Q&A

They come from a variety of places, often from the most normal things and occasionally the weirdest ones.

I’ve been running D&D campaigns since I was twelve years old and creating computer games for most of my life, so I’ve had plenty of opportunity to exercise my creative muscles. Combine that with being Autistic and naturally tending to view life through a slightly different lens from most people, and I rarely find myself short of ideas.

There isn’t really an accurate answer to this question.

The first book I wrote took me roughly a year to create and get into a releasable state. These days I can normally produce a complete draft within about three months, although it may take another three months to make it properly readable.

The apparent speed of my releases can look very different from this, as I often quietly stack several stories in a series so they can be released close together rather than forcing readers to wait too long for the sequel.

Eager readers can sometimes sneak previews of forthcoming stories on serialisation sites. Just please be kind, as anything posted there is very much a work in progress.

I’m a software engineer and game designer by profession, and I approach writing stories in much the same way as I approach developing software.

I begin by writing a synopsis of the concept, then deliberately leave it alone for a while. That gives me time to reflect on whether the idea is actually a good one before committing myself to several months of work.

Assuming I decide to pursue it, I break the story down into its major arcs. This lets me work out the overall flow and the main heartbeats of the story, and usually helps me discover who the important characters are going to be along the way.

The next major step is to write a couple of test chapters so I can get a feel for the characters and for the story itself. If I can’t produce an introductory chapter that feels compelling and interesting, I’m probably going to struggle to write an entire book, no matter how exciting the original concept seemed.

Once I’ve passed that point, I’ve reached the stage of no return. I break the major arcs down into individual chapters, then break those chapters down into the scenes within them.

After that I write a complete draft, which is often fairly crude, and post it on a serialisation site to gather feedback.

Finally, I rewrite everything a minimum of forty-seven times before it is allowed anywhere near Amazon.

They sit quietly in the back of my brain, and rather less quietly in a folder on my computer, in case I eventually figure out how to make them work.

For anyone interested, the current collection includes a fantasy story intended to teach some of the basic concepts of computer programming, and another concept loosely inspired by the phishing-awareness videos my publisher sporadically insists its staff watch.

None of these concepts is ever truly dead. Some simply take a little longer to germinate and grow strong enough to achieve independence.

I had been writing the Gorzug series for several years (first privately, then publishing on RoyalRoad and finally revised for release on Amazon) and wanted to write something a little more action based as a palate cleanser.

As with Mr. Gorzug I wanted to do a story which lifted up people who often were underappreciated and the original concept was really very simple - Die Hard, in space with a janitor.

You’re just fortunate I didn’t make it a Christmas story. It was tempting.

They’re intended to be a play on the perceived blandness of English food, in my mind’s eye they’re pancakes without flavouring.

Their weaponisation was inspired by an English breakfast I was served at a restaurant in Melbourne, Florida. It included Yorkshire puddings so tough they could have been used as hockey pucks.

Because Corey’s victories only mean something if the opposition is genuinely dangerous. The pirates learn from his tricks and adapt after each encounter. Much of the humour comes from competent professionals being defeated by information their institution considered too unimportant to record.

That is a lesson I learnt from running D&D games. If there is no possibility of failure, there is no real tension. Whether they are readers or RPG players, people eventually lose interest if they never have reason to fear that things might go wrong.

I want my stories to lift up people in overlooked and underappreciated parts of society, rather than punch down at people who already receive too little respect.

Society would struggle to function without janitors, housekeepers, cooks, factory workers and countless other service staff, yet their contribution is often ignored or taken for granted. I did several such jobs when I was younger, including working as a train cleaner, cook and factory operator, so I know how essential—and how undervalued—that work can be.

Corey succeeds because of the skills and knowledge his job has given him, not despite being a janitor. If these stories encourage even a few readers to better appreciate the people doing the work that keeps everything functioning, I’ll consider that a job well done.

Those in authority would insist that Gloop is evidence. Corey refers to Gloop as “mate”, “my little guy” and “absolutely not my pet.” As such I would consider Gloop to be an unusual colleague rather than a pet.

I do, however until it’s revealed in a later story that will remain a private matter.

Whether machines can possess intelligence is beginning to become a more interesting question in the real-world today as computer programs become more complex and able to approximate reasoning and behaviour.

The books deliberately leave that question open and it is up to each individual reader to decide if Bucket is truly intelligent or just malfunctioning in an interesting way.

Bucket kept colliding with low trays, so Corey pressure-bonded a spoon to its front. The spoon does not prevent collisions, but according to Corey, “it sounds happier”. Like most of Corey’s repairs, it solves a slightly different problem from the one reported.

They repeatedly try. Their difficulty is finding him inside routes their expensive tactical map does not recognise as routes. The pirates understand the ship’s official structure; Corey understands where towels, drains, pudding and maintenance staff actually go.

That would undermine the premise. Corey has no combat training, and his successes must always come from ordinary equipment with understandable physical properties. Polish reduces traction, foam expands, adhesive sticks and catering supplies possess mass. He survives through practical knowledge and improvisation, not hidden abilities.

Only behaviourally. Humans have no superior strength, psychic gifts or unique technology. What alarms the other species is their willingness to improvise, ignore intended use and form emotional attachments to organisms, machines and colleagues with very little regard for administrative categories.

Because it is a more accurate description of what he does and gives some dignity to work the institution treats as interchangeable. The joke is that Corey lacks the authority to approve the title, so he approves it himself.

It represents the difference between a fault being documented and a fault being repaired. Individually, every deferred repair is considered acceptable. Collectively, they form a map of everything that can go catastrophically wrong.

This is partially inspired by my experience as a programmer where bugs are often reported by QA but not fixed because they’re not deemed to be important enough to resolve in the time available. These small, seemingly unimportant issues frequently end up having major unexpected consequences.

It acts as the institutional voice of the ship: endlessly reassuring, technically accurate and emotionally useless. The worse the situation becomes, the more confidently it asks everyone to remain calm and avoid speculation.

In some ways, yes. Its maintenance history, departmental compromises and closed tickets determine what is possible. The ship never produces a convenient new fault—the characters survive by understanding faults that were already present and repeatedly ignored.

“Naylor” maintains professional distance. The rare occasions when she uses “Corey” carry weight because they occur when procedure is no longer sufficient and she needs to reach the person rather than address the employee.

Understatement is how he protects himself. He describes Gloop as evidence, Bucket as equipment and his rescues as maintenance work, while behaving in ways that contradict every denial. What Corey refuses to claim often tells the reader more than what he says.

Because the comedy works better when the consequences are credible. Nobody falls merely because a scene requires slapstick: they fall because polished flooring, armour weight and momentum interact badly. The mechanism makes the joke part of the plot.