The favourite thing for me to have on my desk when I am writing is a seriously large vodka martini, straight-up, with four olives!  I wrote my most recent novel, Dead Simple (and my first crime novel) over five months writing between 6.30-9.30pm fuelled by my stiff drink, the occasional cigar, music and chewing gum! 

So essentials on my desk are a glass, an ash tray, gum, a lighter, (I bought it in Rome, the most kitsch lighter in the world - it is a statue of an angel and her eyes and belly button glow red when the flame is on) and a stack of CDs - as I share some musical taste in music with Dead Simple's hero Roy Grace, I like Dido, opera arias (particularly Mozart) and Jazz, especially the work of the tragically late Bob Berg. 

I also have several toy cars - models of different cars I have owned, including an MG, a 1967 Mini Cooper S and my current Aston Martin, a photograph of my late mother who was an amazing supporter of my writing and she makes me smile every time I look at her.

PETER JAMES is a British author of 12 novels. Breathlessly driven, he has been a journalist, an assistant to theatre critic Jack Tinker, written for a children's program and cleaned house for Orson Welles in London for ten shillings an hour. He started his own film company 'Quadrant films,' which, amongst its many titles include the award winning 'Dead of Night' (aka Deathdream, 1974) winner of Sitges international horror film festival. He sold his share to concentrate on his writing, but did take time out to co-produce 'Biggles' in 1985. In 1992 he co-founded Pavilion Internet, which was one of the first internet service providers in the UK. Visit Peter at his website, and read the full first chapter of his latest best-selling thriller Dead Simple.

Born:  September 25, 1897
Died:  July 6, 1962

"The writer is of no importance. Only what he creates is important, since there is nothing new to be said. Shakespeare, Balzac, Homer have all written about the same things, and if they had lived one thousand or two thousand years longer, the publishers wouldn't have needed anyone else."

~ William Cuthbert Falkner (original spelling) was born in New Albany, Mississippi. 

~ The first of four sons, he was named after his great-grandfather, "Old Colonel," a lawyer, politician, planter, businessman, Civil War officer, railroad financier, and best-selling author of the novel The White Rose of Memphis. 

~ While he was still a child, the family moved to Oxford in north-central Mississippi. Faulkner lived most of his life in that town. Dad Murry took on a series of jobs, most of them with the help of "Old Colonel" who founded the First National Bank of Oxford.

~ At about the age of 13, William began to draw and write poetry. He dropped out of high school before graduating and worked briefly in his grandfather's bank.

~ When he took a job in New Haven with the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, his name was erroneously spelled "Faulkner" on his employee records. He never corrected it.

~ After being rejected from the US Army because he was too short, Faulkner enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He served with the RAF in World War I, but did not see any action. This, however, didn't stop him from exaggerating his war record when he got home.

~ After the war he studied literature at the University of Mississippi. He also wrote poems and drew cartoons for the university's humor magazine, The Scream. He left the university without a degree.

~ Over the next few years, Faulkner moved around, working odd jobs and getting fired from them. He drifted to New Orleans, where Sherwood Anderson encouraged him to write fiction rather than poetry.

~ His first book, The Marble Faun, which was a collection of poems, appeared in 1924. It did not sell well. This was followed by several novels that didn't fair much better.

~ In 1929 Faulkner wrote Sartoris, the first of fifteen novels set in Yoknapatawpha County, a fictional region of Mississippi. The novels span the decades from the American Civil War through the Depression. Racism, class division, family as both life force and curse, are the recurring themes. 

~ In the same year, he also married Estelle Oldham Franklin, his childhood sweetheart, and bought his famous house Rowan Oak. Architecture was very important to the author, which could be seen through his life and his writings. He obsessed over the restoration of his house, named his books after buildings and carefully described each one that appeared in his stories.

~ In January 1931, Estelle gave birth to a daughter, Alabama. The child was born prematurely, and only lived a few days. Faulkner dedicated his first collection of short stories, These 13, to her. 

~ To earn money, Faulkner went to Hollywood and worked on screenplays. Over the next twenty years, he would work on successful screenplays such as To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep as well as publish his novels. 

~ When Hemingway turned down director Howard Hawk's offer to work with his own book, the director had said, "I'll get Faulkner to do it; he can write better than you can anyway."

~ When Faulkner finished a writing project, he went on a drinking binge. In 1936, back in Oxford, he began the first of many stays at a "rehab." 

~ In November 1949, the majority of the Swedish Academy voted to award the Nobel Prize for literature to Faulkner. But since a unanimous vote was required, the awarding had to be delayed by a year. At first Faulkner refused to go to Stockholm to receive it, but pressured by the U.S. State Department, the Swedish Ambassador to the United States, and finally by his own family, he agreed to go. 

~ In his later years, Faulkner continued to write although the hard drinking had affected his concentration. While working on A Fable, he kept up with the story by outlining it on the walls of his office at Rowan Oak. 

~ At the age of 64, Faulkner was thrown from a horse. Rushed to Wright's Sanitarium, he was admitted around 6 pm, and died eight hours later of a heart attack. He is buried at St. Peter’s Cemetery in Oxford, Mississippi.

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Dialogue consists of all the words that come out of a character's mouth. It looks and sounds like normal speech, but it isn't really normal speech.

What's the difference? The next time you're around a group of people, close your eyes for a moment and listen to every word. You will more than likely hear a tedious line of give and take that you most certainly wouldn't want to read. 

Nothing is more thrilling than to hear a character rise up from the page and speak his mind! Of course not all our characters will be eloquent, but if we refuse to let them be bogged down by tedium, all our characters can become memorable. 

EXAMPLE:
"Hi, Linda, how are you?"
"I'm fine, Carla. How are you?"
"Couldn't be better. Who's this handsome man with you?"
"My fiancée, Bill. Bill, this is Carla. Carla, this is Bill."
"How do you do, Carla."
"I've heard so much about you, Bill. Please come in. Linda, do you like what I've done with the dining room?"
"This is beautiful. Really beautiful."
"I didn't think we'd ever get finished with it, but here it is."
"Did you do it all yourself?"
"Everything except the new floor. Ralph hired some guys to do that."
"I wish I could do stuff like this. How did you learn how?"
"I was in Home Depot one day and I saw..." 

CLEANED UP:
Carla greeted Linda and her fiancée, Bill, at the door. Excited to show off her decorating skills, she led them straight to the dining room. 
"This is beautiful," said Linda. "Did you do it all yourself?"
"Everything except the floor. Ralph hired some guys for that." Carla picked up a tray of hors d'oeuvres and held it before Bill. "Now, what's this I hear about a murder?"

EXAMPLE:
"What can I get you?" asked the smiling waitress.
Maxie didn't look up from the menu. "What's the soup today?"
"Broccoli cheese."
"I'll take a bowl. And the T-bone, rare. What kind of salad dressing do you have?"
"Ranch, Caesar, French and Vinaigrette."
"No Bleu Cheese?"
"I'll have to check."
"Please do." 

CLEANED UP:
Maxie ordered dinner.

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Send it to us and we'll clean it up in a future issue.