The John McAllister Interview
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John McAllister Interviewd by Tina O'Rourke for "Northern Ireland Homes And Lifestyle."
Jimmy reached for the gun concealed in the dashboard. “So is this your idea of a friendly meeting?’”
So
opens, Ballymena born author, John McAllister’s debut novel ‘Line
of Flight’. We met up with John, late one afternoon, to talk about
his writing, where thankfully unlike his character Jimmy, John had no gun
concealed anywhere in his home office.
John, who has just recently semi-retired from his accountancy business in Armagh, ‘I
had an office down the town with staff; it was a big firm for a one-man band.
It was getting in the way of the writing. I had a novel accepted by Bluechrome
and I had been planning my exit from accountancy for a few years and I thought
now’s the time to go.’
Working from home now, John who would put any worker to shame, still puts in
two days a week with his accountancy firm, while also writing novels; his latest
novel ‘Steiner’, has been named as ‘Best Thriller’ in
the UKA Press, Opening Pages Competition. John also facilitates writing workshops
for the Cavan and Meath Arts Councils, alongside working as the production accountant
for Macdara Vallely’s feature film ‘Peacefire’, which is in
pre-production as we speak.
At the centre of this creative whirlwind though, John is a very calm, family
orientated man who just oozes enthusiasm for what he does, ‘my first novel
I wrote at boarding school, it was about ‘Paddy the Cowboy’, I’ve
still got it somewhere, it’s certainly unpublishable, then I stopped writing
for many years, because I didn’t realise writing wasn’t about inspiration.
It’s about keeping at it.’ Eventually Lucie (John’s daughter)
wrote a poem that rhymed and scanned. It has been in three anthologies, it has
won a national competition. ‘I thought if she can do it I can do it, and
that’s how I started’.
Growing up in Ballymena John was surrounded by books and trips to the local library
were a family affair, ‘Granny Sarah, I used to take her to the library
and she would get her books. When she got too old to go to, she would say, “John
would you get me a couple of cowboy books.” I didn’t know how I was
going to remember which ones I had got before, without reading them as well as
my own books. And she used to read four cowboy books every week. Eventually the
Librarian said, “John, instead of reading the books why don’t you
mark the inside of the cover of the books you take out?” So I started marking
the inside of the covers. Shortly afterwards I moved to Omagh to work and I couldn’t
go to the library anymore. My sister took over, but after a week she got back
to me and said, “you’ll never believe this, do you remember all those
years you were getting cowboy books for Granny Sarah?” I said, yes, “Well,” said
my sister, “She really wanted love stories but didn’t dare ask you…”
Still, it’s not at all surprising that John’s first novel was about
cowboys. To date John has written quite a few novels including, ‘Steiner’, ‘Pursuit’,
which is a prequel to ‘Line of Flight’ and is presently working on
a new one, ‘the working title is ‘The Blood Warm Sun’, all
I’ll say is I keep a travel book of Florence and an Italian dictionary
beside me, so I’m going out to Italy soon’.
Between running his accountancy business and obviously enjoying family life John
also managed to do a Masters in Creative Writing at Trinity College, Dublin, ‘I
thought, if I had a full year of grind, except I was running my firm at the same
time, which meant a four in the morning start to maybe nine at night, between
the two of them. It was a tiring year. I didn’t know what you did for a
masters so I wrote ‘Line of Flight’ and half a collection of short
stories. I actually did enough to get a PhD, and that is supposed to take three
years. Ignorance is bliss’.
John has also published a collection of short stories called ‘The Fly Pool’ alongside
being editor and joint editor of ‘Hometown’ (ABC Publications) and ‘Breaking
the Skin’ (Black Mountain Press), but when it comes to editing himself
John tells me it is his wife who is his best critic, ‘Patricia is very
supportive, she’d read something and say, “it’s all right,
boring, too slow, couldn’t be bothered finishing it’, And then one
day I wrote a story, which is the title story to the collection of short stories, ‘The
Fly Pool’, and she said, “it made me cry”, then I said, yeah
I’m there…’
At a time in their lives when most people are winding down and starting their
retirement John is embracing his second career with an inspirational amount of
energy, ‘I only need four to five hours a night, so I go to bed at midnight,
I get up at six and write. If it’s a Monday or a Wednesday and I’m
not working in the accountancy office I tend to get up at six, write for an hour
then go back to bed for an hour, taking coffee for Patricia, my wife. Then when
I kick her out to work and write to about eleven. By that time I’ve had
my fill, so the dog an I go for a long walk, and then have a good lunch break.
I either write for the afternoon, something different from the morning work,
catch up on some bookwork, I also mark assignments for the open college, so I
try and do the in the evenings’.
In it also during the couple of hours sleep that John’s ideas and inspirations
formulate, ‘I’d wake up with the story more or less in my head. That
happened with ‘Pursuit’. With ‘Line of Flight’ I had
to work at it. I sat down for ten minutes a day with a jotter and started with “somebody
is killing Jimmy’s men. Why are they killing Jimmy’s men? Jimmy intends
to find out who they are and, peace process or no peace process, sort them. That
was my kick off, I kept asking questions. The answers came very slowly. I tried
not to think about it in between writing stints’.
As our time together come to an end I ask John what advice would he give to a
writer starting out on their creative journey and he very clearly explains, ‘get
the character right first, I say to my writing group, get the character right
and the story will tell itself. Also if you are doing this you need the support
of the family, you really do, nothing is really that important except your family,
I have two smashing kids and a lovely wife.’
What more can anyone ask for? For further details of John’s novels or writing workshops log onto www.john-mcallister.com
Visit Tina O'Rourke HERE
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