How does the writing process work for you? Do you schedule a time every day, work madly when inspiration hits or ?

I am an INFJ empath and write in the moment predominantly through feeling. Thinking plays a larger part afterwards when I edit. There is no particular time of day that inspiration comes to me. It just flows when it flows and I go with it.

What did you find most difficult about the writing and publishing process? What was the easiest?

When I’m in the “zone’ there is nothing difficult about writing. Editing is much more difficult. The publishing process was a challenging learning curve.

What title (or titles) have you released?

This is my first book. The Bard of Biscuit City is a menagerie of literary genres: humour, romance, poetry, mystery, fantasy, allegory, an embedded children’s Absey (ABC) story, New Age and Christian spirituality, with sundry allusions to contemporary literature, art and music. It is an ode to William Shakespeare, a morality play with a salute to Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and third, a tip of cap to the legend of King Arthur’s Court and the Knights of the Round Table.

It’s also my own story. The original characters in this story represent aspects of many “personalities” rolled into one person, me, a unique human being in mind, body and Soul expressing fragmented embodiments or elements of my divine masculine and feminine sides. The central question in the story is, “Who is the Bard of Biscuit City?”  Of the twenty characters, one is the definitive Bard and the reader is invited try and guess who. Can you?

Do you have any new books in the planning or writing stage?

I do have several books on the back burner, and am already working on the sequel to The Bard of Biscuit City… with 20 new characters. It will be a lot of fun. I also have three completed original screenplays and an adapted mini-series of Ernest Buckler’s novel, “The Mountain and the Valley.” I will continue shopping them around to film and TV producers.

The Bard of Biscuit City is really just action and dialogue in verse, so it is an easy switch to screenplay format – definitely easily adapted for stage too. Looking forward to seeing it evolving as I love theatre, acting and film.

What would you like readers to know about you?

I’d like my readers to know I am a flawed, simple man of kind heart, or at least try to be daily. I think if they buy the book or check out my resume on Facebook they will get a more complete sense of who I am and the work I’ve done in my life. I’ve reached a point where I try not to think too much about what other people think.

Life is very short. It’s sacred. The precious beauty of God’s hand is all around us. I’ve had many “second chances” in life and I’m grateful for every one and every second here. I learned long ago that nothing should be taken for granted. You can lose everything in a heartbeat. Tragedy does not discriminate.

What is your favourite quote?

My favourite quote is from Blaise Pascal: “The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.”

Who is your favourite author you’ve met in the flesh and why?

My favourite author/writer I’ve met in person was the late Bob Hunter, co-founder of Greenpeace. Bob was my investigative journalism instructor in college. My proudest academic achievement was getting an A in his class for a short story I submitted after botching the investigative piece that was the entire grade for the course. Years later we literally bumped into each other coming in and out of a 7 Eleven store in Toronto. It was less than a year before he passed of prostate cancer in 2005. We laughed our tails off and then hung out in the parking lot reminiscing in what became one of the most heart-wrenching and moving conversations of my life.

I loved Bob so much. He was the best of us. When he passed I was gutted. Little did I know two years later I’d be diagnosed with the same cancer he had spoken to me so openly and honestly about in our last meeting. Bob could have failed me in journalism school, but he didn’t. He saw something in me. He knew I had talent and intelligence and an offbeat sense of humour akin to his. He showed faith in a young man who didn’t have much in himself. When he handed me the short story back, he smiled, looked at me with those one-of-a kind laser beam eyes that always spoke the truth, and said seriously, “Anyone that can make me laugh like that gets an “A.” Now smarten the F*@# up and do something with your life.” I said, “Thank you, Bob. I promise I’ll try.” And I kept that promise. He asked me what I had done when we last spoke and when I told him he said, “I’m proud of you, Paul.”

Bob Hunter changed the world. He changed me. Now, I hope my book will maybe help someone heal in some way too and change their world in a positive way.