Adam Roberts
The award-winning author’s harshest critic is his own daughter…
THE WRITE STUFF
THE SFX AUTHOR QUESTIONNAIRE
ANDREW LAWRIE PHOTOGRAPHY
Describe the room in which you typically write.
▶ There’s a Costa Coffee annexed to my local giant Tesco superstore, and I mostly write there. I like the pitying looks the other customers occasionally cast in my direction: “Look at him! Pretending to write a novel… He’s not fooling anyone.”
Do you find it helpful to listen to music while writing?
▶ Writing is always (always!) two things: writing and revising. For the former I always listen to music, and in fact can’t write without it: pop and rock mostly. Having it on distracts that little inner voice, the one we all have, the “Oh that sentence isn’t very good! They’ll all laugh at you if they see that” voice. Revising requires more concentration and detail, and I generally do that in silence.