Eye on Ashenclaw: February 2017

Sunday, February 19, 2017

A G Mallaghan Interview

Tell us about your books/What genre do you consider your books?

Contemporary horror mainly although I am working on a zombie horror that has conspiracy elements to it and I also have a historical thriller in the pipeline.

When did you start writing? Since my teens but only started seriously about 5 years ago.

Why do you write? A good question. I think like most writers you would be as well asking why do I breathe. It is in my blood and I just have to do it. I feel that there are characters inside me that want their stories told. As soon as I start writing even though I have a plot set out beforehand it is as though the characters come to life and make me realise they want their story to take a different route. This has its own force and becomes a rush that is hard to explain.

What would be your choice for a superpower?Flying like superman. Definitely flying.

Who is your favorite author? I don’t have just one, I love a variety of different horror authors : Stephen King, Paul F Wilson, Clive Barker, Dean Koontz, Richard Laymon, Clive Barker and Shaun Hutson to name a few. I also loved the Robert Ludlum Bourne series.

What are you reading now? Reading Salems Lot for the umpteenth time. Now that has real vampires in it.

Who is your favorite character to write? A new character in my upcoming zombie conspiracy horror nicknamed Rhino. He is what would normally be a proper anti-hero, an honest to goodness old school baddie who ends up having to do some good deeds. I deliberately have him as a brutal leader who doesn’t hesitate to kill, a present day Darth Vader if you will. The strange thing is the more I write about him the harder it is not to like him somehow. This will be a series of books and I am looking forward to seeing how he evolves as the series goes on. Potential cult anti-hero I think.

Do you have a writing process? Generally I write down notes of ideas as I go about my day, sketch out a plot on MS Word then carry out research to get my locations, characters and items they use as correct as possible. For example in Devil I wanted to get the way that the Army used their automatic weapons correctly so I researched the types of weapons and how you arm them before firing etc. Once I have carried out this research I will go back over my outline and then write the story from start to finish as a first draft before going through the joys of editing a few times. I then get the help from one of the helpful souls who volunteer to read the book before I do my final draft.

What advice would you give to an aspiring author? Believe in yourself and just write. You will evolve as a writer the more you write so there is no shortcut to it. I was amazed at the amount of people who are supportive and confide that they would love to write a book once I had started.

What inspired you to pursue writing?It was something I always wanted to do, I had written some stories when a teenager just for my own amusement and then at University I wrote some more when learning about screenwriting and film making. It is also in the blood as I have an Aunt and an Uncle who are both successful authors in different fields so I think this always gave me the encouragement that being a successful author was achievable.

What are your favorite TV shows/Movies to watch in between writing?Like authors I have a few. TV shows I love are The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, The Strain, Game of Thrones, Better Call Saul and Band of Brothers.

Movies I have really enjoyed recently are Train to Busan, Rogue One, 30 Days of Night and The Siege of Jadotville. Bit of an eclectic mix.

What are your current projects?A historical thriller set in Ireland and the then American colonies is in the pipeline but my two main projects are the first in a zombie conspiracy series which I am a good way through a first draft and a sequel to Devil which is part of a vampire trilogy which I have partly set out.

The zombie one is good fun as I am trying out a few things with it.

Do you have anything specific that you want to say to readers?I really hope that readers enjoy my books. I try to tell classic horror stories with the antagonists being far worse than some pouting misunderstood youth. I believe that you as readers want evil creatures to be evil with no grey area around them. Horror is meant to be an escapist fantasy and that is what I want to provide. Yes, there will sometimes be an underlying narrative relating to modern themes but my aim is to give you the fantasy version of our world that you want to escape to where creatures like Vampires, Demons and zombies can walk the Earth with us The kind of things that you think you might have seen in the periphery of your vision in a dark corner of a room when you are alone at night. I am paraphrasing the great Stephen King here but on writing he mentions along the lines that you know you are getting something right in horror when you write a scene where you are almost pleading for the characters to go no further as you write it. I have one particular scene in Devil where the soldiers are watching a family scene in a kitchen that did this and hopefully it had the same effect on readers.

Quick Fire:Cats or dogs? Dog but had both.
Coffee or tea? Tea
Favorite food? Chinese chicken curry.
Vanilla or chocolate ice-cream? Vanilla
What are 3 things you never leave home without? Keys, phone and pocket paper notebook.
Laptop or desktop? Laptop
Who are 3 famous people you would to hang out with? Winston Churchill, Muhammed Ali and Richard Burton ( I am assuming it is people from any point in recent history and they don’t need to be alive- would be strange hanging out with dead guys haha)
TV or Movies? Normally movies but some of the modern tv shows are just as good like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead.
LINKS:

Godking

UK version for kindle

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=Mallaghan+god+king&rh=n%3A341677031%2Ck%3AMallaghan+god+king

Uk version paperback

http://www.amazon.co.uk/God-King-Mr-G-Mallaghan/dp/149913021X/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1431986243&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=Mallaghan+god+king

International version for kindle

http://www.amazon.com/God-King-2nd-AG-Mallaghan-ebook/dp/B00JJ26K4U/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-1&qid=1431986375

International version for paperback

http://www.amazon.com/God-King-Mr-G-Mallaghan/dp/149913021X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1431986375&sr=8-1&keywords=godking+mallaghan

Devil

UK version for kindle

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Devil-Unofficial-Scottish-Vampire-Outbreak-ebook/dp/B00P04GR76/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1431986645&sr=1-1&keywords=Mallaghan+devil