I hate writing during the daylight hours so I only write when it’s dark. This means I get more writing done in winter than in summer. The only time I’ll write during the daylight hours is when I’m near to completing my manuscript and hence I can see the end in sight and I am determined to finish. Alternatively, in the middle of winter when it’s too cold to go out or any time of the year when it’s pouring with rain I don’t mind writing during the day. In fact, as soon as I am aware it’s going to rain, I say to myself, “This is a good day for writing!” even when it’s not my traditional Saturday night writing night and I’m not at work.
Although my writing time is Saturday night, I often get ideas at the oddest moments. When I have an idea I want to include in my book, in order not to lose the idea, I scribble it down on anything I have at hand and then type it into the computer on my Saturday night writing nights. I have been in boring meetings when suddenly I have scribbled down something on the back of the Agenda and the person doing the presentation at the meeting has thought that I was noting things down about the meeting in earnest because it interested me. Fortunately, I wasn’t called up to read out what I had written or asked to add it to the minutes!
Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with ideas and hence have to get out of bed and note the ideas down.
To get names for characters, I generally ask people what name they would prefer to be called if they could choose their own names. If I like the name, I use it in my book. Otherwise, I just scrounge my bookcase and look at the authors’ names and choose one that interests me. Sometimes a particular name comes to me out of the blue and I use that. A few names, particularly for the “bad” characters, are based on the names of real people but I have somewhat altered the names so that the people I based the characters on don’t recognise them.
Title: A Right to Love
Author: Mark Frew
Genre: Gay Fiction / Religious / Psychological
Book blurb: The story is about a non-religious man, called Michael, who is a teacher in a modern college. He meets a student, Polycarp, who is a refugee from Rwanda and who has lost all of his family. Michael decides to travel to Africa to find out if any of Polycarp’s family members are still alive. In the process, he meets a devout Muslim sub-Saharan African man, Ibrahim. Michael and Ibrahim fall in love and as their relationship develops, Michael and Ibrahim have to adjust to each other’s outlooks on life. Throughout the process, the interpretation of both the Bible and the Koran, and how homosexuality can be accepted within this framework are discussed.
Author bioMark Frew is a teacher of English to speakers of other languages. He has a bachelor degree in chemistry and is an avid linguist who speaks several languages. Mark Frew is also the author of Mauritian Creole in Seven Easy Lessons, Michael and the Multicoloured Gospel and Farewell My Pashtun.
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