Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
Born in a small farming community located in Upstate, NY I was quickly relocated to Niagara Falls for the first year of my life. The second child of two individuals barely into their twenties, I have no recollection of what led to the decision, yet I am sure it had something to do with feeding young mouths and wanting something different than what he grew up with, my Dad joined the Air Force. That enlistment and the genetically inherited wanderlust has kept me moving for most of my 50 years.
Those 50 years are a book in itself, yet to be written. I have written and released eight distinct works and have ten plus in various stages of completion. I currently am compiling a couple of books together, one to consist of four novellas and the other to contain a multitude of short stories, parables, allegories, that sort of thing. The novellas are four distinct works written at various times and not related to each other, yet seem perfect to combine into a 180,000 word volume. The other compilation is geared towards coming of age and personal growth as all parables and fables are made to do. A four pack to escape your grind and another to help you go hmmm.
I have eight distinct works already published and double digit works in progress. I write because I am possessed to do so and write whenever possible. I am walking dead when not creating.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest release, HBD (Here Be Dragons) is a novel written during three different NANoWriMo events. Instead of fleshing out the rough drafts into three separate books, I chose to combine them and edit down the manuscripts. This is the first book I wrote with characters WAY outside of my personal boundaries. It was a great exercise for me, writing about people doing things I would never do, I feel it opened me up as a creative writer. Just because the character does it, doesn’t mean I would or that it is an alter-ego of mine. Let’s see what the world thinks of it instead.
HBD (Here Be Dragons) is NOT a tale of medieval influence and proportions, other than it being the source of the working title, Here Be Dragons. On maps of old, there often existed sections of the hand written maps that had not been explored, either on that trip or at all by the country funding the boat and or expeditions. In these areas the map makers would write and draw, pictures of mermaids, dragons, and other mystical creatures were often drawn there or the words, Here Be Dragons written to represent areas to NOT be explored. Off limits. Things of danger lie here. Or really, we just don’t want you to know.
Marty Roberts has an opportunity to save the world, not from itself, but from the humans that dominate it. He sits, thinking. Determined to find a solution, no idea how lost he is.
Agent Joanne Clay urgently moves forward in her career, hell-bent on making her reputation and moving on from her family’s. She, a new generation of FBI agent.
Enter a clandestine agency, a psycho or three and the race for power gets violent. A whodunit, full of power and personal struggles. Who will prevail, the young, FBI-backed agent or Marty Roberts, alone and on mission?
HBD (Here Be Dragons) by C.M. Halstead
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I thought writing was an unusual habit….
I do not know what is considered unusual, I do know I write in what I call my #writerscave If you find me on Instagram you will occasionally see photos of me in my writer’s cave. Nothing fancy, quite the opposite actually. My first was on the back porch while we lived in Sedona, AZ, the second located above one wheel-well on the 1980 Ward Bus we converted and drove around the southwest. And only the wheel-well, I had to scoot in sideways and peel myself out of the seat a few hours later. Then my growing son needed more space and I shrank my writing space down to standing room only, wedged between sleeping spaces. Same deal, several hours later I had to force my body to move out of that two foot by three foot space. Long walks were necessary to get my full range of motion active again. My current writer’s cave is the Taj Mahal compared to my first few. An eight by ten building located on property purposefully located in a quiet area of the southwest. It is hard to find areas not fully consumed by human noise, even wilderness areas are often plagued by aircraft and helicopters flying over on the regular.
I would say I have an unusual perspective of what my job is! Most would say it is to write, I would say it is to get my butt into the writer’s cave and keep it there. THAT is the hardest part of being a writer for me. Even though I love the process, life’s distractions and to-do lists often prevent me from being disciplined and getting into the cave. Therefore my job is to get me into the writing space and keep it there. If I do that, at some point in that multi-hour seclusion words will appear on the computer screen. 4,000 words can appear in 15 minutes, of course it took three hours of patience, perseverance, and wall staring to get there.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
This can be a long or short list depending on what is active in my memory!
Philosophy is an influence on me, many from what back-in-the-day we called the Orient, now it is called various things depending on the news channel, conversation, or day of the week. Either way, ancient philosophers and a more modern day philosopher that many think of as an entertainer vs philosopher are an influence on my personal mindset. Many are martial arts influenced and big picture battle influenced like the Art of War by Sun Tzu, The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi or the modern day one I hinted at, Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee is more known for his martial arts films than as a thinker. He is also a rebel at heart. He caught loads of flak for teaching his martial arts forms to non-traditionals long before it was socially acceptable to do so. Bruce Lee’s recordings of his mindset philosophies and his book Tao of Jeet Kune Do, “Jeet Kune Do, you see, has no definite lines or boundaries – only those you make yourself.” …just like the rest of life. Most of our limitations are self imposed or taught by those that think less of themselves than they could.
Stephen King is an author with books that have influenced my writings. He led the way for me in his books about human behavior in “situations” and how quickly the illusion of civilized society collapses in moments of survival, perceived or real. His master use of head-hopping and keeping me in the loop of what is going on in his character’s heads drives me to keep reading and validates my desire to keep my readers up to date on the goings on in my character’s heads. I love putting the reader behind the scenes on what drives the motivations of all. I believe this translates to a better understanding of all the humans we interact with as we go about our lives. I also love King’s unadulterated use of “supernatural” and other lesser believed possibilities. For if it isn’t logical it is easy to disbelieve if you are scientific minded and easier to believe from a spiritual perspective.
