UKA Writer of the Month July 2006 - James (Jay12) Hazlehurst
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July 2006 : UKA’s Writer of the Month: James (Jay12) Hazlehurst
BIO
James lives and works in Wolverhampton. He is a paper shuffling, administrator (yawns) but is looking for a change of career. He’s single and has a pet dog called Tim. He is currently editing the tons of old material he has amassed over the time he has been scribbling and he’s trying to write a book.
INTERVIEW
How long have you been writing?
Well, I’ve been writing stories since I was 20. It all started back in December 1998. I began out of boredom really. It was something to do and a cheap and easy-to-start hobby. I read a lot of books and some of them were not so great. I just thought to myself it can’t be hard to write something better than this, but I have found out since that it’s extremely hard. The first thing I ever wrote was on a Commodore Amiga 500+ and my printer was an old daisy wheel that made printing after 11pm impossible because of the noise! I used those machines to write for nearly 3 years before I invested in my first PC, those early years were a grind.
How would you describe your writing?
I dunno really. I don’t think I have a style of my own and I aint to keen on pigeon holing myself to a specific genre or style. I think I’m a bit depressing and morbid sometimes in my prose. I’m often inspired by bad, evil and grotesque things. So I guess my writing is a mixture of those three.
What is your own personal favourite?
I like my story ‘Office Politics.’ It was one of the earliest pieces I wrote when I joined UKA back in 2003. It was inspired by a problem I had at work at the time. I have recently re-written it to tidy it up and it was published in June 2006 Skive Magazine. That to date is my only publishing credit. As for my poetry, I don’t specifically like any one of them that much. I’m not a poet.
Who is your favourite author?
Picking a single one is difficult. I read a lot of Stephen King novels and stories and think the guy has an extremely great imagination and talent for spinning a yarn and giving it a good grounding in reality despite the content of the story being so fictional. Although he seems in recent times to have re-written stuff he has already done before (Christine & From A Buick 8 for example). I read a lot of autobiographies too; I’m interested in other people. Edgar Allen Poe is another I’ve enjoyed reading. Last year I read all of his poetry, it made little sense to me, but I enjoyed it nonetheless! These days I buy books randomly and don’t always go for a specific author. There are some great books out there by authors who aren’t well known. But if I had to pick a fave I’d say King, he’s one author I’ve read a lot.
What is your opinion of writing on the net?
I think writing on the net is a good and bad thing. Good, because it is an easy way for anyone with a computer and a connection to showcase themselves and get readers and feedback. It’s bad though because of copyright. It’s hard to know if your work is being copied or misused. I don’t think that’s a problem for people such as myself but I think more prolific and professional writers, who expose a lot of their work online, can experience piracy problems. The internet overall is a good thing though. It’s a great tool for research and for making contact with like minded people. Without it I’d still be tapping out the odd short story now and again on my Commodore and never showing a soul.
Would you consider e-publishing?
E-publishing is not something I would dismiss. If I can get myself published that’s fine by me. There are some great magazines that are exclusively online and I would never turn down the opportunity to be published by them, but personally I prefer to hold the book or magazine in my hands. I think people have a limited tolerance for reading at a computer. I myself often want to read stories on UKA but when I see word counts of 4000+ I’m put off. Maybe I need a more comfortable computer chair!
How about self-publishing?
I have self published all of my poetry from UKA. It’s a collection of 40 poems called ‘Scribbling Drunkenly’ I published it to draw a line underneath poetry. I’m not a very good poet at all and find that I only wrote them when inebriated or when I was having a particularly difficult time in my day to day life. It was fun to self-publish them but I don’t think that it is the future for me. I think I’ll stick to the old fashioned way, having an editor like my work and want to publish it.
Do you have any advice for other aspiring authors?
Well my advice is simply, don’t give up and learn to listen to criticism. I buried my head in the sand for ages and never wanted criticism and I never improved. I was like a one-legged duck paddling round and round in circles. Now I listen to what people say and try to incorporate what is said into my work. Also writers need to get into the habit of editing. Practise makes perfect so go back and mess around with your early stuff, no piece of writing is ever perfect - even after several edits.
Do you have any particular UKA favourites?
Loads but I aint naming them, cus it’s too easy to forget someone and I don’t wanna hurt anyone’s feelings. UKA has a lot of talented people and I bet there are people I hardly or never read who I would love. Plus UKA has so many active members these days it’s hard sometimes to find time to keep up with all the subbies!
How do you see your future writing career?
A writing career? I haven’t got one of those sadly. I’d like to earn a living writing one day, you know £250-300 a week or so. But realistically all I want is to keep enjoying writing and get a few more stories published in pulp fiction magazines. The competition is vast and it’s certainly no good to kid ones self, but you never know if you never try!
Thank you, Jay
Jay can be contacted at:
Email: contact@jameshazlehurst.com
Website: www.jameshazlehurst.com
© Andrea Lowne 2006 | 
