Colin Cotterill is perhaps best known for his Dr. Siri series of mystery novels set in post-war Laos, including The Coroner’s Lunch, Thirty Three Teeth and Disco For The Departed. Colin Cotterill was born in London in 1952. He has taught in Australia, the United States and Japan, and has lived in Thailand, on the Burmese border and in Laos, and has lived in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.

Bakka’s Literary Editor, Bryan Thao Worra caught up recently with him to discuss his writing and future projects.

Bryan Thao Worra: What was your most difficult novel to write so far?
Colin Cotterill: By far the most difficult novel to write was the third in the Dr. Siri series Disco for the Departed. Until that point I’d largely been writing for myself. I’d written three novels locally (published in Thailand) that gleaned a readership of about six people apiece. I’d written the first two Dr. Siris before I got any feedback from the first. Writing, by then, had become a sort of diary experience.

I could say pretty much what I wanted because the journal had a lock and I slept with the key under my pillow. Nobody would know. Then all hell broke loose. I started to get fan mail and there were reviews in mass-circulation newspapers, and I was bombarded with feedback. And the realization slapped me across the cheek that there were people, not only reading my books, but having opinions about them, taking sides with or against characters, feeling emotions I’d plucked from the air.

Words became heavier things. I would lumber them into sentences with the weight of public opinion on their back. It took me a long time to write Disco and when it was done I hid it away, afraid that I’d over-pandered, curried favor to the point of it going hard in the pot. But, after a couple of months when I retrieved my frightening book, I found that it was charming. Somehow, the characters and the country of Laos had carried the story all by themselves and I knew I was no longer responsible for my books. I just write them.

BTW: What’s one of the best compliments you’ve received about your work?
CC: I’m always cautious as to how I represent the Lao in my books. I want to show their warmth and sense of humor but I don’t want them to look like caricatures. I want to show that they have strength and weaknesses just like all of us. There are a number of dangers inherent in putting yourself into the body of somebody of a different culture.

Language is an obvious pitfall. Do I use a direct translation of the Lao and leave audiences baffled, or do I use colloquial English that will better show the thoughts and relationships? Do I select stereotypes that the west can identify with: subservient Asian women, polite men, or do I select characters with strength who speak out for their race?

All of these questions go into the balance and I realize I can’t satisfy every reader. But the best compliments are those I get from the Lao themselves because it makes me think I’ve got it right on certain levels.

I receive nice letters from expat Lao who tell me how “at home” they feel reading the books, and from second generation Lao and Hmong who like to discuss points from the books with their parents. My favorite compliment was from an elderly Lao gentleman in Vientiane who is a big fan and “relates to Dr. Siri”. I really like that.

BTW: People often talk about how they get started in the arts, but less so why they remain in the arts. What’s been the driving motivation for you to keep creative?
CC: In many ways I’ve been blessed with an imagination that doesn’t let up. I guess it’s one of the results of being an only child. I was making up friends from a very young age. I’ve now reached the stage where I have whatever the opposite of writer’s block is called. I have too many ideas passing through my mind and need to clear out the bric-a-brac before I can find the pieces that work.

So, to answer your question, if I were not making a living from being creative, I would be a Walter Mitty character, walking around talking to imaginary people and seeing things that aren’t really there. I’d have a top corner room at the nursing home.

I’ve wondered lately how “being a pro” affects my output. Once agents and publishers are involved, you lose that spontaneity. You start to write for other people and it twists you in directions you hadn’t planned to go. It’s an interesting exercise: seeing how true you can remain to yourself and what you consider your style. Your motivation for writing the next book becomes, I have to buy tiles for the roof so I’ll put in a sex scene or two.

I only recently became a capitalist so my earlier writing wasn’t influenced by slate. But when I compare my old stories with the things I’m doing now, I don’t see much of a leap. I think this is a good sign.

BTW: When is a piece finished, to you?
CC: I think the question is more like: when are you prepared to put it down? You could continue tweaking and shuffling ad infinitum. Every time I pick up an old story I find myself saying, “Damn, why didn’t I get her to say that?’ or “Why isn’t he wearing a raincoat?” It’s a process that never really ends.

I think this perfectionism turns a lot of potentially fine writers into nervous wrecks, never satisfied, so never finishing anything. So, ‘finished’ to me is more of an admission that, given the time and mental constraints, given the finite limits of my ability, this is the best I can do. I’ve made my point. Time to move on to part B.

BTW: What’s been the biggest surprise for you about the writing process?
CC: I think my biggest surprise was how much more difficult it is to write a full-length novel than other forms of writing. I’ve read authors equate the writing of a full-length novel to the gestation period of a human baby.  I haven’t had the pleasure of giving birth but for many years I was plagued with kidney stones. Therefore I am forced to extend both my imagination and the ‘passing period’ of a very large stone to nine months, in order to give birth to a suitable simile for how painful and prolonged the writing process can be.

It hurts.

If I were an organized person I would probably be able to plan and plot my stories from page one to the end, with bios of main and subsidiary characters. I’m sure the writing process would be a lot easier if I could do that. But it’s incredibly boring. I like to ride through my stories with the same uncertainty as a reader, not knowing whether the protagonist will drink the poisoned elixir or if the heroin will be untied from the railroad track.

Hence, I have an awful lot of juggling and rewriting to do along the way. I have a terrible memory and it isn’t unheard of for me to kill off a character in chapter three, only to have them drinking beer in the local pub in chapter seven.

There is a good deal of fun to be derived from writing, but the additional frustration and agony that accompanies the writing of a full length book calls for a different kind of dedication. I don’t believe you can be half-serious about it. I go away for a month with my notes and my research and I lock myself away…write twelve hours a day, get moody, shout at birds, doubt my abilities and my value on the planet. But then it comes, that final spurt, and you can finally breathe normally.

