I’m a Scottish writer with ten novels published in the genre press and over 200 short story credits in thirteen countries, the author of the ongoing Midnight Eye series among others. My work has appeared in a number of professional anthologies.
My current best seller is THE INVASION, a sci-fi alien invasion tale with mass carnage, plucky survivors, and last minute rescues. It has been as high as #2 in the Kindle > science fiction charts. (and #4 in Kindle > horror ).
Please check it out
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THE INVASION
This one is my homage to ’50s SF. The Invasion is an old-school alien invasion story, complete with fleets of ships overhead, plucky survivors, and last-minute rescues.
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I’ve been asked many times why I write what I do.
I choose to write mainly at the pulpy end of the market, populating my stories with monsters, myths, men who like a drink and a smoke, and more monsters. People who like this sort of thing like it.
I’ve also been criticised for it by people who don’t get it. Willie Meikle is…”the author of the most cliched, derivative drivel imaginable…the critical acclaim he receives from his peers is virtually non-existent.” is only one of the responses I’ve had.
Now, I don’t write for the critical acclaim of my peers. I couldn’t give a toss what other writers think of me. I’m writing for two reasons… myself and a readership. Posterity, if there is one, can decide on whether it’s any good or not. Besides, the harder I work at it making my writing accessible, the more readers I get, so I’m doing something right.
But that’s still not why I do it. My pat answer has always been the same. “I like monsters.”
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BERSERKER
A Viking vs Yeti novelOn their first Viking Tor and Skald must stand up and be counted, for their destinies await them high in the mountains, where the hairy beasts make their lair.
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But it goes deeper than that
I write to escape.
I grew up on a West of Scotland council estate in a town where you were either unemployed or working in the steelworks, and sometimes both. Many of the townspeople led hard, miserable lifes of quiet, and sometimes not so quiet desperation. I was relatively lucky in that both my parents worked, but I spent a lot of time alone or at my grandparent’s house.
My Granddad was housebound, and a voracious reader. I got the habit from him, and through him I discovered the Pan Books of Horror and Lovecraft, but I also discovered westerns, science fiction, war novels and the likes of Mickey Spillane, Ed McBain, Alistair MacLean, Dennis Wheatley, Nigel Tranter, Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov. When you mix all that together with DC Comics, Tarzan, Gerry Anderson and Dr Who then, later on, Hammer and Universal movies on the BBC, you can see how the pulp became embedded in my psyche.
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AUGUSTUS SETON
I’ve toyed many times with writing fantasy, and now I’ve actually done some. Augustus Seton is a 16th Century Scottish swordsman, seeking redemption for past evils.
AMAZON.COM | AMAZON UK
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When I was at school these books and my guitar were all that kept me sane in a town that was going downhill fast. The steelworks shut and employment got worse. I -could- have started writing about that, but why bother? All I had to do was walk outside and I’d get it slapped in my face. That horror was all too real.
So I took up my pen and wrote. At first it was song lyrics, designed (mostly unsuccessfully) to get me closer to girls.
I tried my hand at a few short stories but had no confidence in them and hid them away. And that was that for many years.
I didn’t get the urge again until I was past thirty and trapped in a very boring job. My home town had continued to stagnate and, unless I wanted to spend my whole life drinking (something I was actively considering at the time), returning there wasn’t an option.
As I said before, I write to escape.
My brain needed something, and writing gave it what was required. That point, back nearly twenty years ago, was like switching on an engine, one that has been running steadily ever since.
And most of the time, the things that engine chooses to give me to write are very pulpy.
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CRUSTACEANS
It begins with a dead whale on a Boston shoreline–not in itself an unusual occurrence. But the things that claw their way out of the blubber are very unusual indeed. Soon they are swarming around Manhattan, hunted and harried by a SWAT team tasked with ridding the city of the menace… before the menace gets big enough to rid itself of the city.
AMAZON.COM | AMAZON UK | NOOKBOOK
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I think you have to have grown up with pulp to -get- it. A lot of writers have been told that pulp=bad plotting and that you have to have deep psychological insight in your work for it to be valid. They’ve also been told that pulp=bad writing, and they believe it. Whereas I remember the joy I got from early Moorcock, from Mickey Spillane and further back, A E Merritt and H Rider Haggard. I’d love to have a chance to write a Tarzan, John Carter, Allan Quartermain, Mike Hammer or Conan novel, whereas a lot of writers I know would sniff and turn their noses up at the very thought of it.
I write to escape.
I haven’t managed it yet, but I’m working on it
Great to meet you!
I grew up reading pulp and comics,from Superman to Karl May,in a steel town in Luxemburg. Your about me page is a refreshingly honest read. I confess that I abandoned sci-fi and fantasy a long time ago for the snobby stuff and the non-fiction genres. As it happens, I am reading a book by Robert j Sawyer, End of an Era and I am loving it. So, it is a pleasure to meet you this way and I am looking forward to your tweets. Why not recommend what you consider your best effort and I will buy and read it. You can contact me by email or on twitter.
BTW, I think that when we are in escape mode, what from is not as important as where to.
Cheers LM
Very pleased to make your acquaintance William. It is clear you are an interesting person, doing some very fine writing. Be sure to ignore those nasty goblins who are missing the point altogether.
