How does your background as a judge influence your work as an author?
As a judge, a lot of time is spent pondering the evidence to determine what the truth is and where justice would be best served. This process helps when writing a book as the reader is anxious to discover what really happened, despite some characters’ determination to hide the real facts.
What did you enjoy most about being a judge?
Trying to pierce the veil of deception often put up by the bad guys and do justice in the case. At the start of a trial it is difficult to determine where the truth lies, but as the evidence unfolds, patterns emerge that allow a judge to sort out the wheat from the chaff. So you have to try and sort out the cowboys from the crooks.
What do you enjoy most about writing books?
Books are mostly about conflict, characters and the manner in which people deal with problems. The old Greek theory of tragedy is also very important, where otherwise strong and wise characters come to grief because of some small deficiency.
What part of your work as an author would you prefer to outsource?
I reckon the answer most authors would give would be the research for a book, but I love trawling all resources, from witnesses to libraries and the vast world of the internet. But once the book is written, I enjoy outsourcing the editing, layout, publishing and marketing of the book.
What would people find most surprising about your work as an author?
Perhaps the most surprising feature for readers would be that the transition from judge to writer is not that difficult. In a way every judgment is a book in itself, often a crime thriller or an attempt to do justice in a complex civil dispute over property deals or motor collisions.
What did you want to be when you were a child?
I wanted to be a great sportsman, either a Springbok cricketer or rugby player.
What advice do you have for budding authors?
You have to have the passion to tell a particular story. Without that, writing become drudgery and you have to drag yourself to your desk to write. For me the real motivation was to reveal the existence of a great injustice and make sure that the world got to know about it, in as convincing and authentic a manner as possible.
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