How The Green Man came about.
Do you ever get a random image come popping into your head out of the ether? That's what happened to me. A few years ago I found myself pondering one such image which had planted itself between my ears. It was the figure of a man in the far distance, walking along the ridgeline of a deserted rural landscape. He had what I first took to be a long stick over his shoulder, which I later came to realise was a rifle. That image wormed its way into my psyche, and refused to come out. That was my first introduction to Nick Webb.
I mulled on that image, let it expand and grow shoots. Who was he? Why was he on his own? Where the hell had everyone else got to!? That was the start of The Green Man, and the outlines of the story grew to a point where I thought I'd better sit down and try to do the idea justice. Like many authors I suppose, the story carries some of the themes and ideas that interest me. The systematic suppression of a whole system of pre- Christian beliefs; that point at sunset where a well- known (and well- loved) rural vista suddenly becomes something other, if only for a short while. And that sense of stillness, and liminality that can creep over you, as you watch the light shift from day to dusk....
The end product was somewhat different to how I originally envisaged it (at some point during the writing process, I learned to let Rowan and Nick and the rest of the characters go where they wanted to), but I tried to retain that sense of stillness, where it was appropriate to the story.
Like Nick Webb, I also regularly get meaningless phrases dropping out of the ether and lodging themselves in my head. Like Nick, I’ve no idea where they come from, or indeed why. Some (within the Great Wood, and The Third Eye Foundation are a couple of examples) became part of the mythology of The Green Man.
I kept back some corkers for the sequel.
Do you ever get a random image come popping into your head out of the ether? That's what happened to me. A few years ago I found myself pondering one such image which had planted itself between my ears. It was the figure of a man in the far distance, walking along the ridgeline of a deserted rural landscape. He had what I first took to be a long stick over his shoulder, which I later came to realise was a rifle. That image wormed its way into my psyche, and refused to come out. That was my first introduction to Nick Webb.
I mulled on that image, let it expand and grow shoots. Who was he? Why was he on his own? Where the hell had everyone else got to!? That was the start of The Green Man, and the outlines of the story grew to a point where I thought I'd better sit down and try to do the idea justice. Like many authors I suppose, the story carries some of the themes and ideas that interest me. The systematic suppression of a whole system of pre- Christian beliefs; that point at sunset where a well- known (and well- loved) rural vista suddenly becomes something other, if only for a short while. And that sense of stillness, and liminality that can creep over you, as you watch the light shift from day to dusk....
The end product was somewhat different to how I originally envisaged it (at some point during the writing process, I learned to let Rowan and Nick and the rest of the characters go where they wanted to), but I tried to retain that sense of stillness, where it was appropriate to the story.
Like Nick Webb, I also regularly get meaningless phrases dropping out of the ether and lodging themselves in my head. Like Nick, I’ve no idea where they come from, or indeed why. Some (within the Great Wood, and The Third Eye Foundation are a couple of examples) became part of the mythology of The Green Man.
I kept back some corkers for the sequel.