Questions and Answers
What are you currently working on?
Currently we are working on our second novel. As yet untitled it is based on the novella THE HIDDEN LANGUAGE OF DEMONS, which was published in 2002 by Prime Books. That itself was a shortened version of a novel we have written in different ways over the past fifteen years. It started life as a sprawling novel, The Web, but the retained 90,000 or so words are very different from that original version.
Actually to say 'second novel' is not wholly accurate because we have written about eleven over the past fifteen years or so, it is just that we have been happy with just the one, and that is the most recent, SHELTER, currently being read in USA..
As well as promoting our collection INCANTATIONS, which came out last year, and helping to begin to promote our 2003 scheduled novella THE SEMINAR.
Are you a member of any writing groups?
We are Active Horror Writers Association members. We are members of the British Fantasy Society. But we don't belong to any local writing groups or anything like that. Because we collaborate we find we are giving constant feedback to one another. We have involved editors and friends in the business to look at certain stories from time to time but at the end of the day fiction is such a subjective thing that someone else's opinion is just that, an opinion.
Is writing your full time occupation, if not what is?
Not yet. Len has been in the jewellery trade in London for thirty years of more. He started as a lapidary and still practices that trade whilst helping to run the shop and business. Mick began in Lloyds Bank in 1971 and is still there. He is a senior manger on the business side but spends most of his time networking, which seems to mean lots of lunches.
What was your first professional sale? How did it feel when you received the acceptance?
1974. A ghost story called CURTAIN CALL. Sold to London Mystery Magazine for £7. It coincided with the sale of another story, BENJAMIN'S SHADOW to the great Hugh Lamb for his Taste Of Fear anthology. The latter story was included in the original 1979 SHADOWS AT MIDNIGHT from the excellent Kimber & Co, while the former story was revised and along with all the original stories from the first edition, was included in the Sarob Press 1999 edition of SHADOWS AT MIDNIGHT.
Making that first sale felt great. We were young and had little or no feedback except from each other. To be accepted by such a marvellous magazine, and then by such a marvellous editor, made us realise that writing was what we wanted to do.
If you could give one piece of advice to a would-be author, what would it be?
We have been writing constantly for almost thirty years yet during that time there have long periods of inactivity. Also occasions when although active we were not focussed enough to get the job done. We didn't decide early enough what we wanted to write so have veered between stories, novellas, novels, horror, ghost stories, suspense and crime. We made writing a big deal so that if we had a spare hour or two we told ourselves we couldn't write because we didn't have three hours to sit down. There always seemed to be excuses. We didn't always write daily, or even weekly so that it became a discipline and a pleasure.
The one piece of advice is don't repeat our mistakes.
Are you for or against e-books?
We have been published on the Web and we even ran an e-zine Enigmatic Electronic for a while. Stories published on the Internet are a great source of reading for people. Look at HorrorNet for example. A site that gives writers a great forum to be noticed.
e-Books as the only version of a book though; say a novel exclusive to the web, aren't such a good idea. There is nothing like that feeling of holding a book in the hands, whether a brand new copy or an old and much sought after second hand book.
Are you a music fan? If so, what?
We have a similar taste in general, being rock orientated, but there are huge differences. Len played bass in a band for a while and understands music while Mick is tone deaf. We both like Saga, Beatles, Eloy, bands like that. Len loves Jethro Tull, has liked Genesis, loves Spocks Beard and Mostly Autumn. Mick has a passion for Soft Machine and Santana, and enjoys classical music.
We both enjoy a whole range of music, enjoying Avril Lavaigne, Pink, Dido...
Do you enjoy collaborating?
Oh yes. We have been doing it for thirty years or more. It was painful at the start, with lots of tense silences while we defended single words that the other wanted to cut out. We tended to write a story and bring it to the other who would criticise it with the intention of the original writer revising it. More often than not they didn't want to.
Then it evolved into one beginning a story and the other finishing it, before we evolved further into the style we adopt today. One writes a story, gives it to the other who revises. Sometimes revision is mere grammar or spellings; occasionally it is adding or subtracting thousands of words.
The pleasure has been the sharing of ideas, the encouragement of each other's abilities, and the complementing of each others weaknesses. We are great friends and the writing has added to that friendship whilst always being not quite equal to it.
Do You Always know a Story's Ending When You Begin Writing?
Rarely. With stories it is usually the first line that pops into the head followed by some semblance of plot. That part usually ends though before the last page is viewed in the minds eye. What this means is that the characters have to act out in a kind of darkness until they, and we or one of us, sees the light and the final paragraph can be written.
That is not always the case, as some stories have the final paragraph written first and then the rest gets added on.
What's the most memorable thing said in a review of your work?
There have been so many. I wish! Reviews seem to be few and far between. We usually see about five or six for each book.
We have had
"Like gentleman peddlers selling dark miracles, this long-time duet crafts fiction that reads like the secret geography of nightmare."
Which is better than most things we write ourselves!
"Buy it. Read it."
Which is succinct but helpful.
"Because I expect only the best from Maynard & Sims, no less. So, when they produce something that I define 'ordinary', that means fiction ordinary for them but which could be easily considered 'top rate' if coming from different authors."
Very pleasant.
And for our editing
"Fans of horror fiction have come to trust the judgement of Maynard and Sims, and with good reason. This team has been editing some of the best anthologies and novellas in the genre for several years now. If we're very lucky, they'll continue to bring us this quality work for many years to come."
Bad reviews? Sorry can't remember any of those
Is there something you are particularly proud of?
It is pleasing that we have written for so long and still enjoy it even more now than we used to. The writing process is done with more confidence these days and is all the more enjoyable for that.
We are proud of most of our collected work, the stories and novellas. We are pleased we have kept on plugging away at novellas so that we have finally completed one we are happy with.
We are also proud at the work we did with the Enigmatic Press titles and with Darkness Rising. Particularly for all those authors whose debut stories we featured that otherwise would possibly not have emerged. In the first five Darkness Rising volumes we have featured writers as young as fourteen.
We are proud we have stayed sane and friends throughout. We are extremely proud of our children, Iain Maynard and Emily Sims. Our wives, Karen and Clare, are pretty good too.
Plug away - what do you have coming out?
THE SEMINAR, a novella in hardback from Sarob Press in summer 2003. website : http://home.freeuk.net/sarobpress
FALLING INTO HEAVEN, our latest collection of stories due out summer 2004.
DARKNESS RISING, the USA anthology we edit has three volumes due this year.
SHELTER, our first novel fingers crossed may/should/could come out.
All details on www.maynard-sims.com
Many Thanks, Mick & Len!
Relevant LinksL.H. Maynard & M.P.N. Sims Main Bibliography
L.H. Maynard & M.P.N. Sims's Website
Sarob Press
Prime Books