The Writing Process
Write Side Of The Road
thoughts and tales from the underworld
Write Side Of The Road aims to take you on a trip into the underworld of the unconscious where ideas, characters, and places collide to create a story. It might be the retiring Elizabeth and Jack in It’s Always Now, a death row inmate called Johnny Tattoo in Killing Bugs Bunny or the crime journalist Oisin O’Toole and Detective Inspector Conlan locking horns in the dark Dublin gangland thriller Dead End. People, places, and events that never existed until they exited my imagination.
I’ve always been curious about people. Take this guy. He’s a smoker, a midnight joker. He can be anyone and anything you want him to be.
Who, What, Where, When and Why?
The answers finding space in my imagination. He could be anyone, but for me, he’s who, what, where, and when:
Robert.
Undercover cop.
Dealey Plaza, Dallas.
12.25 p.m. Central Standard Time. November 22, 1963.
Not to forget the why.
FBI. CIA or Commie spy. The part of the mystery that requires more time to unravel. The late nights spent in front of a computer screen or the early morning scribbles pouring over a blank page. Incense burning, pages turning, a candle flickering as the winter rain crashes against the windowpane. Steam rising from a cup of coffee going cold with thought. I’m caught in Robert’s web and there’s no way of escaping, but through. He follows me to work. He laughs at me when I try to do other things. He’s relentless, begging me to set him free. He won’t calm down and he won’t shut up until he’s finished what he has to say. It might take years, it might only take a day, but one thing’s for sure. Robert’s here to stay.