I had an interesting Q&A session answering a range of questions about my writing, how I got started, my routines, and inspiration and so on. What’s interesting about it is that it forces me to think about and articulate many of the things I take for granted or haven’t considered for a long time. Whether you’re a writer or not, I think it can be a rewarding and enlightening experience.
There’s quite a bit, so I’ll add the entire session over a few posts. This is the first. Feel free to ask me your own questions.
Question: Can you tell us about your journey from the corporate world to becoming a writer?
P. J. Moroney: Well, I was always a writer, I think, but it was easier making a living working in corporate, so that’s what I did. I was good at it mostly and enjoyed a lot of it. It’s an interesting question to consider as I think the split between those two options reflected different sides of my persona. And I think my writing fed off my work to a large degree.
To start with, I never considered my writing to be a viable career option, so it was easy to work a job instead. My dad was a bit of a mover and shaker and would wear a suit to work every day, so I grew up around that. I never really considered any other option but white collar.
It suited me in ways. Back when I started, it was pretty ruthless, but I took to it. I saw it as a challenge and I discovered I was more robust and competitive than I thought. I enjoyed the cut and thrust. Enjoyed the striving. I think it made me a little of who I am.
It wasn’t a bad life. We were the cliche, worked hard, played hard. I had the attitude that I didn’t want to moulder and grow old in the corner, so I put my hand up for a lot. It was more interesting that way, and it could be very rewarding. It financed a lifestyle for many years.
For a while, I styled myself as a bit of a corporate bohemian. I was deliberately out of step in ways, but much of it came naturally. I realised it was more fun doing things for the experience than the reward, though I prospered from it. I was very confident of my abilities and always reckoned I was more value giving my honest opinion than toeing the conventional line. I think I got a reputation for being blunt, though once someone said I was like a wholesome, private school type. It might sound corny, but integrity was always important to me. I was never a yes man.
Long story short, you get older, life happens, shit happens, perspectives change, and so do the times. I was pretty jaded towards the end. Stale and unhappy. Even angry. I was writing a lot more by then – I’d always written – and was beginning to think that I might make something of it. The big moment came, and I took it – a redundancy. That’s when I really started to take my writing seriously.
I’m skipping over a lot of stuff here – a few catastrophes along the way, Covid, cancer, and so on, but that’s the general drift.
I still do some corporate stuff, but freelance, minus suit and tie, working from home and only when I want to. Have to pay the rent.
Question: You said you were angry. What were you angry about?
P. J. Moroney: I’d had cancer. I felt damaged. I was damaged – didn’t have the strength or stamina of before, I was half deaf and couldn’t speak near as well. It’s hard to take. I felt diminished, and it was a long time before I could accept it. I was always too proud.
Anyway, I returned as this lesser person. I had the will for the contest but not all the tools. So it seemed – and I think, in hindsight, I thought myself more deficient than I was. In the meantime, I felt labelled, categorised, squeezed into a smaller space. There was a bit of paranoia in it, but healthy paranoia, if such a thing exists. I could have let it go, but that wasn’t my style. Here I am.
Question: That’s quite powerful. How do you use that experience in your writing?
P. J. Moroney: Time will tell.
Question: How ambitious were you in your corporate life?
P. J. Moroney: That’s an interesting one to answer. I think I was ambitious on principle, but I was never much interested in status. I took things on like they were a contest I had to win. The harder and tougher it was, the more I liked it. When I started out one of my best mates told me he didn’t want any responsibility and I couldn’t get that. I wanted responsibility. I wanted to be the man, and that was true for many years. There’s some interesting psychology in that I might write about one day. Maybe I have already.
I never wanted to be CEO or anything like that, though. It was too reductive to me. What I craved was the challenge, which is why I moved from contract to contract and took on projects, I think. I liked jobs I could score.
I was ambitious from the point of view of the challenge and the rewards, but it was all about life experience. I wanted to live fully, which is why I moved between jobs and why I travelled. I had my own business for a bit, and I’m glad I did – that was a dare I couldn’t refuse. It was lucrative while it lasted, but life moves on.
Question: What inspired you to write your first novel?
P. J. Moroney: Was it inspiration? There was no light bulb moment. I was always writing. Scraps mainly. Short stories. I figured I wanted to write a novel one day, but…
This was about 20-odd years ago. One day, I had the idea for the novel. I don’t know where it came from. Elsewhere, I’ve said Heart of Darkness influenced me. I loved that book. The theme of journeying into darkness is a killer. Very me, as it turns out. Plus, the voice of Marlowe – I wanted first-person omniscient for my novel. But is there a direct connection? I doubt it. I think that probably came later.
I loved the old film noir movies, too. They probably had an indirect influence. But where did the idea come from? Magic. Thin air. One day, it wasn’t; the next day it was. That’s the beauty of creativity – it has depths you can never understand.
Mind you, though the idea came way back, it took many years before I started to write it. I’m glad it happened. For a long time, I thought it never would.