Best Wishes
ML
mountain-lord.blogspot.com/
I grew up reading everything from the Hardy Boys to Marvel & DC comics to science fiction to Shakespeare (Asimov is without question my favourite author of all time)…so I can appreciate escapism and all its bizarre and beautiful incarnations. Best wishes, and it’s nice to meet you!
Hi Willie
I love your intro. I haven’t read any of your stuff (yet) and it’s not usually my type of thing (I like pulp thrillers when I go for pulp which is often) but I think it’s FANTASTIC that you are writing what you want to write.
So much of what I read these days is ‘off the shelf’ by which I suppose I do mean derivative and without conviction. There’s nothing wrong with that but I’m not interested in it.
I want to read stuff that comes from people, not stuff that people write to try and fit in with ‘the market’. So, more power to you. And if ‘the market’ likes it – that’s a Brucie bonus.
I write because I can’t actually do much else – the Samuel Beckett defense, but without his attacking genius I fear.
Cathy x
I hlhgiy recommend getting this one, to be honest I hlhgiy recommend getting all of Willies books. He writes the books I love to read
That’s quite the back catalogue you have of work, there. Good going.
That critic’s quote you posted is rather amusing! It was rather pompous sounding.
Hi William Thanks for lteting my viking greedy hands on Beserker, sneaked a peak at the first few pages and I'm now gasping to read the rest. In fact I've had a recent spate of norse mythology/viking themed books fly my way, I've had yours, currently plowing through Christopher Spellman's The Raven and The Wolf, got Norse Code by Greg van Eekhout on the pile and then Age of Odin by James Lovegrove on order! Ah well means, I'll have lots of fun reading to do in the next few months I would love to know what kind of vikingy books you've read and loved and if there are any you can recommend me – to find out what I have read you're best visiting my blog or going to my goodreads.com section as I have individual bookshelfs for historical fiction and norse fantasy.Be in touch Becky
William, a friend in the US alerted me to you after reading an article in Nature ( I’m still looking for that!) She made the assumption we were related as I am a Meikle also by birth, brought up in a sad little mill town on the West Coast of Scotland. There is every possibility we are related of course- somewhere along the way. This is not the genre I would normally read although my teenage daughter is a voracious reader also and she dearms of being an author. Are your books a suitable read for a 13 yr old girl? I think she would be inspired to know that a ‘distant relative’ is a successful author!
Best wishes, Cousin, Health and Happiness!
Janie
Hi Janie — I’m from Kilbirnie in Ayrshire – a sad little mill town on the West Coast of Scotland
My dad’s side of the family were mostly from Beith.
Most of my books will be OK for a 13 year old. Especially good for her would be the Watchers trilogy (3 ebooks or one paperback) which is a historical vampire story set in Scotland in 1745.
As for the Nature story… it’s also online here:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v477/n7364/full/477364a.html
Hi your work sounds intriguing, though not a follower of pulp or horror, but do not ind Sci-Fi.
Presently writing my own novel hope to done by Easter, lord knows have been doing it long enough. Great meeting writers I have a few on Facebook…
A refreshingly honest bio! Sounds like fun stuff to read and write. I’m looking forward to your tweets. – Sheryl
ps. I love monsters too!!
Hi,
I just nominated you for a Versatile Blogger Award. I was nominated for it recently and you’re one of my nominations at http://dmlbooks.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/the-versatile-blogger-award
Congratulations!
The rules of this nomination are as follows.
1. Thank the award-giver and link back to them in your post.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Pass this award along to 15 others.
4. Contact your chosen bloggers to let them know about the award.
Best wishes,
Dennis M Lane
I really enjoyed reading this blog post, and a lot of it reminded me of myself. I write and read to escape as well. Nice to meet you!
Interesting Introduction. I look forward to reading some of your books, they sound like my cup of tea
Cheers – Steve
Hi Willie
You write to escape. I write in a very modest way for myself, to let myself out, purely cathartic. I think all of us creative sorts have so much inside us that it has to come out in some form or other whether it be in writing, playing an instrument or cavorting flamboyantly on a stage. We have the need, impulse and thankfully the ability to do it – to let our self out. So for me the ‘escape’ is in being able to unshackle my thoughts, my hopes and my dreams and to express them in those most wonderful of things, words. I don’t think it matters what we write or what anyone else thinks of it as we are the ones who gain the most from it. We are embodied in what we write and in doing so come to know and understand our self so very well. Knowing oneself so completely is a wonderful gift.
Its quite refreshing to see a writer who I feel a connection with just by reading your intro. Being one with a large imagination and lover of sciance fiction and fantasy its inspiring. I honestly could not see myself writing novels or short stories simply for the money or fame/glory. For me, being one who has a tendency of using spell checker and bad grammar it’s all about getting the things in my head on paper and being happy that I could just tell my story.
I would just like to say thank you for sharing and giving me the inspiration to write.
It is refreshing to read a good profile, unique, such as yours. I believe, as I’ve learned in my own life, that suffering seems to be what really motivates the best in us (humans). Many who do not suffer quite as much as we do, sort of miss out on something inside us that allows us to truly grow. BTW, I like monsters, too, accept for the real ones (and there are some real ones I can guarantee you that). Best wishes, Thomas Walton
William,
Great explanation of your work. I don’t usually read monsters but man you’re really making me want to. Plus you’re Scots and that alone makes you special! Enjoyed your blog and so glad you don’t listen to your detractors. What do they know anyway! Pish.