Author Spotlight with Bruno Beaches

Interview with author Bruno Beaches

Bruno Beaches the author, is a mature retired police officer who has had a lot of life experience. He is known to be a people-person and a devoted family man, although suffering two divorces. Having experienced the pain and lessons of some of life's worst vicissitudes, he chose to write heart-felt, insightful ways about matters close to his own heart. He enjoys the simple things in life, such as family, DIY, gardening, and playing the piano. Since writing his first book later in life, he has discovered a penchant for writing, and has now penned four novels.

Hello Bruno! Thank you so much for agreeing to take part in this interview, I am blessed and honoured to have you here! Your book 'Scrabble, Rabble, Babble' in one word for me...WOW. What was your inspiration for writing this novel?

It was a challenge to myself. Over the previous ten years I had been penning thoughts about relationships and how two people in love and devoted to each other could so drastically fall into a kind of hatred and hostility. It puzzled me so much. Eventually I wove these thoughts into two stories, which I then submitted to publishers. Of course, I had no idea how they might be received, especially as the subject matter could be viewed as quite contentious, but they were both warmly received and were immediately accepted for publication. This made me suddenly wonder if I could write an acceptable story not closely aligned with my own experiences, you know, actually make up a story! But I didn't want it to mimic so many other books out there, where the setting is in the home, or the office, and the outcomes are fairly predictable, so I decided to make it more interesting and unusual by placing the story inside a prison! Hence the idea of Scrabble Rabble Babble was born.

You are a retired police officer, if you are allowed to tell me of course...were any of the characters that were written into the story based on anyone you know? Of the four protagonists, one was based very closely on someone I once knew. Another was based loosely on someone I currently know. The other two were an amalgamation of all-sorts. But I will keep you guessing as to which one was who. Obviously I have read this book, and I am ridiculously excited for your others, can you tell us more about the other novels you have written? My previous books, 'Til Death We Do Part' and 'Til Death We Do Part Too) aimed to challenge current reads trends towards walking away from relationships and commitments without really assessing the dreadful impact that this might have on both parties and their families, because I feel that people are encouraged to be far too casual and flippant about such things. As such, they can be quite heavy, challenging reading, although I do think they are very fascinating stories too. Then, inspired by the acceptance of my made-up story SBR, and with my mind full of ideas as to where the lockdowns and mandates might eventually lead to, I wrote about a feasible and shocking outcome, and placed the results in the year 2034. This one will be out by the time you post this interview! Then inspired and encouraged by 2034's acceptance. I wrote another story, which is just a modern-day clever thriller. However, I have used the main character (Pablo) from my first two books, because I wanted to tie up a few loose ends for the protagonists in those two stories, so in a small way. It's part of a trilogy, although mainly, it is a very different and stand-alone story. This one is in the pipeline, and I'm not sure what the title should be because I'm not sure if it's a good idea to tie it in to the first two books or not.

How did you become a writer? Do you have any advice for those who are starting out? I dislike the phrase 'become a writer'. We are all writers, I just ended up writing enough to compile a book! For people who want to progress their writing. I would simply say believe in yourself, otherwise you will never take the time to complete the challenge of drawing your thoughts into a publishable work. You seem to be an incredibly clever man, with such knowledge that transformed this novel, you say you have a keen interest in behavioural psychology and relationships, did you have to do much research in these areas to complete this novel? I love the phrase 'an incredibly clever man', but really, I'm very average. I did have to do some research to complete this novel, about prison life, and I'll tell you what inspired me- I read a fascinating article on how the Russian Novichok poisoners of Salisbury were identified. They were two secret service agents who were sneaked into this country on false documents purely to murder people. Russia did it's level best to keep their identities secret. So how were they identified? Not by any police forces, or Interpol, Or MI5 etc, but by amateur 'open source researchers' who simply used information openly available on the internet to do their intricate, pain-staking detective work to identify the killers. That made me realise that where there were gaps in my knowledge about prison life, surely I could fill them with accurate information from open source research too. As for behavioural psychology and relationships. I have done a lot of reading on those subjects in the past, and being so old, I have had lots of real-life experience too, so I didn't need to do any extra research in those areas. I have also visited prisons quite a few times too, so I know what they 'feel' like, and I also know what it feels like to be incarcerated in a cell (See Books One and Two) Have you ever googled yourself, if so did you find anything surprising?

Nothing! I am a nobody ;)

How long does it take you to write a novel? You say lockdown helped tremendously, do you already have multiple ideas, or does it come to you naturally? As I mentioned above, the first two books took ten years to write because I wasn't focusing on actually writing a book. I was writing to get stuff out of my head, but eventually I had enough to make a book, well, two actually. Inspired by their success, and because of furlough, I only took three months to write each of the next two books. Book five took longer because I was back to work, and a lot of my spare time was now being spent promoting my published works. As for ideas, they seem to flow once I start writing, I only ever think one step at a time. What does the term 'writer's block' mean to you? Have you experienced this yourself? If I don't any ideas, I don't write. But when I have an idea, and start penning it. It seems to mushroom! I'm not writing at the moment, because I haven't had a novel inspirational idea pop into my head yet, but I'm sure it won't be long. If you have had any bad reviews (I have only seen fantastic five star reviews myself) How is it that you deal with these? Thankfully, the majority of my reviews have been very positive, but I have had a few really bad ones for books one and two. This doesn't surprise me at all. Because the subject matter in those books are contentious, and can trigger bad memories and feelings for some people. If they are not reading the books objectively, they make the mistake of condemning them simply because of the subject matter, and are closed to the exploration of the issues being examined. This is to be expected in some cases. I just feel a little sad if I advertently cause any upset. Even so, I wince at all bad reviews. All your characters in this book have such unique personalities and backgrounds, if you were part of this book, who would you relate to the most? English teacher, David Blanchflower. Believe me, he's got a lot of me in him ;) If this book was made into a film (which I think without a doubt it should be) Who would you decide to pick for the characters to be played? I don't follow celebrity culture at all. I don't even watch television, so it would be a hard push to come up with any names at all. In fact, I would prefer the actors to be unknown so that their performances would be fresh and unpredictable.

To buy Bruno's books: Til Death We Do Part: Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Til-Death-We-Do-Part/dp/139840845X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= (Paperback) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Til-Death-We-Do-Part-ebook/dp/B08YK8LQ9M/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= (Kindle) Til Death We Do Part Too: Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Til-Death-We-Part-Too/dp/1398424242/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= (Paperback) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Til-Death-We-Part-Too-ebook/dp/B09GYQS13M/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= (Kindle) Scrabble, Rabble, Babble: Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scrabble-Babble-Rabble-Bruno-Beaches/dp/1398436232/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= (Paperback) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scrabble-Babble-Rabble-Bruno-Beaches-ebook/dp/B09QJ85BKK/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= (Kindle) To Follow Bruno On Social Media: Instagram : @brunobeaches