Simon Wood has been at this game a long time. He’s got quite the career going now writing thrillers, but still pens horror as Simon Janus.

“‘m 39 years old, English and I live in California with my wife (she’s American but she can’t help it). My background is in engineering, but I now write full time.

I’ve been writing since October ’98 and I don’t seem to be in a hurry to stop. So far, I’ve written around a hundred and seventy short stories and four novels, with many more planned or underway. I’ve had fragments of stories and ideas bobbling around in my head since I was a teenager, but I never did anything with them. The reason for that is probably because I’m dyslexic and reading and writing come hard, but not the imagination for stories. I don’t know what the spark was to get me off my arse, forget my problems, sit in front of a PC and write something, but I did. Because of my reading problems I had to start from scratch. My understanding of rudementary grammar and fiction structure was poor to say the least—there are still a lot of terms writers and editors use that I have to look up in a dictionary. But I put myself through a crash course on creative writing and let rip. Initial results were a bucket full of rejections. It wasn’t until January 2000 that anyone wanted to publish anything (Thank you, Di, from MSF&F). Since I had that first breakthrough, a hundred story sales have followed… ==>>READ THE ENTIRE BIO AT SIMON’S SITE:

DNW: You’ve been writing since 1998, and a lot of your output over those years was short fiction. Can you tell us when you made the shift to novels, and why? You’ve had good success in both forms, so I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts on each - your preference - and possibly a favorite or two of yours.

SW: I didn’t make a shift from shorts to novels as such. I’ve never taken any writing classes. I’m self-taught. I served my own apprenticeship by writing three short stories and spending months refining them and honing my writing skills. As soon as those stories were readable, I worked on my first novel. But even while I worked on my novels, I worked on shorts too. I like writing shorts because you can learn about writing and gain experience with little risk. I think it’s made me a better writer. Obviously, novels take time to write and hell of lot longer to sell. While I was knocking on publishers’ doors, I was writing and selling shorts. ==> READ THE INTERVIEW!

I don’t have a preference between the two. The idea dictates whether it’s going to be a short story or a novel. I love short stories because you can make a theme or idea burn blinding bright. I love novels because an idea can be explored to its depths. I’m greedy. I want to tell all sorts of stories, irrespective of length. The other day I was reading Hemmingway’s 6-word story and it’s fantastic. There are novels that make me feel the same way. So how can I discriminate?

DNW: You have a long-standing love of long-haired dachshunds, and apparently are fond of cats as well. Does this extend to other breeds/types of animals? Do you use that association in your fiction, or - if this is way off base - what influences your settings? Are they half-real as in SCRUBS - or normally made up out of whole cloth? Do
characters, pets, landscapes, emotions populate your worlds…or is it more methodical than that?

SW: I’m sucker for anything fluffy and friendly. I don’t think I can ever be without longhaired dachshunds. They’ve been a part of my life for too long. Animals keep me honest and generous. It’s hard to find a malicious animal. Animals sometimes influence me. I wrote an essay about my cat recently. He’s a great guy and he likes to snuggle up and get a hug and he can do this just after tearing the head off a rat. I’m appalled by his violence, but I forgive him because of his loving traits. There’s some bizarre psychology going on there. I observe this behavior to my cat and it’s okay. I observe this behavior in my friend and my friend is a monster. It gives you an idea of how the sociopathic are protected by loved ones. Thoughts like this make it into my fiction in one way or another, but most times, it’s an unconscious thought.

I’m quite schizophrenic when it comes to locations. Some of my work is based on very real places, half real as is the case with SCRUBS, and the totally fictional. Even the fictional ones are based on places I’ve been or lived. Usually, the more fictionalized the place, the more real it is and I’m disguising it for some very personal reasons. I don’t want people recognizing the place, the event or my past.

DNW: You have overcome dyslexia to forge a career as a writer…do you
believe it’s given you a different perspective on the work, the thought-processes behind the work - or the creative process in general? It’s probably just me, but in reading the biography on your website, I got a feel as if it was a part of it all…that the very act of getting past it interacted with the work. If not, can you just tell us what it was like fighting past this disadvantage? Is it as hard as it was, or…?