Joseph Campbell is also an huge influence on my writings. Ironically I first became attached to his hero’s journey outline while in film school. I thought I was there to learn to make documentary films and the independent film making process (and I did) yet what really stuck foremost in my mind is simple outline that has worked for humans since our mostly verbal story telling days. The hero’s journey is immortalized in a majority of Hollywood blockbusters, Disney films, and grandiose fishing stories everywhere. The Power of Myth is a homework type book for any storyteller, verbal, visual, or written.
What are you working on now?
Write now, in the world of C.M. Halstead a discovery of sorts is being organized. When I write rough drafts my goal is to keep my fingers moving, to stay in the creative flow as long as possible. If I find myself floundering on a longer story I often switch to a new idea or vent about life stuff. In the discovery process of reading through a rough draft I often find parables, short stories, etc. I am sorting through and compiling more than 25 of this incomplete works. Thus far my intention is to put them into two different works. One to contain four longer stories of 30-50,000 word length and the other to contain a plethora of stories from the shortness of allegories to the length of short stories. This will be C.M. Halstead’s first story compilation.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
As a creative, marketing is the hot burner on the stove, yet still mandatory for a chosen indie author. Time and word of mouth are my best assets at my current level. The only one better is to keep producing a volume of works.
All of my works can be found online or on apps. (Amazon, Goodreads, Ibooks, etc. to name a few) A simple search for C.M. Halstead through a search engine will always NET results. Me and surgical scissors are sure to come up in the results…..
If you are on Goodreads please follow my C.M. Halstead Author Page.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
My advice to new authors is to listen as little as possible to those that nitpick the details of writing and publishing. Those that say NEVER do this or NEVER do that and instead to listen to that part of you that knows and ALLOW the words to flow from your fingers without editing or judging them. When the judger and critic that lives in your head shows up, get up from your writing space and kick that creative king/queen killer out of your creative space. Make sure to slam the door on their rear end as they figuratively or literally depart. Then sit back down and go back to work knowing you did the right thing.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
“Don’t Believe Everything You Think.” My brother from another said this to me once or twice a multitude of years ago and it has stuck with me since then. I also am acutely aware of those I run across who do the opposite of the above statement. They think that because their mind thought it, that it is data. This is not true. Everywhere are people lying to themselves just to justify a thought they had years ago. And worse, living a life based around this random thought. Just cause you think it happened, doesn’t mean it did. (the opposite is true also). Do some research, get some data, talk to others.
What are you reading now?
Reading has changed for me.
I attended film school about 15 years ago. I remember going to the movie theater to see a blockbuster towards the end of the second semester. To my surprise everything had changed for me. It was hard to get lost in the movie without judging the shot choices and angles, asking myself why they broke the plane, and suspending disbelief. It is like seeing the man behind the curtain in Wizard of Oz, once you’ve seen what’s behind the curtain, you cannot unsee it.
Now that I am a writer, reading has changed for me as well. I see the wizard behind the curtain, pick up on formulas, set the book down quicker (if it doesn’t keep me engaged). I’ve learned I thrive on storytellers over world builders, and that I am a storyteller over a world builder. Some writers get lost in world building, I like to get lost in the story. Therefore I tend to gravitate towards authors like Stephen King that let us in on the complete story, all sides and all thoughts. I also like thrillers, adventures, and the like. I’ve been doing homework on head-hopping, I am a fan and incorporate it into my stories. Somehow I’ve never read Stephen King’s Duma Key, I am reading it now. I just completed Cell (by Stephen King as well) for the first time.
I find myself on the verge of writing my first philosophy book and thinking about some of the old books I’ve read. I am being drawn back to the Tao of Jeet Kune Do by Bruce Lee and contemplating reading Art of War by Sun Tzu again. I’ve haven’t read that one since my early 20’s.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I’m currently sorting through 25 short stories, parables, allegories, etc that are in various stages of completion. Extending, editing, and organizing them into two books is my creative time focus over the coming winter.
I also have some books from The Tripper Series that have enough reviews for me to pay advertising for them. Learning the ins and outs of marketing on Amazon and Goodreads is next on my indie author homework list.
Also on my agenda is continuing road-trips with my partner Amy. We both love to drive, explore, and generally forget about everything as we meander about on highways, byways, and dirt roads in the vast expanse that is America. I cannot speak for my Misses, yet I can tell you nothing else my post traumatic stress more than getting into an automobile and driving as long and far as I can, setting up camp, listening to the local area and after a day or so, driving on to something different. Even returning home feels different after some quality time on the road.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
I am likely to be far to practical than is fun, so therefore will bring SAS Survival Handbook by John Wiseman, Advanced Bushcraft by Dave Canterbury, The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell, and The Survival Medicine Handbook by Joseph Alton and Amy Alton.
If I was being impractical I would bring books full of many stories to read and absorb over the years!
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