TT: Have you ever experienced writer’s block?
JB: Hardly. I constantly look for ideas and inspirations, collect news, and take them down. One idea is enough to keep me writing for days. When there is no newspaper and magazines on the table when I eat, I think of ideas, plots and stories.
TT: What’s the most bizarre news story you have recently collected?
JB: I read somewhere that there is this girl found living on a toilet for two years. I don’t know when I will or if I will ever use it in my stories. There are all sorts of things saved in my computer.
TT: What is more important to a writer, talent or practice?
JB: I won’t talk crap about how a person who can’t sing can become a singer if [he or she] practices. Everybody has a talent for something. It takes practice, of course, if you want to be really, really good at your calling.
TT: In your eyes, what makes a high-quality movie or novel?
JB: To me, a good work makes people unable to stop reading it. There are excellent books that people can put down and read several days later. But I like them strong and intense. You feel the sense of time disappearing when totally immersed in reading.
TT: What would you do if one day you woke up to find you couldn’t write anymore?
JB: Couldn’t write anymore? It could only be an accident in which I lost both my hands.
TT: I mean if your muse does a midnight flit
JB: Then I would just be less of a great writer. Even if no one pays attention to me and my works, I can still keep doing what I like to do.
TT: Name one of the books you have been reading recently.
JB: Running With Scissors [by American best-selling author Augusten Burroughs]. But the rest of the stuff I read is manga. Reading manga makes me happy.
Hunter X Hunter [by Yoshihiro Togashi] is super good! I read it every day. I put Slam Dunk [by Inoue Takehiko], One Piece [by Eiichiro Oda] and Hunter X Hunter outside my bathroom, so that every time I take a leak, I can grab one book and read.
I would say that my ideas for storyboarding come from manga rather than films.
TT: Have you thought of adapting your novels to the big screen?
JB: Yes, it’s already in the works. I will start with a simple love story, though all my fans think that what I do best are hot-blooded action, thriller and wuxia novels.
Truth be told, there are plenty of romance writers already, and by joining them I would be unlikely to make a difference. I can probably make a difference, though, in the world of wuxia and thriller. But then again, I am not that great in the world of filmmaking. I need practice and to figure out how it works.
TT: What’s your plan for the near future?
JB: I am going to take a hot air balloon ride in Kenya in August and watch animals roaring on the savanna. VIEW THIS PAGE
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