other people need to or want to pigeonhole the works, then that’s for them to do.

Loree:  Do you have any advice of your own that you’d like to pass on to aspiring writers?

Douglas:  There are lots of courses and books out there. And you can perhaps become part of a supportive group – I am a member of a group called The Demon Beaters of Lumb after a successful Arvon course completed at Lumb Bank in 2015. Lovely people on that course and we have remained a group ever since… six years and counting. But if I was to offer advice, it’d be to just write and write and write. Oh, and read a lot too. Challenge yourself. Put in the 10,000 hours – write to stretch yourself. Write for your own pleasure and really enjoy it. Getting published by a big-name publisher is really hit or miss. So write because you want to, have to, need to. Just write. And then write some more. And keep on writing – on and on and on.

Loree:  Writing is a tough business. Some of us suffer one rejection after another. Yet we continue to do it, without any promise of reward. Why do you write? Why do you keep writing? 

Douglas: I have an inexplicable need to leave something behind in this world, something to say 'Kilroy was 'ere' sort of thing. Of course, I have my children, but I mean something longer lasting than that. A book on a dusty library shelf somewhere would do that or even a shelf in an old remainder shop. Something of me left behind, my thoughts and something of the person I was. I am a fan of gravestones (if there is such a thing) because they do the same thing.. sort of. 

Also I have a need to express myself, my thoughts and feelings, and I can do that through writing. And a need to be creative, to make something, to add something to the world that would not be there without my efforts. I have never done it for money - even when I was entering short story competitions and racking up wins and each year ahead financially (winning more than all the entrance fees I forked out) it was never about the money and always about being read and about making something. 

Loree:  During the time I’ve been stalking you on the internet, I’ve seen photos of some scrumptious-looking tray bakes on your Facebook page. Have you always enjoyed baking or did your culinary talents arise during the pandemic? What’s your favourite recipe?

Douglas:  Before lockdown and for many years (as my family was growing up) I baked a pretty good banana bread and a good chocolate cake (for birthdays especially) and some rock buns. That’s it. Lockdown led me to bake more, though I had to limit this a bit cos cake is made for eating and being locked down with so much cake… well, it’s not exactly good for your waistline or your health. Favourites – I love cake so they are all pretty favourite with me.

Loree:  And finally, do you ride a bicycle?

Douglas:  I have ridden a bicycle – can we leave it at that?

 

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More information about Douglas Bruton’s forthcoming novella, Blue Postcards, can be found on his blog or by visiting the Fairlight Books website. 

For reviews of Blue Postcards, check out GoodReads. 

Blue Postcards can be pre-ordered, now, at your local bookshop or from the online retailer of your choice.