Brian Moses has been a professional children’s poet since 1988. To date, he has over 220 books published including volumes of his own poetry such as Lost Magic and Selfies With Komodos, anthologies such as The Secret Lives of Teachers and The Best Ever Book of Funny Poems, and picture books such as Walking With My Iguana and Dreamer. His new book On Poetry Street will be published in May. He is also founder and co-director of A.I.M High, a national scheme for enthusiastic young writers administered by his booking agency Authors Abroad.
1. What did you like to read and write as a kid?
I love reading, and I’ve always read. My parents encouraged me, sat with me, listened while I learned to read, and then took me to the library where I discovered Enid Blyton’s Famous Five adventures. It was these books that established the reading habit for me. I finished one book and there was always another waiting. I then explored further, discovering a schoolboy hero called Jennings, and another called Billy Bunter. Later, I flew planes with air ace Biggles, I roamed the woods and built camps with Just William and in my early teens I solved crimes with Sherlock Holmes and went on secret missions with James Bond.
I can remember writing the occasional poem at primary school. I would struggle with the spelling, the punctuation, the neatness and the form of it, but what I actually wrote was about the last thing my teachers were interested in. At home, I wrote and illustrated war comics based on the ones I’d buy and read from the local newsagent. In my teenage years, I tried to play the guitar and write songs, but my guitar playing was rudimentary and eventually the songs turned into poems.
2. Where do you like to write?
I like to write during the first hour of the day, in bed with tea and biscuits. I find that to be the most creative time for me, as my mind hasn’t yet started grappling with any problems the day might bring and I haven’t yet looked at social media. It’s a time when I come up with what I consider to be my best ideas and a time when the writing flows. Plus, there’s a great feeling of satisfaction and relief to know that something has been written before the day has really got underway. I also enjoy writing in cafes, on trains, in hotel rooms and speaking ideas into my phone when I’m walking the fields and hills with my labrador.
3. Who is your favourite author?
I read everything written by Carl Hiaasen who writes eco thrillers.
4. What inspires you?
I like to think that as a writer I’m an ideas detective. Wherever I go, walking along the village street, a car journey, a visit to a museum or castle, a holiday, there are ideas to be found everywhere. Sometimes they are obvious ones, other times they crop up in the small print of the imagination, where they’ve been lurking for a while and suddenly make themselves known.
I find ideas in the things people say. Recently I heard a young girl call out to her brother ‘Every part of me hates you’. I quickly scribbled it down, wrote half the poem then and there, and finished it off at home the same day. Those sort of poems are gifts and often better than the ones that I struggle with for days or months even.
5. What was your favourite subject in school?
I loved history, and still do. We can find so many clues to what’s happening in the present day, when we look to the past.
6. How do you get over ‘Writers’ Block?’
The worst thing to do is to panic and get stressed about writers’ block. It’s far better to leave what’s causing the problem for a while and switch to working on another project or remove yourself from your writing room and do something completely different. I find that taking the dog for a walk often works for me.
I also find that a five minute ‘splurge’ often helps where I sit down for five minutes and write down anything that comes into my head. It often seems to have the effect of freeing up ideas and setting them in motion again.
7. Do you write on the computer or freehand?
My writing always starts off on scraps of paper or in notebooks. Occasionally it starts on the dictaphone. Then there’s always a time when I need to see what it looks like on the computer and that’s where it gets finished.
8. Do you play music while you write — and, if so, what’s your favourite?
Music has always been important to me. I get up in the sixties with the Beatles, the Stones, Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan. It was the lyrics of their songs that hooked me on words. I still play a lot of music, but not much when I’m writing. If I do play music then, it needs to be instrumental so the words can’t intrude on what I’m writing.
At the moment, I’m playing a lot of music by the Doors and the Velvet Underground
because I’ve recently read books about both groups and reading about them always sends me back to their songs.
As a performance poet, I’ve always played percussion with a lot of my poems. This emphasises the rhythm or adds atmosphere to the words.
9. How do you come up with titles for your books?
Mostly the titles come from one of the poems in my book, or sometimes from a line in one of the poems.
Thank you for your awesome interview drawing connections between music and writing, Brian! Follow Brian on his various sites and check out his showreel! Keep shining!
Website: brianmoses.co.uk
Blog: brian-moses.blogspot.com
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@bmredsea