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On The Table Read Magazine, “the best entertainment eBook magazine UK“, author Dale Bradford talks about his new book, The Time-Travelling Estate Agent, about a Welsh estate agent who discovers a time-traveling portal and embarks on a quest to rectify past mistakes and improve the lives of those he loves.
Written by JJ Barnes
I interviewed Dale Bradford about his life and career, the inspiration behind his new book, The Time-Travelling Estate Agent, and his creative writing process.
Tell me a bit about who you are.
I’ve been a magazine editor (only B2B, nothing glamorous or exciting) since 1995. I live in South Wales and my reading tastes are pretty varied: from sci-fi (mainly John Wyndham, Douglas Adams, and Philip K Dick) to history, politics, and popular culture.
I also enjoy video games and buying far too many DVD box sets – yes, I still buy them, because although there are advantages to streaming, I don’t like the way the business model is going. Intrusive ads are now common, and monthly prices are only going in one direction. Also, I resent the way some older content gets cut, due to ‘changing societal attitudes’. Outside of the home, I play padel tennis every week, regardless of the weather.
When did you first WANT to write a book?
I’ve been writing all my life and while there are worse ways to earn a living than writing for a monthly magazine, once the issue has been put to bed there is only the smallest of windows to relax before the content conveyor belt has to be fed again. A book has a shelf-life longer than a month, hopefully, and its length allows ideas to be explored in far greater depth than a magazine article could offer.
When did you take a step to start writing?
I suppose I began to take writing seriously when it emerged at school that I was reasonably proficient at choosing appropriate words and arranging them in a pleasing order. I put this entirely down to the fact that for several years I had to take a fairly long bus journey to school on my own, so I constantly had my head in a comic, and later a book, so people wouldn’t talk to me. I guess I’d be wearing earphones (do you young people still call them that?) if I was doing it now, and listening to audiobooks.
How long did it take you to complete your first book from the first idea to release?
I started writing my first book (The Honey Peach Affair, a murder mystery set in the ‘adult entertainment’ industry) in 2003. I eventually self-published it in 2015. You can use many words to describe me, but ‘dynamic’ is not one of them.
How long did it take you to complete your latest book from the first idea to release?
I had been kicking the idea around for several years, but I first started writing it during a two-week break in December 2019. I then spent a fair bit of lockdown on it, before setting it aside to write a non-fiction title. I returned to it in 2023 and finally finished-finished it in October 2024.
Focusing on your latest release. What made you want to write The Time-Travelling Estate Agent?
I have always been fascinated by the concept of time travel, even though the world’s greatest scientific minds believe it to be impossible – hey, 100 years ago my iPhone was ‘impossible’ – and although I do read time travel stories, they frequently annoy me. Either the process is not satisfactorily explained, or the paradoxes cripple the narrative, or the protagonists behave like idiots. After a loooooong time researching the subject, I finally arrived at a believable way of incorporating it into the story.
What were your biggest challenges with writing The Time-Travelling Estate Agent?
Apart from finding a ‘realistic’ explanation for time travel which would be understandable to an estate agent (no offence, estate agents), the biggest challenge was morphing from ‘work’ writing mode into ‘creative’ writing mode at the end of the day.
Who or what inspired you when creating your Protagonist?
People who know me will probably say I’ve based Eric Meek on myself.
“But,” I’ll argue, “he’s a sad, lonely, socially inept loser who failed to achieve his potential in life.”
And they’ll respond with: “Yes, and?”
Who or what inspired you when creating your Antagonist?
Sadly I’ve come across more than a few people who provided inspiration for aspects of the ‘bad guys’ in the story.
What is the inciting incident of The Time-Travelling Estate Agent?
It’s December 2019 in a small Welsh town, and 60-year-old estate agent Eric Meek is invited by an elderly lady to value her property. But contrary to what the vendor believes, the garage conversion does not contain her husband’s photographic ‘dark room’ but a hole in space-time that has been developed into a traversable portal.
A by-product of her husband’s attempts to emulate the work of pioneering electrical engineer Nikola Tesla, the portal allows movement between 2019 and the day it was first powered up, 3rd July 1976: the best – and worst – day of 16-year-old Eric’s life.
What is the main conflict of The Time-Travelling Estate Agent?
Eric is given – actually, he’s not given it, he takes it – an opportunity to right the wrongs of the past, while also improving the life chances of people he cares about, including his estranged – and now long-dead – father. Will Eric change history? Or will history change Eric?
Did you plot The Time-Travelling Estate Agent in advance, or fly by the seat of your pants and write freely?
As someone who usually has to plan the structure of an 800 word article, the idea of just writing freely and seeing where it takes me is anathema. Actually, I know where it would take me: down a narrowing, winding lane, peppered with pot (or plot!) holes, before eventually emerging into a hideous cul-de-sac dejection.
Did you get support with editing, and how much editing did The Time-Travelling Estate Agent need?
Although I have no male friends who enjoy reading (“It’s boring”, “It sends me to sleep”, “It makes me sad” – three of the reasons why people I know did not want to pick up my first book), I have several female friends who not only read but write too. Their feedback to an early draft (“No woman would say that!”) was helpful in ensuring I struck the right tone when dealing with the occasional sensitive subject.
And as I routinely edit other people’s work, I’d like to think the writing is of a professional standard throughout the book. I will look a right idiot if it’s not.
What is the first piece of writing advice you would give to anyone inspired to write a story?
Be yourself: everyone else is taken. Forbes attributes that quote to Oscar Wilde and it is even more valid today, when any successful idea, in any medium, gets pounced on and imitated by risk-averse commissioning types who have never seen a bandwagon they didn’t want to jump on. I don’t want to read someone who writes like John Wyndham, or in the style of Philip K Dick, it will just make me yearn for the real thing.
Can you give me a hint about any further books you’re planning to write?
The Time-Travelling Estate Agent was planned as a trilogy, even though the first installment is entirely self-contained. But as my author CV reveals, I’m not exactly prolific, so no one should cancel any plans in the expectation that a follow up is imminent.
And, finally, are you proud of your accomplishment? Was it worth the effort?
I refuse to consider the ‘time spent vs money earned’ equation because that way lies only despondency, but if people tell me they have enjoyed The Time-Travelling Estate Agent – or better still, put a review on Amazon, because I’ve only just welcomed it into the world, and it’s sitting there all lonely with no star ratings at all – then they will be making an old man very happy. And who can put a price on that?
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Hardcover: https://amzn.to/4fWBB8Y
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