Aspiring Author C.C. Hogan Tells it as it is.
The library of the great man is quite spectacular. The walls are lined with shelf upon shelf of ancient books, manuscripts, words of wisdom that seem to entomb the short, disarmingly friendly balding man sat uncomfortably behind a well-worn typewriter.
Apart from a small tome of short stories, C.C. Hogan is, as yet, unpublished, but undeterred he is currently working on volume five of his ten book epic fantasy; three quarters of a million words in and he has said yes to my request for an interview.
Transcript
Reporter: This is quite a room, isn't it?
CC: I like it.
Reporter: You seem to take your environment very seriously. Has this room taken you long to create?
CC: No.
Reporter: But all these books - they must have taken years to collect!
CC: It's wall paper. I believe you can buy it at most good DIY stores. See, there is a corner peeling off over there.
Reporter: So. You are not comfortable being interviewed?
CC: I am not comfortable with this contraption. What is it?
Reporter: Your typewriter?
CC: Is that what it is? I wondered why I couldn't get my coffee cup to stay upright on it.
Reporter: So, you are a writer.
CC: Well, I am very bad plumber, so in my estimation that only leaves writing.
Reporter: There are a lot of other jobs you could have chosen.
CC: But they all involved plumbing, and as I told you, I am a very bad plumber.
Reporter: You could have been, I don't know, a historian, carpet layer, egg quantifier, reporter, even.
CC: None of those Begin with a P.
Reporter: So?
CC: I only had two sections from our yellow pages when I was young; writers and plumbers.
Reporter: What happened to the rest?
CC: Ruined by a cracked water pipe.
Reporter: Now, CC, other than the telephone directory, what made you want to be a writer?
CC: I believe it was a providential moment of pulchritudinous symmetry that impelled within my mind a percipience of mesmeric literary perception that fabricated a heuristic impulse to envelop myself in the verbal craft that has become an object of cupidity to me.
Reporter: In other words?
CC: I banged my head on a dictionary when I was four.
Reporter: As did many of us. You have written three quarters of a million words in your latest fantasmagorical extravaganza,
CC: Show off.
Reporter: Why so many?
CC: Well, its a bit of a long story....
Reporter: I have time.
CC: No really, it is a long story. That is why it has taken three quarter of a million words to write so far.
Reporter: Can you give us a flavour.
CC: Vanilla.
Reporter: Of the book.
CC: It is about a really poor nineteen year old who digs holes and pushes a hand cart for a living. His sister is kidnapped along with the young woman she works for as a maid and is sold into miserable and demeaning slavery. He chases across the world, called Dirt, with the aid of a dragon called Fren-Eirol and a useless git of a magician and has to contend with strife, death, misery, his own capture, the near death of a close friend and many other heart rendering mishaps and misadventures.
Reporter: A serious endeavour.
CC: Comedy, yeah.
Reporter: This is quite a work.
CC: Holds most of the doors open.
Reporter: How long have you been working on it?
CC: Last Tuesday.
Reporter: My god!
CC: No sorry, I am an atheist.
Reporter: You are still on the first draft?
CC: Sorry, that was the door open gag, I said it early just to annoy people. I have read it through a couple of times, mostly trying to work out how fast dragons fly cos that can really mess up your timeline.
Reporter: How did you solve the problem.
CC: I phoned one up and asked them.
Reporter: You phoned a dragon?
CC: Of course. Too big for the house; phoning was the only way to chat.
Reporter: The first book is going to be called Dirt. Why?
CC: It is the name of the world that the story it set on.
Reporter: Strange name for a world.
CC: And Earth isn't?
Reporter: ............... Point taken. I assume the very fact that you have written so many words in such a short amount of time, that writers... erm .... writer .... oh, that thing .... writers...
CC: Block?
Reporter: Isn't a problem. Or if it is, how do you deal with it.
CC: Plunger works well for most small blockages or you can get that chemical stuff you pour down the drains. Otherwise, a pickaxe works quite well.
Reporter: For writer's block?
CC: Or I just shoot my ghost writer.
Reporter: You obviously love writing.
CC: I am addicted to it. It is a problem.
Reporter: So what is the best thing about being a writer?
CC: On my present hit rate, starvation, probably.
Reporter: Really? What about the worst?
CC: Getting interviewed by people who have eaten more recently than I have.
Reporter: So, CC, if you had any advice for aspiring young writers out there who wish to put pen to paper and forge a career as an author, what would it be?
CC: Aspire.
Reporter: And thank you CC Hogan and we wish you the very best in getting your epic fantasy Dirt onto the shelves soon!
CC: Thanks.
Reporter: Want a shilling for a coffee or something?
CC: Yeah, cheers mate. Put it in the mug. Thanks.