BTW: Who have been your persistent inspirations for your writing?
CC: I read very little fiction and although there are writers who impress me, I can’t go so far as to say they have inspired me. I’m more influenced by journalism, the type that gets in, gets the job done, and gets out only slightly injured.  Even though I don’t practice it, I enjoy that economy of words, telling your story as succinctly as possible and getting the facts right. I like getting lost in the musings of travel writers and modern history documenters who have the ability to put you there at the scene with the minimum of fuss. Unlike most writers, I was inspired to read after I started to write. I suppose that once I discovered how difficult the writing process was, I needed to read other writers to see whether they made it look any easier. But once you start to analyze what you’re reading, it stops being a pleasure.

I grew up reading Mad magazine and Marvel Comics and, with that confession out of the way, I now feel a need to champion the rights of the comic reader. I have heard teachers bemoan the fact that children these days seem more interested in manga than in real books. I concede that there is a lot of junk in comics. But I’ve found a good deal of excrement in “real books” too.

I love to see kids looking at the pictures and being lost in a fantasy and, quite frankly, I don’t care if it’s a trashy samurai slash and burn tale. I believe the imagination deserves a workout every bit as much as the abs. I can’t guarantee manga will set off our kids in the direction of excellent literature, but I’d sooner have them absorbed in cartoon fiction than watching celebrities clean their teeth beneath a hidden bathroom cam. I gladly give credit for my weirdness and my overactive imagination to Alfred E. Newman.

BTW: What are some of your next projects you’re working on?
CC: We just moved so the concept of spare time has vanished for a while. I love making ridiculous art objects and I already have a huge collection of debris I’ve picked up from the beach. I also have the outline of a graphic novel that will take about a year to complete. These are two of my outside the box fantasies that will get air time as soon as we have walls and a front door. In the meantime I have to make a living. I just sent the sixth Dr. Siri book The Merry Misogynist off to the editor and I can relax for a few months before I start thinking about the next. (I have a contract to book seven.)

I’m working on a collection of short stories about characters over sixty-five with something in their past or their present that they have every right to be ashamed of. I wanted to call this, Disgusting Old People, but I think the PC people already have my name on a hit-list so I’m now going with, Aging Disgracefully. I’m trying to sneak in a couple of graphic stories and hope the publishers won’t notice. I only have one book trip planned for this year, to the Harrogate Crime festival in England in July.

BTW: How did you feel when you realized you’d just sold your first novel?
CC: I’ve always been aware that there are far more writers than there are spaces on bookshelves and that over ninety percent of the writing community will never be published. Publishers no longer look at unsolicited manuscripts and reputable agents have their lists full with successful clients.

Breaking into the publishing business takes a lot more than talent. I have no doubt there are many writers out there who are more capable than me but who just can’t get anyone to look at their manuscripts.

So it was with a mixture of shock and awe that I read the email from my New York agent telling me he liked my Dr. Siri idea and felt sure he could find a publisher to represent my work.

And then, six months later, good to his word, he forwarded the email from a publisher who was excited to put the good doctor into bookshops.

Strangely, I believe I felt guilty when that happened. I felt guilty that I had found the serendipity to cast a spell on an agent in his moment of weakness. I felt guilty, while so many starving writers send manuscript after manuscript and collect rejections in albums like stamps, that I had landed in the arms of a genuine publisher at my first serious attempt. I humbly apologize to those of you still starving.

BTW: Are there any trends in contemporary literature that excite you? And conversely, any that really irritate you at the moment?
CC: When I started the Siri series I didn’t realize I had to be slotted into a genre in order to be sold. I thought I just wrote stories with a mix of adventure and mysticism. It wasn’t till the reviews came back that I saw the title: Colin Cotterill, mystery writer. In the UK they don’t have a mystery genre so I’m a crime writer. I realize that this helps the publisher sell your books directly into a market but I find it very misleading because it causes some books not to be read. The reader, “just doesn’t like mysteries” so doesn’t bother to pick it up. My books contain a significant spiritual element and I often see comments like, “I felt a little uncomfortable to find ghosts in a crime novel.” I’m sure readers of supernatural books would enjoy me but they don’t pick up thrillers.

I think there is a trend for big publishers to take more chances than they used to with works that are outside the usual lane markings. The traditional crime thriller set in a grimy north American city or a Glasgow slum has been done to death and I think readers are looking for something more exotic. A series set in Bangkok or Mongolia has a greater chance of being picked up by a mainstream publisher than it would have say ten years ago. That’s good news for the few of us who stick with the exotic.

BTW: What are the responsibilities of a good writer, in your eyes?
CC: This is a tough one. I think good writing finds its own level and its own readers. I think the writer has an obligation to inform and challenge and attempt new things rather than churning out the same book over and over again.

I often wonder whether I’m guilty on that charge which is why I’m in a hurry to get something different out.

On a personal level I think a good writer is one who doesn’t insist on showing readers how clever he or she is. As a reader, I want to go through the journey with the writer, not to be elbowed out every now and then by language or facts that make me feel as if my education was lacking. A good writer educates but doesn’t lecture.

BTW: How did you first find yourself involved in Laos?
CC: My involvement with Laos began long before I moved there, back in 1978 when I was working with the Adult Migrant Education Service in Australia. I met and worked with many Lao families who had fled the communists. I became particularly friendly with one ex-Royalist family and spent many fascinating hours around the kitchen table hearing stories about old Laos and what the Reds were doing to it.

Then, in 1990, I had the chance to go to Laos on a UNESCO education project.

I spent two years in Vientiane before moving down south to Pakse for another two years. I go back often and I’m still involved in a couple of projects.

You can find out about these on my website www.colincotterill.com