King’s C.R.O.W.N.ing Authors with Catherine Doyle

It’s Monday and we have our scheduled King’s C.R.O.W.N.ing Authors (Cajoling Random Observations Now) interview. Please welcome Catherine Doyle.

We are waiting for your wonderfully answers, Catherine.

1. Do you have a spirit animal that helps with your writing? (If so how do you feed it, If not…why not?)

Sadly, I’m not responsible enough to have a spirit animal. I’ll have to start small first – maybe acquire a spirit cactus and see how I get on with that.

2. Is one expected to howl along when one’s dog cries to a full moon? (asking for a friend)

Definitely. It’s like when everyone else is clapping along to a song and you’re not. It’s just rude. Nobody wants to be that guy.

3. You have spilt hot candle wax all over your printed MS what will you do?

Ah, the perils of writing in atmospheric candlelight. I’d just do what I always do when this happens to me. I’d stain the entire MS with an old tea bag and then burn the edges until they’re blackened and crisp. I’d subtitle it ‘Yee olde manuscripte’, roll it into a scroll and then send it to my editor via my carrier pigeon.

4. Would you ever consider having your book printed on edible paper?

As the basis of a practical joke, I think it would be really entertaining (for me, no one else, probably) if I made a point of eating my MS in front of my friends while wailing about how terrible it is. Then at the end, I’d be like ,“Haha, just kidding, guys, that was actually delicious”, but by that point, everyone would have already left. So. I guess what I’m trying to say is, yes. Yes, I would.

5. Was Romeo all that?

Romeo seems like a stand-up guy.

6. If I say eye patch you say _______________

Parrot! Specifically, Iago from Aladdin. I hate that parrot. My problem isn’t even that he’s evil, it’s that he’s annoying. He is so mouthy. Ugh, why did you bring this up? Now I’m in a bad mood.

7. When I was your age my phone would only ring/text, how did I survive a night out back then? (and the phone’s had NO cameras!)

Hmmm… this feels like a riddle. If you go on a night out and there are no cameras around to document and insta-filter the night moment-by-moment, then did the night really happen at all?

8. You are stuck in a time loop, it’s the year you were editing your book – what would you do to stop the loop?

OK. NOBODY PANIC. First, I would take advantage of the repetitive structure of my year by documenting, learning and successfully playing the stock market until I became filthy rich. I’d then write a note saying something like, “Hey, whoever finds this, if you break me out of this time loop I’ll pay you a million euro”. I’d tie the note to my carrier pigeon. Then I’d sit back and wait by my heated indoor swimming pool until someone found the note and broke me out of my time loop. *NB: The flimsiness of this plot is exactly why I don’t write sci-fi or time-travel novels.

9. What is your writing secret?

I’m really good at squashing those inevitable crippling bouts of self-doubt that come with writing by covering my ears and singing “LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU” until they go away. I also tend to write very late at night when it’s quiet (and more atmospheric).

10. Name: a book you’d like to lick, a pet’s name, a verb you love to do, and now use them in making a sentence in which you will ask the bus driver to stop.

Book: Life of Pi (I took some liberties with this). Pet: Snoopy (my first rabbit, RIP bro). Verb: snail-pacing (this is the highest form of procrastination). “Hey, HEY YOU, I’ve been sitting on this dank bus with a lap full of baked goods for hours, and I sure as hell don’t want to be worrying about the shelf-life of pie while I’m snail-pacing my way to a Halloween dinner dressed up as that bell-end Snoopy from the Peanuts comic-strip, so please stop this bus right now so I can get a cab.”

Thank you, Catherine. That was very Alice in Wonderland. And I, being a King, dub thee crowned.

About Catherine Doyle

Catherine is 24 years old and is from the West of Ireland. She’s represented by Claire Wilson of Rogers, Coleridge & White, in London. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and a Master’s Degree in Literature & Publishing. Catherine enjoy movies, books, travelling, the company of my friends, running, and discussing ridiculous hypothetical situations that will never happen in real life. And she is also deeply suspicious of cats and ladybugs.