Clint Green Interview Published on: 01, Oct 2024

I am an Army Brat so I lived in all sorts of places. I was born in Germany on a UK Army base and then lived in lots of places in the UK. I spent 25 years in London working in the Arts but recently moved back to the North East to help look after my dad who is not too well. The best thing about being back up North is a combination of the friendly people and the stunning scenery from the North Yorkshire Moors, to the coast.

I have a notebook with SO many ideas for writing and I genuinely expected my first book to be a fantasy novel, so I was surprised when the characters and story for this series seemed to come together so much easier and louder than the others.

A daydream turned into an idea which evolved into an outline and somehow ended up as a finished novel. I still have no idea why my immense talent at procrastination stayed at bay whilst I wrote it!

I have a deep love of the North of England, the places, the people, the scenery and the friendliness. There really is no other place like it. I am lucky enough to be so close to the Moors, the Dales, the coast and so much scenery I cannot help but be inspired. I left to move to London 25 years ago as there weren’t many opportunities to work in the arts and I had studied Drama and Art.

In London I got to live in a vibrant city and was lucky enough to work alongside some very talented people and to experience some of the best art and theatre in the world. I got to be a guest in so many worlds and stories and just to be inspired by a vast amount of talent.

2 years ago I moved back up North to help look after my Dad who has cancer and the quieter pace of life up here really allowed me the time to write.

Sci-fi is amazing. It lets us tell stories that reflect our most basic stories and experiences in a fantastical setting, somehow heightening them at the same time. It’s almost everything I love in life, science, imagination, fantastical worlds and characters all rolled into one. I even get a bit of Archaeology in here which makes me super happy.

As I mentioned above, it was a daydream that became an idea. It had rolled around in my head for a few years and when I moved back to my parents I finally sat down and decided to write. I am a world class procrastinator so have lots of unfinished projects on the go, but one day I decided to forget trying for perfection, forget editing as I went and never finishing anything. I sat down and wrote the book beginning to end without aiming for perfection. So many people give that advice and mention that draft one will be terrible and to trust the editing process to refine it into something better and they are absolutely right.

It is so much better to have a finished book that is 90% trash that needs 7 more drafts than a perfect chapter that will never progress.

Peace and quiet! I put my phone in a drawer, get the cats settled and shut my door to my writing room. I don’t listen to music or have anything on in the background. Then I set myself goals of 500-1000 words a day and try to do them regardless of if I think they are any good.

Its all about discovery and mystery for me. I am sure I could write a whole novel on someone restoring an old ruined castle (in fact I may even have a project outline on a book somewhere). Old buildings and ruins are FULL of stories, both known and forgotten to time, you can almost feel the weight of history and peoples lives in them. If something ever makes you think what happened? Or what if? That is the beginning of a story.

Ah Fin and Lola. They were rescued from a litter outside a petrol station in Dubai. Sadly the rest of the litter and the mother passed away from parvo and my two were saved and brought to a rescue in the UK, but both lost an eye each from the disease. My previous cat Polly had died a month earlier, having gotten me through Lockdown and I wanted to give another cat a safe home. These two came as a package deal I haven’t looked back since.

They are the perfect balance of Goblins and something fluffy and adorable. Very clever (Too clever), mischievous and affectionate. The only impact they have on my writing is walking all over my laptop and loudly meowing when I am on a zoom call. Lola also chewed one of my author copies of my book though, she is harsh critic.

That family that you find along the way can be just as important as the family you were born into.

Honestly? Just trusting the process and eventually deciding to let it go and actually publish. It is such a scary moment when you send it out into the world, but you cannot cling to a project forever. You also have to accept that even though you wrote it, once it is in a readers hands it becomes theirs, everyone who reads a book will imagine it slightly differently and make their own connections. It becomes their story and that is absolutely fine.

Shanice is a real person and is thrilled that I finally came through on my promise to put her in a book! Book 2 has a character called Li who is also real and probably MORE outrageous and sweary in real life than he is in the book.

I always have a solid framework and backstory to build off and an outline of a characters arc. But I also leave enough room for a character to grow. J’Coub somehow wrote himself an entirely different personality as I went and was nothing like I intended him to be apart from the broad strokes, but damn he was so much more fun.

As for the setting, I think you just need to make sure that no matter how alien a character or setting is, you still need to work within the rules you set yourself be it magic, technology or epic world spanning disasters. Always look at things from a characters point of view and think how they would feel in that moment.

Book 2 is finished and ready for release on the 10th October 2024. The third book should be out around April 2025.

I do indeed! I am working on two fantasy projects at the moment as well as another novel that combines science fiction and fantasy! I am also working on finishing my graphic novel series Taroch with the insanely talented illustrator Luke Orrin.

AllAuthor had been an incredible resource and community for me. Once I wrote the book I had no idea what to do next and the information and support from AllAuthor was utterly invaluable. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to write!