interview with Mark Nicholls

Today I'm speaking to Mark Nicholls. Mark writes under the name M.J. Nicholls and was a former co-student of mine on the Edinburgh Napier Masters in Creative Writing course. Like me, Mark hails from Glasgow. Unlike me, his defection to Edinburgh was only temporary .

JANE: What sort of things do you write?

MARK: I write short stories and drawer-bound “first novels” in the following modes: sardonic realism, satire, magical realism. Most of my writing is a composite of the three, except when it isn’t.


JANE: What made you start writing?

MARK: Being bored and isolated as a teenager. I started out drawing violent comics to exact my revenge on the world that had smitten me. I found I could make myself laugh with words. It helped me feel less alone and gave me a means of (trying to) understand the world.


JANE: What does writing mean to you?

MARK: At present? Frustration. It’s a Catch-22 between wanting to do nothing else but finding the practice so torturous and unpleasant. Since I have no practical means of making a living I would rather not be a writer, I would rather do something where I can make a living.


JANE: What situations/environments inspire you?

MARK: Mostly I’m interested in what goes on in people’s minds that makes them behave in such peculiar ways. As someone incompetent at life, I’m interested in people who fail. As a relentlessly self-criticising socially awkward type, I am fascinated by people who can walk through life as though it were the most normal thing in the world—how do they do that?


JANE: What has been your highest moment writing-wise?

MARK: Non-writers (i.e. mothers) tend to measure your success in column inches or your presence in Waterstones. As a consequence, writers tend to discard all their minor successes. I find this damaging. The MA I completed at Napier forced me to think about writing in ways I will take with me throughout my career: I consider my time there my highest moment. I’m also pleased to have been printed in various experimental fiction monthlies: these are the pubs I relish the most, where daring and “difficult” work finds a home.


JANE: What has been your lowest moment writing-wise?

MARK: Being rejected from The Rejected Quarterly. In fact, they didn’t even send me a rejection letter.


JANE: What has been the most encouraging comment someone has made about your writing?

MARK: I think all positive feedback should be swiftly ingested as ego-food, but when “established” writers like our work we tend to feel special. When James Robertson (former writer-in-residence at Napier) bumped into me in the corridor and said, of a story I had sent him the day before, “that was fucking brilliant,” I almost burst out of my socks with pleasure. Positive feedback is essential, otherwise we really have no reason to go on, do we?


JANE: As a poet once said: the worst thing is to be admired through being misunderstood. What has been the least encouraging comment?

MARK: I used to write for a music website and whenever I slated an album (often with unfair comedic glee), trollers would attack my reviewing style with similar viciousness. Fair game, I suppose.


JANE: Do you have a routine where your writing is concerned?

MARK: God no. I recite Stendhal’s mantra “one thousand words per day, genius or not” in the hope it might someday stick. I have a serious problem with concentration and commitment (which also explains my poor sexual performance). I would really rather be reading. Or walking.


JANE: What are the pitfalls of writing?

MARK: You could stab yourself in the eye with a pen. You’ll end up with poor posture and RSI. You’ll experience more feelings of inadequacy in your lifetime than non-writers. The list goes on.


JANE: What are the good things about writing?

MARK: Difficult question. I do take pleasure in reading back a completed MS with motherly pride. When all my doubts have been suppressed and all I want is to go foist my brilliance on the world. Some writers never get this. If I never took pride in anything I wrote I’d be screwed.


JANE: What advice would you give someone wanting to become a writer?

MARK: Unless you have a “vocation,” i.e. you’re stuck because there’s nothing else in life you want to do, don’t. Seriously. There are too many writers who are also talented lawyers and teachers and proctologists. This isn’t fair. Some of us can’t do squat else. I don’t want to have to compete with astronauts and paragliding instructors who write in their spare time. If you’re in a miserable, bill-paying occupation, by all means keep up the writing. (Bitter, much?)


JANE: Which published/unpublished writers have inspired you most and why?

MARK: Gilbert Sorrentino for mixing innovative formal and structural techniques with outrageously funny comedy and satire. I admire this man’s writing more than I admire the universe. He never compromised his art for financial gain. His body of work is singular in world literature for its breathtaking erudition and stylistic relentlessness. If I could sleep with a man I would sleep with Gilbert Sorrentino. All his work is available from Dalkey Archive Press.


JANE: Re the saying, ‘people ask for criticism but they only want praise’, is this true for you?

MARK: Criticism always smarts. It depends who’s criticising. I tend to take comments on board if I respect the comment maker. I could be better at taking criticism but I never lash out. Or kill, intentionally.


JANE: What are the drawbacks of asking someone to read your work?

MARK: That they’ll misunderstand your work or dislike it on principle for not being easy to read. As someone who writes “challenging” fiction I have this problem: people see their difficulty to read the work as a flaw in the writing. Clear, easy-to-follow prose is not my business. You need to find readers willing to unpack your intentions, ideally fellow writers.


JANE: With the ever-advancing internet access, how do you see the publishing business developing in the future?

MARK: I suspect e-books will prosper over print books but a strong devoted readership will continue to read them. Hardbacks will become boutique items. Fiction outside the mainstream will end up swimming in the self-publishing market as people’s attention spans diminish.


JANE: How did/do you teach yourself to write?

MARK: By repeating the same mistakes over and over again for years without guidance. Don’t do that.


JANE: What aspect of the craft do you think is most difficult to learn?

MARK: You have to become aware of all the techniques open to you. Or, at least, know enough to achieve your aims. Knowing which ones to deploy for what purpose is the Great Headache.


JANE: What changes in how you write have you been aware of over the years?

MARK: I have become more attentive on the level of the sentence. I have an instinct to plan and map stories in a formal way, but I write more naturally on the hoof. This contradiction causes more Great Headaches.


JANE: Have you ever suffered from writers’ block and if so, how did you get over it?

MARK: Reading. Read everything. Other people’s ideas are the perfect way to learn what your ideas are, and whether they’ve been done before. I think writers’ block is a myth, actually . . . it’s probably more you’ve written yourself into a corner or your project is collapsing in front of you.


JANE: Have you needed to make any sacrifices to allow you to write, and if so, what?

MARK: I’ve sacrificed having a career that earns me money to write. Quite a whopper of a sacrifice, methinks.

Thanks, Mark. The sooner the world discovers you, the better, not least for your self-deprecating humour.