SW: Dyslexia has made me very self conscious about my work. It’s a demon I have to put in its place. I’m super critical about everything I write, because I don’t want people saying this is trash because I’m dyslexic. It’s a driving force to make me better. I have to do better than omeone who isn’t dyslexic.

I haven’t beaten dyslexia; I just know how to deal with it. My mind doesn’t work in a chronological manner, so I have a number of coping systems. It’s a hand-eye coordination issue in a lot of ways. One of my teachers told me that my mind works faster than my hands. I can’t be trusted to edit correctly because I can’t read my words, so my wife reads all my work and we discuss the stories and novels to make sure what I think I’ve written is what’s on the page. She reads every piece aloud and I edit by ear. The thing about dyslexia is it doesn’t affect imagination. A storyteller is a storyteller. The problems with documenting the story can always be overcome.

I owe a lot of my success to my wife. Coping and overcoming my problems hasn’t been easy and still isn’t. I bitch and moan when things don’t go right. Most of the time, I’m questioning why I put myself through this agony, then I think of a new story.

DNW: There is a strong blend of fantasy and science fiction in SCRUBS. Your other career is that of a thriller writer. Where do you feel most comfortable? The world you’ve created made me think of What Dreams Must Come, only much darker, or the other side of an HP Lovecraft curtain…behind Door Number one - JETER. Can you tell us where this world came from, what influenced it - and go on a bit about where the world will go BEYOND Scrubs? It’s obviously built for sequels…though the ending was VERY tight and satisfying.

Again, I’m greedy. It’s not about where I’m most comfortable, but where I’m most passionate. I want to tell a good story. I write in the genres that I choose because I love them. I can’t switch to horror or sci-fi or thriller just because there’s a paycheck involved. I’m writing a horror story or a thriller because it fits the tale I want to tell.

When it came to the SCRUBS, the whole thing came from the real life prison, Wormwood Scrubs. I stopped thinking about the name as a place but the words themselves. Why call a place Wormwood Scrubs? There are a lot of oddly named places in England and they had some reason for their naming. I had a vision of this scrub of wormwood before the prison was built. I knew wormwood was potentially poisonous and hallucinogenic and thought that wouldn’t be a great place to build a prison if the wormwood had leached into the foundations. And that was the origin of the story. I came up with this mythology for the prison and began inventing people to reside there. Being a prison, it was a great location for keeping secrets as well as inmates. I asked myself what kind of terrible truth could be hidden there. I have a hankering for damaged heroes, so Keeler was the foil to expose the secrets inside the SCRUBS. It was supposed to be a short story, but as I was writing it the piece needed to be longer, and it kept getting bigger and bigger. I have to admit I can’t give you an answer as to why the world beyond the SCRUBS is so bizarre–filled with striking images and the weirdest characters. It just seemed right. My wife says it’s the most visually stunning thing I’ve written. I think I just caught up in this imaginary world not confined by rules or physical laws.

The story was written as a standalone piece. That’s why it has a satisfying ending. There weren’t going to be any more tales, and I was going to leave the reader to imagine what happened next. But about six months after I finished the story, I was drawn back to the world beyond the SCRUBS. I kept wondering what would happen and ideas began occurring. I see the SCRUBS as a trilogy. SCRUBBERS will deal with the aftermath of Keeler’s adventure in the real world. SCRUB LAND will take place entirely in Jeter’s altered world, exploring his monstrous mind and the characters will battle for the world’s survival.

DNW: Standard question that I ask everyone. You have one day to come up with the inspiration for a new book or story. You can spend it in a library with access to all the worlds books, in a studio with access to all the world’s music, or you can have a trip to any single place in he world for the day…which do you choose for inspiration, and why?

SW: Hands down, it would be a place. So much that happens in the real world is inspirational. I watch for the little things people do or say and I like discovering a place, whether it be a city or rural. There’s always something to see or some nuance that will spark something in my head. If I’m given access to a million books and records, I’ll spend all my time reading and listening to songs.

READ MY REVIEW OF SIMON’S NOVELLA SCRUBS!

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