In Conversation with Josh Reynolds, author of Last Resort.
1. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey as an author?
My name’s Josh Reynolds and I’ve been a professional author for more than a decade. I was born in South Carolina, but I moved to England after I got married, and I’m only just now getting over the culture shock. I’ve written a little bit of everything and quite a lot of some of it.
My journey as an author was a fairly boring one. I started writing short stories to sell during college as a way of supplementing my meagre income. When I moved to England, I continued to write and, after some lucky breaks and a fair bit of persistence, I sold my first novel to Black Library, the publishing arm of Games Workshop. After that, it was just more of the same, really.
2. Tell us about Last Resort: A Zombicide Novel.
On one seemingly innocent day around the turn of the millennium, Sir Alasdair Maddy McGlynn, a poor Scottish Laird, decides to go fishing on his faithful boat ;Kingfisher’. Caught in a massive storm his boat is hit by a terrifying storm which developed into a tornado. Sir Maddy, knocked unconscious is unaware that his boat is being transported on a huge waterspout to a new and strange land he soon learns is called Erehwon. With his boat beyond repair, he starts to explore his new surroundings, little realising that he is being watched by hundreds of pairs of eyes. What he finds astounds him. More wealth than he could have dreamed of in the form of precious metals and gems. But, unknown to him at the time the owners of such a find would prove to be even more amazing, and have a more dangerous secret….
3. What drew you into writing about an apocalyptic world?
Honestly? That I hadn’t done it before. At least not this particular type of apocalypse. While I enjoy a good zombie film as much as the next guy, I’d never written a novel or short story set during the archetypal zombie apocalypse. I’m always on the look out for new writing experiences, and I wanted to see if I could tackle this one.
4. What sort of challenges do you regularly overcome while designing your world/setting?
The nature of the challenges often depends on the project in question. I find that no two projects ever throw the same challenges at me – even projects involving the same characters and worlds. Sometimes it’s characters that don’t quite fit the story, or cool scenes that just don’t seem to match up either narratively or thematically to the story. Whatever the challenge, I tend to meet it the same way every time – I write around the problem, whether character or plot related, until I figure out what to do about it. Often as not, the answer will come to me as I work on another part of the story.
5. What do you do when you’re not writing?
I read a lot, obviously. I’m an avid film buff as well. Other than that, my time away from work is often spent with my daughter, who’s only a toddler at the moment. My wife and I tend to divide parental duties evenly, so when one is with the kid, the other is handling the cooking, the cleaning, etcetera.
I’m hoping to get back into art at some point – I’ve got a nice set of watercolours just waiting to be put to use – but thus far I haven’t had time.
6. What inspired you to pick a character like Westlake to lead the rag-tag bunch. He obviously has good skills for staying alive but was it a conscious decision to have a morally grey/bad guy become the focus. (A question from The Book Network member @selmccormick_x.)
It was, actually. I’ve been wanting to write that sort of character for a while, and on a whim, I decided to drop that hardened criminal archetype into a situation where his skills at evading the law were suddenly useless. How does a guy like that react when he suddenly finds himself in the wrong genre? In Last Resort, we find out.
7. What lasting effects have your favourite authors had on your writing and style?
My favourite authors have a great capacity for creating characters that stick with the reader. They’re less about plot or story, and more about the characters who inhabit said story. It’s a lesson that’s stuck with me from my earliest attempts at writing. Story hinges on character, and a great plot is nothing but a sequence of events without a memorable character to move through it.
As far as style goes, I honestly have no idea. I try for an invisible style – or at least an imperceptible one. I don’t want to distract the reader, to shock them out of the story. I’m not sure whether I succeed at that or not. I like to think so, but it’s really up to the readers.
8. Finally, you’ve been a professional author since 2007, publishing over thirty novels, as well as numerous short stories, novellas and audio scripts. What piece of advice would you give to an aspiring author?
Know the difference between persistence and stubbornness. Persistence is good; it can carry you farther than talent alone. But stubbornness will only lead to burn out. Like Willie Nelson says, know when hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em. The sooner you understand your limits when it comes to both writing and the business of writing, the sooner you can begin figuring out a work-around for those limits.
Also, remember that writing is not a zero-sum game, nor is it a competition. Every success, every failure, all of it has value. All of it can teach you something. And other writers are not your rivals or your competition. They’re your peers, your fellow travellers. They’re on the same journey you are. Some might be farther along, some might be lagging behind, but they’re all going in the same direction you are.
About the Author
Josh Reynolds is the author of over thirty novels and numerous short stories, including the wildly popular Warhammer, Arham Horror, and Legend of the Five Rings. He grew up in South Carolina and now lives in Sheffield, UK.
Josh’s Website: https://joshuamreynolds.co.uk/
Find Josh on Twitter: @jmreynolds
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