Tim Baker Q&A

Tim Baker is the author of two brilliant novels that I’ve enjoyed immensely. The first, Fever City, is a wonderful JFK conspiracy thriller and put Tim on the map alongside the likes of James Elroy. 

His second, City Without Stars, is centred on the Mexican narco wars and the horrific femicides that have plagued some of the cities that rest against the US border. This is an assured and complex novel that can be compared to Don Winslow’s Cartel trilogy (the final instalment of which, The Border, is published in February 2019). I reviewed City Without Stars and you can read my review here: 
https://bit.ly/2Ml74Ds

In short, Tim is an author who produces work that can be read alongside the greats - Elroy and Winslow - and someone who’s work I really look forward to. So who better to teach me something about writing? 

I asked Tim for a Q&A and here it is.  

How do you get your ideas? What’s the process and how do they go from vague inspiration to fully fleshed out notions?

All my work starts with a visual image that excites me enough to want to explore it more. If I can locate a voice there, I follow it. I never know at the beginning where my stories will lead me.

Both your novels so far have dealt with conspiracies – Fever City, the Kennedy Assassination and City Without Stars, the Mexican drugs wars and the femicide that’s plagued border cities. What attracts you to these kinds of stories?

The notion of something hiding in plain sight has always appealed to me. History is made up of broad, block strokes, but it’s the novelist’s role to insert the shading and I’ve always been attracted especially to the shadows. We live in a world of injustice and rampant criminality, except that these days, the criminals are mainly businessmen, industrialists, media barons and politicians who control society. It’s never been a better time to be a crime novelist.

Tell me about the research that goes into your writing?

My non-fiction reading will unconsciously lead me to the story. For example, one day my wife asked me why I had so many books about Charlie Lucky Luciano on my bedside table. I hadn’t even realised it, but once she asked the question, I knew the answer: because I was going to write about him one day. Often times, my research takes place years before the actual novel begins. Once the writing starts, the research stops.

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

I never plot. It’s more exciting that way.

As a non-plotter, how do you make sure you don’t go off on wild tangents? 

It’s the journey, not the arrival. And sometimes you need to go off on those wild tangents, either because there’s something worthwhile lurking there, or just to get it out of your system. Luckily the trip is not made in real time. I go through many drafts – enough to see what I have to change to make sense of what’s come before and to ensure that outcomes are both unexpected and at the same time inevitable.

Tell me about your writing, do you write full time?

To my despair, and that of my bank manager, I write full time. That means that every day, in one way or another, I aim to advance my writing.

When is your most productive period of the day?

Until I became a father, it was always the night. Then I began to reassess the virtue of sleep. Now it is the morning, the earlier the better.

Is any part of your writing biographical or are any of that characters inspired by real people? 

None of my writing is biographical except that all of it reflects my own interests and concerns. I have quite a number of important secondary characters who are based on historical figures, but they are so much more interesting and complex when they become fictional characters.

Both your novels have been standalones, would you ever write a series?

It’s not on the cards, but who knows. Although my novels are standalones, they are interconnected by themes and by a number of characters who pass through all of them. 

What writing projects are you currently working on? 

A Cold War epic about three retired spies who come out of retirement to take down the presidents of the USA and Russia, and a thriller about a Mexican-American woman whose child is mistaken for a migrant and gets lost within the Child Separation System.

Tell me a little about your journey to success, how did you secure that all important agent and first publishing deal?

Persistence. Tenacity. Luck. They all played a role in my journey as a writer. I tried to identify the agents who were actively looking for the kind of work that I was producing and then aimed to send them the best submission pitch I could come up with. I do feel that once you get the right agent, you’ll tend to get the right publisher and the right deal.

Finally, I’m going to shamelessly poach two questions the author Mark Hill (author of His First Lie and It Was Her) used to put to writers on his blog. Like me, Mark was a book blogger before he became a successful author and I like to think that the answers to these questions helped him glean valuable help for his own writing. Certainly, reading them on his blog is helping me. So here goes:

What’s the hardest lesson you ever had to learn about writing?

The scenes you love the most are usually the first ones you have to sacrifice.

Give me some advice about writing?

Never listen to advice about writing. That way you’re free to make your own mistakes, and that’s the only way you’ll ever learn how to find your own voice.