STEPHENMCCARTHY
About
I tried the Harmonica and I was rubbish.
Growing up in Cork, Ireland, I always wanted something in my life that set me apart from my peers. My hook. The thing people would refer to when describing me to new friends; "That's Stephen, he's a writer"
My chosen career is Civil Engineering, a regimented exact, scientific, commercial discipline. Creative in fact but not in ethos. The majority of my work is governed by specifications, codes of practice and regulations developed from years of collective experience. It is rigid and change comes slow, innovation is an iterative process. Original thought is corralled to a certain degree.
My career did however allow me to see the world through work in Hong Kong and the Middle East as well as providing the funds for many holidays.
I enjoy the strangeness and similarity of foreign places. I like to look for patterns in the apparent chaos of cities like Rio or simply sit back and observe life as a successful quest to be happy despite the challenges.
Wherever you go, all that really changes is the weather. People are people, we want the same things.
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In 2018 I took the plunge and retired from Engineering to write full time.
I was encouraged to write by my English Teacher, a great bear of a man, prone to hangovers. He told us to personalise our essays to make them stand out for examiners and I suspect make them more interesting to him.
My first novel, Searching for Ahimsa, was born during a bout of food poisoning on a 15 hour flight from Bangkok to London. It developed over the following years and was been favourably received on the Authonomy.com website run by publishers, Harper Collins. It is available as an e-book and has reached double figure sales which is satisfying.
I completed my second novel, Battered while still working full time. Set in a seaside chip shop, it follows the impact of a girl's death on a group of teenage friends. It addresses the trauma that accompanies sudden death while the characters battle with the confusion of teenage life and love.
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Since retiring I have been working on my third novel, Nobody' Hero. The story follows an Irish American family in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on New York. It deals with peoples' responses to War and the insidious nature of post traumatic stress. It is in editing at the moment and I hope to publish later this Spring.
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Having more time to write has been liberating, though the severe drop in income can be unnerving at times. Most of all, I enjoy the physical and mental act of writing and if all else fails, I still have that harmonica.