Sam Kelly and David Bishop

Who are you and what do you do?

DB: My name's David Bishop, I'm a part-time lecturer on the new MA in Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University. The rest of the time I'm a freelance writer working on all manner of different stuff. Right now I'm writing an episode of the TV medical drama Doctors for broadcast on BBC1 in February 2010. Other projects include storylining a proposed animation series, writing a novel based on a popular television series [don't ask, I'm not allowed to say], scripting comics for a Scandinavian publisher, and developing ideas for radio drama.

SK: I'm Sam Kelly, and I'm Programme Leader for the MA in Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University. Before that I was a freelance-everything (editor, consultant, reviewer, occasional writer, mentor on your brilliant mentoring scheme) and before that I spent many years as a literary agent in London. This course is a full time job for me, so I'm not thinking about much else these days. David and I have worked together since January, developing the MA programme from scratch. That was fun, but it's incredibly exciting now that our first students have actually arrived. As I write this, we are at the beginning of Week 5. Blimey!

What is the best thing about working with writers?

DB: You learn so much from other writers - new approaches, new ideas. It's challenging but also immensely fulfilling. Plus you can have a lovely little jolt of pride when one of the people you've helped makes a breakthrough.

SK:  Working with writers is dialogue: in many ways, that's all it is - a skilled dialogue. A conversation with a writer about their work in progress is just the most dynamic, worthwhile, meaningful kind of conversation I can imagine. I really only went into the publishing industry for the quality of the chat, and I feel incredibly lucky that the thrill and fascination of those conversations is not only what I get paid for, but also a huge part of my life.

What's the best piece of advice you have been given and why?

DB: If you don't put your heart into what you're writing, whatever you're writing won't have much heart. Sounds a bit trite and clichéd now I've written that down, but I'd argue it's also true. You should fall in love with whatever you're writing. If you find yourself just going through the motions - stop!

SK:  I'm quite bad at taking advice, but whoever told me never to ask anyone to do something you wouldn't do yourself deserves the gratitude of all my students:  it's the mantra that stops me being the most ludicrously demanding person on the planet, and keeps my impossibly high standards in check. Most of the advice I took seriously when I was growing up came courtesy of my Grandpa, the Spike Milligan of Kidlington. "Don't eat anything bigger that your head" is one of his saner tips - and it's still the only diet I've been able to stick to.

What gets you really excited about a piece of writing?

DB: In my own writing, I love it when a story takes off and your fingers can't keep up with your imagination. Sometimes writing is a bit of a grind, few people can be inspired every hour of every day. But when your characters go off-piste - that's when the real fun and games start. When it comes to work by other writers, I love being surprised. Give me the unexpected [that's somehow also an inevitable consequence of what's come before] and I'll be hooked.

SK:  Ambition.  Stylistic, linguistic, technical, formal, philosophical, emotional - trailblazing or reactionary, it doesn't matter. Ambition is what floats my boat: writing which is determined to achieve something significant, by a writer who understands the boundaries they're pushing. I would rather read a million fantastic failures than one beautifully polished, banal piece of cliché.

And what puts you off?

DB: Adverbs. Flowery over-description. People who use every word under the sun to avoid typing 'said'. Dull writing. Predictable writing. Laboured exposition. Ooh, so many things! And that applies to writing by myself or by anyone else.

SK:  Have I mentioned cliché yet? Cliché of all kinds - but most particularly the more obvious, cosmetic quirks of postmodernism, which are easily copied by debut novelists, who get it second-hand and don't know what it is they're imitating. Too few writers bother to make it new, and that's a sadness for readers.

What's your favourite word and why?

DB: Imbroglio just sounds wonderful, but I've yet to find a reason [or even an excuse] to use it in a story. I did once manage to sneak the Italian word for mobile phone [telefonino] into a script, so imbroglio's day will come...

SK:  Mischief. It's one of those lovely words that starts to mean differently the more slowly you say it. Also, it's a thing in the world that I just couldn't live without. I seek it everywhere, and try to make a little more whenever I get the chance.

What was the book that changed your life?

DB: The World According to Garp by John Irving. It was the first book I read about life as a writer. It may be fiction, but it reads a lot like fact to me.

SK: Am I allowed two? Danny The Champion of the World by Roald Dahl was the first book I loved. It was the first book I read as a child that spoke directly to my own life (I'm not telling you which bits), instead of being all about posh girls having pointless adventures. Or worse, animals who could talk and wear little hats. I don't know if it changed my life, because I don't know what my life would have been like had I given up on reading stories at the grand old age of six. But at heart, Danny is a manifesto on the value of proper disobedience - and that's an important lesson to learn, at any age. If I can have two, then the second is Robert Coover's Pinocchio in Venice. As a lonely-hearted twentysomething, I spent a lot of time wondering whether I'd ever meet anyone else who really loved this book. It's not at all loveable in a conventional way, and seems to matter deeply to very few people - but eventually I found one. This was not his only extraordinary quality, but it was definitely the clincher. I moved to Scotland, with all possible haste, and married him.

Links:

Napier University Creative Writing MA