Thanks for coming along and being interviewed, Ian.  Take a seat.  Could you tell me a little about your new novel.ian, ayris, abide with me, gritfiction, interview

  • Okey cokey. Here’s the blurb:
    3rd May, 1975.  Eight year old John watches his beloved West Ham win the cup, whilst at the same time, Kenny tumbles out the front door of the house opposite, blood all over his face.
    Fourteen years later, both boys’ childhoods ripped apart in the broken streets of London’s East End, John and Kenny find themselves frontin up local gangster, Ronnie Swordfish.
    John’s got a lifetime of hurt to put right – for him and for Kenny.
    But with John layin on the ground half unconscious and Ronnie with a sword to Kenny’s head, whatever way you look at it, it don’t look good . . .
    ABIDE WITH ME is the story of two boys forced to walk blind into the darkness of their shattered lives . . .
    and their struggle to emerge as men.

I noticed your new novel is about the lives of two schoolchildren in the 1970s.  Does this have any reflection of your childhood?

  • I was born in August ’69, so the seventies were my formative years. The story is set in Bethnal Green, East London – a few miles from where I grew up in Romford. The book is written in the present tense, first person, by the main character– John. John is three or four years old than me so able to experience the things happening around him in a deeper way than I could at the time. So, yes, a great deal of the things John experiences in the early part of the book – especially the school experiences – they are pretty much ripped directly from my own childhood.

Do any of your characters bear any likeness to your friends?

  • Not really. I don’t plan anything I write, and ABIDE WITH ME is no exception. I just write what comes into my head. That being the case – and I only fully realised this after the book was finished – all of the characters are variations of me. Sort of disturbing, that, when I look back at some of the things some of them do . . .
When do you edit your work?  I understand some people just blast a load of words and then edit afterwards.
  • Yep. That’s me. I tend to write in a stream of consciousness sort of way, what nowadays I think is called ‘free-writing’. The best piece of writing advice I ever got was ‘don’t look back till you’ve finished the bloody thing’. Always stuck with me, that has.
Do you schedule your time to write?
  • I’m a house-husband by day and at the weekend I work in a residential home for adults with mental health issues and learning difficulties. Once a month I work as a supervisor in a counselling agency. I wrote the majority of ABIDE WITH ME at bus stops and train platforms or waiting in the playground for the kids to come out from school. Otherwise, I’d write in my head wandering round Tesco looking for the garlic bread whilst at the same time listening to a conversation being played out in my head and transcribe it all in a mad rush when I got home.
  •  The only schedule I’ve got is a cleaning schedule. I’m imagining Charles Dickens had much the same.
Did you design the front cover yourself?
  • Blimey, no. Can’t draw to save me life. The cover was designed by Mark Williams, a brilliant graphic designer who does all the covers for the Caffeine Nights books. Man’s a genius, I tells ya.
What other genre do you write in?
  • Genre is one of those tricky things. ABIDE WITH ME has been termed part crime novel/part kitchen sink drama, a social-realist novel, a coming of age novel, and many more slippery monnikers. I don’t write to a genre. I just write. Mind you, don’t tell anyone, but me and my mate Nick Quantrill did have a story published in My Weekly last year. But like I said, don’t tell anyone.

How many words a day do you write on average?

  • Sometimes a couple of thousand. Sometimes none at all. Just depends on, you know, life and stuff.

Who do you read most of?

  •  I read loads of different things. I love the classics – especially the Russian authors – and I read a lot of old Charlie Dickens and loads of other Victorian authors. I love Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway.

Are you a keen golfer?

  • The devil’s own sport. Surely. Never picked a club up in me life and don’t intend to.
Have you every flown a light aircraft?
  • The Airfix kits I made as a boy were the lightests aircraft I’ve come across, and the closest of come to flying in one.
Have you ever fired a rifle?
  • My mate has an air rifle, and I’ve held it in me hands and pointed it at the telly – but I don’t think he’d ever trust me alone with it.

    Ian Ayris, author of 'Abide with me'

Do you see the e-book replacing the book in the future?
  • I think there’ll always be a place for the book. My mum’s just got a Kindle. And it’s fantastic. But I’ve got a half a bookcase-ful of nineteen-thirties, and earlier, hardback books. Books might become a diminishing breed, but I don’t think there’ll ever be replaced.

What’s the best way to promote your work?  i.e. social networks, radio, the newspapers etc etc

  • I think a blog is a must. Also a presence on the social networks. My publisher deals with the radio/newspaper side of things, and as ABIDE WITH ME is my first novel I’ve no experience in how effective those mediums will be. The biggest hurdle I’ve found is that the social networking sites seem crammed with writers promoting their books to other writers. That is great, to an extent. But really it’s the punters that need being made contact with. Funnily enough, I was just discussing this today with a couple of writer friends. Libraries are good for flyers and book signings. Websites that specialise in reviewing books in your genre are also good, I reckon. Forums that specialise in an aspect of your book – be it geographically, historically, or the subject matter itself – are always good to search out.
  •  In the end, though, I truly believe each book has a journey of its own – all you can do is help it on its way.