Today I’m joining the blog tour for How To Start A Riot In A Brothel In Thailand By Ordering A Beer…And Other Lesser Known Travel Tips. I’m sharing my Q&A with the author with thanks to Rachel Gilbey at Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me on the tour and to Simon Yeats for answering my questions!

Have you always wanted to write?

I do not know that anyone wants to write, per se, as being their dream outcome in life. For pretty much all the time I spent growing up, what I wanted was to live like a Roman Emperor. Lying around in a toga all day on velvet cushions being hand fed grapes and wine. Then, if that plan did not come to fruition, I would have wanted to be as filthy rich as Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. Sadly, the Universe has conspired against my dreams coming true and so I have settled on what seems to be my third choice, which is to write.

What were your previous jobs? Have they helped you with your writing process?

I worked, and still work, as a rehab specialist for spinal cord and traumatic brain injured patients that have made no progress with their conventional rehabilitation and that my life experiences have given me a unique perspective on what is required for them to succeed with regaining the ability to walk.

Yes, this work has been invaluable for my writing process. The experience of writing, just as with the experience of being critically disabled, has very few people who will stand and support you. To complete the task requires unwavering belief in yourself, in the process, and in your goals. And when the doubters and negativity presents itself a person must just continue to press forward. A person must learn how to self inspire themselves. My job has taught me with my writing to eat negativity for breakfast and shit determination at lunch.

What was your inspiration for writing this travel memoir?

Life. That’s it, in a nutshell. Life. Most people have no idea of how many people reach the end of their life and lie in a bed regretting all the things they wish they had done in life. I saw it every single day when I worked in a hospital when people were reaching the end of their road. Regret at all the travel they never did, all the places they never saw, all the times not spent with best friends forming memories. All the chances they never took. I have nearly lost my life several times and the one thing that I have made damn sure about as I have continued to live is that when I do die, I do not want to have a drop of regret for all the places I wanted to see, but didn’t, or the experiences I never found the time to do.

How do you construct your characters? Do they have traits of people you know?

My characters are all real. I did not have to construct a thing. I just needed to watch people and pay attention to what they did, said, and felt. The people in my books have the traits of all the people that we see walking past us every day. Who doesn’t have a friend from New Zealand who thinks he is God’s gift to this world because of the All Blacks? Who doesn’t have an English mate, who still dreams of the days of the Empire? Who doesn’t have an older sister who thinks that their younger brother is useless? Who doesn’t have a best friend that constantly needs to be bailed out of trouble? Who didn’t meet people while backpacking that had them scratching their head at how they have survived three weeks in Nepal alone? Who hasn’t met a Bulgarian army guard with an itchy trigger finger? Who hasn’t met a whitewater rafting guide in Texas, who lives in the desert so the government doesn’t take away his guns?

What does your writing process look like? Are you a plotter or a pantser?

I have no idea what a pantser is, but it sounds far more interesting than being a plotter and so I will take that option. I wake up at 6 am as my girlfriend’s dog has chosen that as the hour every morning it wants to go outside to pee. My dog will wait until I get back from that walk to decide to then get off the bed and want to go outside and do his pee. After that second walk, I can feed them both and make myself a coffee. Then I sit down in a good mood and write. The morning is always still and quiet. The dogs will go back to the bed and fall asleep again and it is just me, my computer, and my thoughts.

I will have approximately 3 hours of writing time until the 9.20am pee appointment for both dogs, and then another hour or so before they start barking because they want to go to the grassy section of our complex for a free run. During that time, my brain flits between drawing from all the emotions and happenings of my life, to wondering whether today should be the day to ask my girlfriend to take the dogs down at 9.20 because I have just been struck with inspiration and do not want to break my mood. 

How did you research? Did you enjoy it?

I have 28 photos albums of my life chock full with pictures of my adventures that I could go and look through to help clarify all the wonderful memories I have of all the sights, sounds, and smells, of all the places I have been to in the world. Before the world had Instagram and Facebook to record it all, we had Kodak.

Who are your favourite writers? Are you influenced by them?

Bill Bryson and Tony Hawks. Heavily influenced. Both showed me how to take the most mundane incident and turn it into a hilarious few chapters of verse.

If you could invite three people, living or dead, to dinner, who would they be and why?

Three dead people, so I would not have to share the sticky date pudding that I am assuming is on the menu for dessert.

Vincent Van Gogh. So I could ask, really mate, you cut off your ear and sent it to a prostitute. Did you really think that was going to win her over?

James Dean. So I could say to him, don’t you wish you had been smart and worn your seat belt now? Did you think being a Hollywood celebrity excuses you from the laws of physics?

King Solomon. So I could ask, where are your gold mines? Where are they? You are dead. There is nothing that obscene wealth can do to for you now, but I can use that money to fulfill my dream of living like a Roman Emperor. Be a mate and tell me where they are.

Who would you least like to be stuck in a lift with and why?

Vincent Van Gogh, James Dean and King Solomon. Because the lift would stink to high heaven.

Who would play the main character/s in a film version of the book?

I have never given any thought to who would play me in the film version of my memoirs. Sean Connery? Is he still alive? I was never as suave and as debonaire as Sean, but as an actor it is his job to learn how to play me realistically. Surely with the technology of AI we could make Sean appear far younger so he would be able to appear as me in my twenties. Could AI help him lose the Scottish accent and replace it with an Australian one?

For someone to play my annoying New Zealand mate who thinks the All Blacks are the greatest thing since sliced bread, the director will just need any annoying New Zealand actor who talks like this ‘fush and chups.’ They are all the same.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

When I am not lying around in a toga on velvet cushions eating grapes, I like to walk my dogs and let them off the leash, which really annoys the wife of the President of our homeowners association. I live by the beach but I rarely go as it is either too sunny and hot, or it is too cold to go in the water.

If I have a spare two weeks, I love to travel. Somewhere where there are mountains and it is either too cold to go skiing, or it is too warm to be able to ski.

What is next for you?

Right now, I have ten people depending on me to get them walking again, and that is my primary focus. In May I have a college reunion on a Saturday followed by an informal High School reunion on the Monday back home in Australia that I will have to study to remember the names of people I went to college and high school with who are not on my Facebook. Then I have a trip planned to Montana coming up in June, so my girlfriend and I can go and find out why everyone in Montana seems intent on killing each other, as evidenced by the TV show Yellowstone with Kevin Costner.

After that I will go back to wondering if we are all going to be destroyed in a nuclear holocaust because of the war in Ukraine and all my work to write 4 books would have been for naught.

Favourites:

Book?

Around Ireland with a Fridge

Film?

The Natural, starring Robert Redford

Band/Singer?

The Killers. Cold Chisel

Jimmy Barnes as a solo artist.

TV show?

Yellowstone. Because in every episode people are just shooting each other or trampling one another with horses for no reason.

Colour?

Blue/green. Neither pure blue, or pure green, but a mixture/amalgamation of both. Think of it like the joining of two powerful clans to become the dominant force in the colour world and at the head of the table is Kevin Costner telling all the blue/greens to trample all the other colours under their horse’s hooves.

Because otherwise my answer is a boring one word response. 

Place?

The Grand Canyon. There is no other sight like it on earth.

Biscuit?

My Mum’s chocolate chip biscuits that she used to bake and send me off to boarding school with a week’s supply for the boarding house. Sticky date pudding is the answer if you want to ask the obvious follow up question, what is my favourite pudding?

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How To Start A Riot In A Brothel In Thailand By Ordering A Beer And Other Lesser Known Travel Tips is available from Amazon.

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