1. Tell us about yourself

Age 42, Male, Nationality - British, Married. Day job - scientific researcher with a major pharmaceutical company. Returned to writing at the beginning of 1995 having written some stories as a teenager after years messing around in rock bands.

2. When was your first sale? And to which magazine?

June 1995 to Kimota, the story appeared in issue 4 and received an Honourable Mention in the year's Best Fantasy and Horror collection

3. What sort of writer are you? The old fashioned type, slaving away over a parchment, with a pot of ink, a quill and a candle, or the modern man, own office and PC?

Very much the modern, I write direct in the WP system

4. Has the emergence of the internet helped or hindered writers?

Helped immensely. It has certainly put me in contact with many writers and writer's resources

5. For sheer entertainment who are your favourite authors?

David Gemmell, Robert Jordan

6. What advice would you give to any other aspiring writers?

1) Grow a thick skin, you will experience many more rejections than acceptances as you develop your writing. 2) Seek out other writers to critique your work

7. How do you feel about the move from hard copy books to downloadable internet stories, is it really the end of the printed word?

Not yet. I don't think anyone has worked out how to make enough money from downloadable stories unless you're Stephen King.

8. What author or author's work inspired you to become a writer?

I always was a writer. The inspiration to try and become a published writer belongs to many authors whose work I've read and thought 'I can do at least as well as that and probably better.'
9. Terry Pratchett is the UK's biggest selling living author, have you read any of his work?

Most of it

10. If you had to be a character in Star Wars who would you be?

Han Solo

11. Have you ever been to London, UK?

About twice a week for the last 10 years.

12. Blair Witch II, good idea or cash in?

Haven't seen it, but the reviews suggest cash-in

13. Describe your writing process.

For me writing a story is like building a bridge across a stream. You need a certain number of rocks which you link with planks. The rocks are the major events that come from inspiration. For a typical story you might need five rocks. I have to wait until I have at least four, sometimes a long wait. I can then start because the planks are simply what needs to happen to link the events up and that is down to a writers craft and I reckon that I'll think of the final rock somewhere along the way.

Once the first draft is down, I circulate it around my first readers, rewrite based on their comments, get it critiqued by my writing group, rewrite again and then it's ready for it's first market. Depending on what response I get I may do some further work on it. It then stays on the market until it sells, regardless of how many rejections it gathers along the way.

14. How could we improve The Steel Caves?

Hmm, this is both hard and easy. The easy answer is to publish better stories, and the easy way to do that is to pay more. SciFi.com pays 20c/word. Assuming you are not Lottery jackpot winners, the hard part is to get the quality of submission that you need to improve. Firstly by just continuing to exist you will hopefully draw in more submissions. Make sure you are in as many writers' market listings as you can find (try www.Ralan.com and www.marketlist.com). Try to get someone to review the site in influential mags (Interzone, Zene).

15. What does the future hold for you (hopefully)?

More and better quality sales of short stories paving the way for the publication of my first novel.

Martin Owton

Martin has had three stories published in TSC, 'Grunt in the Psychic War' in Issue 2, 'The Dark Hunter' in issue 15 and Judas Dreams in this very issue. Many Thanks to him for taking the time to answer these questions. 'Grunt in the Psychic War' can be seen in the Vault.