Interview With Alan Parks

What is your writing process? What does your typical day, when writing, look like?
Usually I try and start just after breakfast and try and do a couple of hours. Other than that it can be anywhere. I’ve written bits of Bloody January on trains, planes, cafes, the library. I know some people like silence and isolation to write but I seem to be the opposite, far better with a bit of life going on
around me.

Was there a particular incident or person that provided the inspiration for Bloody January? Where did the idea come from?
Was a couple of pictures really. One was of Springburn at dusk, the other was a picture of Sir Hugh Fraser in Glasgow looking much wealthier than anyone else. Think the kernel of the idea was in these two pictures. The idea of the very rich and the very poor in Glasgow and what happens when they overlap.

Was novel-writing something you’d always known you would do?
Not really to be honest. I was always interested in books and reading so I suppose it might have been inevitable to give it a go at some stage.

How do your characters develop? Do you find that your characters take on a life of their own when you are writing? Or are you always completely in control of what they say and do?
The characters do seem to develop in ways you never really imagined. Some of them become major characters when you thought they would be a sidebar and vice versa. And some tend to grow in stature because they are good fun to write. I like Iris who runs shebeen so she grew a bit. Same with Stevie Cooper. Originally he was just there to be a generic bad guy but he became more interesting the more I wrote about him.

Where do you draw inspiration from for your settings and characters?
From all sorts of places. A lot of visual references. A lot of places in Glasgow that I remember when I was a boy – Buchanan Street Bus Station for example. When I found out David Bowie was playing in Glasgow at the time the book was sent I knew I had to get him in somehow!

When you are not writing, what do you do to relax? What types of books do you read for pleasure?
I walk a lot. Not hillwalking walking but aimless wandering around Glasgow. I read a lot of different things, weirdly not as much crime fiction since I started writing it. Lately I very much enjoyed This Is Memorial Device by David Keenan.

Now that Bloody January has been published, what does the next year have in store for you?
Next year is about writing book number three. I am already behind so I better get on with it!