Christopher West - Author

So, who am I?

I was one of those children who scribbled furiously in exercise books as soon as I could write, making up stories (often, for some strange reason, about owls).  In a way, I’m still doing that, though the owls have gone and I’ve become better at finishing things - lots of those exercise books were a quarter full. 

I did a certain amount of writing at school - an angst-ridden, unfinished teenage novel over-influenced by James Joyce’s ‘Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’, and an actually quite funny short play I wrote in one evening - but didn’t emerge from the educational system with a burning desire to write.

Instead, I did various jobs for a few years, then went to University as a mature student.  Actually, I was a rather immature student, but had a great time.  I emerged with a degree in Philosophy, stayed on to do a Masters and started a PhD.  While doing this, I earned money as a musician.  One day, one of the bands I played in was offered a gig in Hong Kong.

That invitation changed my life: I decided to go travelling in China after that gig.  On my return, I looked around for a book that captured the sort of experiences I had had ‘on the road’, and couldn’t find one.  So I decided to write one myself.  That was when the writing bug really bit.  It’s never released its bite since!

Journey to the Middle Kingdom was the result.  It was my apprenticeship as a writer.  I had to unlearn a lot of what I had learnt doing academic writing - be objective, unemotional, logical - but in return for this sacrifice, I could let my love of words and language rip.  It was a liberation.  Early drafts were no doubt a bit wooden, but in the end the story came to life, and was accepted by Simon and Schuster (UK).

My apprenticeship didn’t end with the book’s acceptance (it hasn’t ended yet, of course, and never will).  I had a lot to learn about ‘being an author’.  I really did buy all the quality papers the day my book came out, expecting reviews!  I really did believe there would be ‘author tours’ and national press interviews - in reality there was one interview, with my local paper, the Royston Crow, which was carried out by my parents’ next-door neighbour.

I still wanted to write about China, and created Inspector Wang Anzhuang and, later, his wife and assistant Rosina Lin.  They feature in four crime novels, the first of which was Death of a Blue Lantern, which is being reissued in 2008 to coincide with the Olympics.  I tell the story of each of these four books in their own pages on this site, so won’t go into detail here.  I hugely enjoyed working on these books - for one thing, it meant trips to China to research each one - and being a crime writer generally.  Crime writing gets looked down on by some literary snobs, but there are some excellent writers working in the field.  I’d rather read a good crime novel than a badly-written, predictable literary novel.

The novels were published in Germany, Japan and America - but after four of them, I knew it was time to change tack.  Bad for the ‘personal brand’, I know, but writing isn’t marketing.  I was keen to write some non-fiction; at the same time an old school friend, Mike Southon, contacted me with the idea for a book on how to start a business.  The Beermat Entrepreneur followed.  Since then, I have largely written about business, especially small business.  I try and use what I have learnt as a fiction writer in this writing - to use clear vivid language, to be visual, to think in terms of narratives wherever possible and, above all, to inject some humour into the proceedings.  I writer these books as Chris West - I’m setting up a separate site for this material; in the meantime, anyone interested in this topic should visit the ‘beermat.biz’ website set up by Mike.

I have not abandoned creative writing altogether, however.  I still try my hand at song lyrics, and am finishing a ‘straight’ (i.e. non-crime) novel, The Enlightenment Club.

I live near Cambridge, with my wife and daughter. 

The future?  I would like to write more fiction.  And a book on philosophy, having studied the subject and having pondered it ever since.  And I’ve studied counselling and done some voluntary therapy-type work, and I’m keen to translate that into a book, too.  And…  That’s the writer’s life - so many appealing projects; the need to be disciplined and only (or largely) work on those that will put food on the table.  But it’s a wonderful privilege to earn a living this way.