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Most of them arrive as dreams. The \u201cseed\u201d for Who Built The Humans? was a few jokes I wrote based on a previous book. The book before that started as a short story that started as a question, \u201cWhat if I died and met a robot that claimed it created the universe?\u201d<\/p>\n
Those are the sorts of things that interest me, and the things you will find in Who Built The Humans?<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n My favourite genre to read is science books, specifically those that bridge the gap between physics and philosophy. I particularly like \u201cWhy does the world exist\u201d (Jim Holt) and \u201csum\u201d (David Eagleman). I\u2019ll also pick up anything related to time, time travel, or how we perceive and conceptualise time. I\u2019m not a time traveller though, I just find it interesting.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My book titles arrive from what I call the \u201cseed idea\u201d, the central thought that drives the book, so that way I\u2019ve never struggled with titles unless it\u2019s a big book with many central ideas. In my (unreleased) 2016 novel, The Stephanie Glitch, Stephanie tries to understand the significance of her own existence in a confusing and broken multiverse. In her quest she decides she is a glitch in a simulated reality. This may or may not be true, and this central question became the title. Before that, the working title was simply \u201cafterlife\u201d, which was unreasonably dull.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There is a sequence of 10 connected time travel stories in Who Built The Humans?<\/em>, and one scene where a time traveller notices his partner\u2019s necklace was left behind in the future. I had originally included a later scene where he finds a replacement and gifts it to her, and a subsequent scene where she is wearing it near the end of the story, but the gifting scene didn\u2019t fit the tone. I am writing an expanded timeline that fills gaps like these for the handful of people who might be interested, but the published stories did not need every moment to be included.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I don\u2019t believe it exists. I\u2019ve only struggled for ideas once whilst on potent migraine medication, and promptly stopped taking it (it made ideas slippery and hard to keep hold of). I think what a lot of people call \u201cwriter\u2019s block\u201d is actually a lack of confidence in themselves or the ideas. If people put more thought into what inspires them, and more time into thinking about it, I think a lot of writer\u2019s block would dissolve.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I have been both a writer and a publisher in equal measure in recent years, working primarily with short stories and poems. My most recent project is Who Built The Humans?, which is the book I am most confident about. It\u2019s brilliant. Officially it took two years to write and publish, but its roots stretch back farther than that, so it means a lot to me.<\/p>\n Who Built The Humans? is a collection of 47 short stories, from soaring Science Fiction to searing Satire. These can be enjoyed as standalone pieces, but readers who want deeper worldbuilding will be pleased to know that each story is set in one of 11 distinct universes, and that each of these contributes to a larger, poetic whole. The format of the book itself was meticulously designed to support this duality of form. A front to back read will enable you to enjoy each story individually without two stories from the same universe bumping into each other, and a secondary index (called the Cosmic Topology) will help readers follow universes they become invested in. This way it is both a short story collection and what I call a \u201cfragmented novel\u201d. The Science Fiction side asks (and then attempts to answer) big questions, and the satire side takes those questions and pokes holes in them with a big stick. Why did aliens create humans? They were probably just lonely.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also a \u201cbuild-your-own-adventure\u201d style narrative built with 15 of the 47 stories, so that that particular universe can give each reader a different experience based on their choices.<\/p>\n Where can you find Phillip?<\/strong><\/p>\n2. What\u2019s your favourite genre to read?<\/h3>\n
3. How do you choose your book\u2019s title(s)?<\/h3>\n
4. Tell us about a scene that you loved but had to edit out of your book<\/h3>\n
5. What do you do when you have writer\u2019s block?<\/h3>\n
6. Tell us about your writing\/ published book(s)<\/h3>\n
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