R.J. Hunt

What’s your background, what compelled you to start writing? 

I work in construction, as a highways engineer. I do a mix of site work and design work; drafting drawings, meeting clients, estimating costs and timelines of projects, setting out works for the construction team to build. It’s a varied job and I work with a great team, so it’s a good job. As for what compelled me to start writing – my friends. We’d all talked about writing but I couldn’t stick to one project. We decided to make a writing group, inspired by Brandon Sanderson’s online lessons. One thing that stuck with me was he said people play basketball and don’t expect to be in the NBAs, they just play because it’s fun. Writing can be the same. I’ve treated it like that and fallen in love with it.

What book from your childhood do you remember the best? Why?

Without a doubt, it has to be the Harry Potter series. When the books were being written, I was around the same age as Harry, and would read them front to back, then start again from book 1, waiting for the new ones to come out each year. When the final book came out, it was the first one I only read once, and it was a weird feeling for it all to be over.

Does writing energize you, or exhaust you?

Definitely energize. When I’m in the ‘zone’, I get sucked into my own little world and it feels amazing! It can exhaust if it feels like you’re not able to do something or if you feel like you’re not doing enough though. It’s all about balance, and I get it wrong all the time!

What’s your writing Kryptonite?

Probably the same as most writers and most people – self-doubt. It’s amazing how much our own brains can convince us that what we’re doing isn’t right, or will fail, or we’ll look silly. But nothing good ever came from giving up…

What one thing would/did you give up to be a writer?

Would have to be PlayStation time. I used to be a big gamer, and would play for a bit almost daily. Now I’ll go months without touching it, and only tend to play with my friends or if a truly great game comes out. Like God of War…

What is a little-known fact about you?

I’ve got two! I used to be deathly allergic to milk until my mid-twenties, when I somehow completely recovered, and I also broke my neck! Again, completely recovered!

What’s brewing? What projects are you working on?

At the moment I’m in the middle of a series of books about Floor Fifty-Four, a secret collection of mysterious items and creatures kept secret by the UK government. I’m making two types of stories in this world, a detective series exploring the origins of each item, and then separate standalone stories set in the facility itself, about the guards protecting the items and the scientists studying them. The first book is about a murderous phone box, an innocent vampire and two grown men trying to hunt a dog using peanut butter and ham.