I once commandeered a hovercraft
One day while working as a plainclothes police officer, my team and I chased a drug dealer who threw his stash into the sea. The tide was going out and we watched helplessly as the carrier bag containing the “stuff” drifted away while the dealer grinned smugly. Then we all looked right and saw the hovercraft about to take off. Five minutes later we’d commandeered it and retrieved the big bag of drugs.
RR Haywood
I never read the genre I am writing in
I just can’t do it. Not zombies or post-apocalypse or anything remotely like it. I always worry there will be a weird sub-conscious cross-contamination of ideas.
I suffer constant knee pain because of my dogs
One of my three German Shepherds always sleeps under my desk while I am writing, which means I can’t extend my left leg which results in constant knee pain and I don’t have the heart to kick them out.
I go through four phones a year on average
Even my insurers have questioned it. I’m sure they think I’m a black-market phone dealer. I drop them all the time. I once dropped one the day it was sent back from being fixed from being dropped the week before.
Don’t touch my desk
Seriously. It’s a thing. My desk cannot be touched, cleaned or tidied when I am working on a project. It’s awful really. I walked into my office once to see my cleaner jump back with a cloth in her hand while looking guilty. ‘It’s just so messy,’ she said.
I can’t stand slippers or carpets
Carpets hold way too much dirt and are full of tiny people, (see The Carpet People by Terry Pratchett) and I just cannot grasp the concept of having indoor soft shoes in addition to outdoor hard shoes. I do, however, enjoy a nice pair of thick socks.
I think changing rooms are a conspiracy to keep people oppressed
They make them so tiny. Smacking into walls while your bum pokes through the curtain until you get red-faced and sweaty. They do it to keep you muttering and slightly cross and thinking bad thoughts about changing room designers, so you don’t think on the big things in life.
I can’t write unless I’ve had a cappuccino
If the world supplies of cappuccino ever run out I will be an ex-writer.
Rave. Run. Repeat
Once, another copper and I were trailing two drug dealers through a festival rave tent, but these guys were deeply suspicious and kept looking back which meant we had to rave for a minute while they looked then run to catch up. Rave. Run. Repeat. It was nuts.
Fear of public speaking
Gosh. Just the thought of it terrifies me. People who do that are so brave. More than three people looking at me at any one time constitutes an audience and I run away.
Extinct, the third in the bestselling Extracted series by R. R. Haywood is published by 47North on 24th May.