nick Brooke

Nick was born in the mid-eighties in an asbestos-filled Forces hospital in northern Germany. I won't be more specific as to the date or year, as it tends to change depending on how old I need to pretend to be to be taken semi-seriously when writing

about any given subject. Suffice to say I've been in my twenties for about four years now and I'll be in them for about another ten, by which time I reckon I'll be able to write the perennial 'worrying about middle age' novel!

I regard myself as a definite child of the 90's though, the 'Before' decade. Before such technological achievements as the internet and mobile phones, before such disasters as the war on terror and reality TV. Before the Labour lie was revealed, before CGI ruined cinema and before hip hop took over the charts. I suppose when you get down to it, the 90's as a decade is pretty weak on it's own - instead preferring to snigger at the fashions of its predecessors while also taking some sort of moral high ground over its successor. But we loved it.

A lot of people ask me how I got into writing, and I've got to be honest and say that the answer I usually give is starting to sound tired now. I don't know whether that's because I'm tired of giving it (probably) or that it wasn't a particularly good one in the first place, but regrettably even as someone who earns money for making things up, I have to be truthful about this - and say that it's not the whole answer.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a rock star, but I discovered I couldn't sing. So I wanted to be a footballer, only I was crap. Then I wanted to be a film star, before I realised that that one I really didn't want. So when I looked around and saw what was left - politician or serial killer (remember theses were the days before celebrity gloss mags, when people who were famous had usually done something worthwhile to achieve that fame) I kind of figured that maybe fame was overrated after all.
So after realising that despite how I felt when drunk, I wasn't actually that important, I then watched my Dad retire from his job and fulfil his dream of writing a childrens book. When he got it published, I thought that it must be the easiest thing in the world to do and set out to try and outdo him.

That's basically it, unfortunately.
That anecdote I tell about being bored in the BMW factory is partly true, but it's only how I actually got off my arse and became a writer full time, rather than just becoming a writer full stop.