Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’ve written four books. One is self-published, an action-adventure mystery novel, The Garden of Souls, but it is no longer available in paperback, only in eBook. I am presently contracted to a small independent press, GWL Publishing, LLP. in the United Kingdom. The Truth and Nothing but Lies is published through GWL, and my new mystery, which is about to be released, The Night Shadow. It’s sequel will be out in February 2015, The Touch of the Shadow. I’m still working on the third in that series.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
I am mad about ballet and psychological thrillers. No Blood, Please! I find them much scarier and more atmospheric than ones filled with gore. A particular ballet gave me the idea to write The Night Shadow, a psychological mystery around the dance and its choreographer, George Balanchine. Having been a theologian, I love to paint everything with a broad mystical brush: characters, objects, and places, even the weather. I believe it gives everything around the characters either a menacing quality or an uplifting aspect, adding to depths of the story. It’s only natural that I should believe mysticism speaks to our souls, and it gives that little extra intriguing element in a story.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I found that desks are too confining for me and once you setup your keyboard and screen you have limited space for research and writing manually. My desk was our banquet sized dining table, and I shoved it against a wall, with both leaves. Then, I placed three bookshelves on top of the table, and filled the shelves with reference books I use frequently. Because all our children are grown, I initially moved into a bedroom, making it my office, but I found it entirely too constricting. Instead of moving the dining room table into a larger bedroom, I moved my entire office into the dining room. I love it there because I have room to pace, to sit in a big overstuffed chair and read, or to write at the table.
My process is to get the germ of an idea from something I’ve read, a news story, or a book, or from a film I’ve seen. Then, I create a character who will be my hero. I like to outline by hand, and then create the villain. The process of writing physically helps me think it through. I also dream solutions, or the direction my story is going to take. I’ve been known to dream up a change in a character or a plot. I believe dreams are important ways to solve problems you’ve been machinating over all day.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I love the classics. There are a couple of modern writers I do like, but authors like Conrad, Dostoevsky, and du Maurier really resonate in my heart. I believe Daphne du Maurier, Fyodor Doestoevsky, and Graham Greene have influenced me most. I might have to add in Joseph Conrad and Edith Wharton to that list. Some of their books have been quite thrilling for me to read, and they seem to be the ones I refer to, or look to read when I’m stumped for a direction.
What are you working on now?
I’m presently working on the outline of the third book in the Shadow series, and a small literary book based on a vineyard in the Abruzzo highlands of Italy. The second novel, The Touch of the Shadow is in editing, and when my editor returns it to me marked up I’ll drop everything. Once that is completed, then I’ll begin on the third book in the series and complete my little literary novel. Hmm. I think I’ll have a glass of Pinot.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Probably Goodreads and Book Reviewer sites. A good review is worth a thousand websites. If the reviewer has a following and they recommend a book, it can mean good sales for an unknown author. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of us who are trolling for their time, so you might have to get in line behind us.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
There really is only one kind of advice you can give a new author. Be in it for the long haul. Don’t expect to become famous overnight. That means doing more reading than writing at first. Hone your skills, then submit articles and short stories before you think you want to write the great American novel. Use traditional magazines, and enter contests. But remember, this is a skill that you are not born with, but is learned through hard work, and perseverance. Start writing short stories that are 650 words. That means you will have to really dig to get at the kernel of your story. Then up it to 1,200 words, etc. This is an excellent process of honing your skills.
Not everyone can be John Fowles and write a nearly perfect first draft. You’ll need an editor and a good one. And don’t let your ego run away with you. Keep it in check. That baby should only be let out on holidays, and after you receive excellent reviews.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
An artist friend of mine said that if you can’t trash or destroy your work, then you’ll never grow. Not only is he right, he’s absolutely right. When an editor tells you something doesn’t work, they are probably correct. So, don’t hang tough about your fabulous prose, let it go, and rewrite it until it does work.
What are you reading now?
I’m rereading Conrad’s The Secret Agent, and Elizabeth George’s Believing the Lie. I’m also researching Paris Communards in 1871. I’m immersing myself into the mindset of the nihilists during the sixties here in the United States. They are the watermelons of today: Green on the outside and red on the inside. Their irrational defense of their belief system hasn’t changed since the 1870s, which also inspired Hitler, and helped him to build the structure of the Volkdom.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I have a couple of ideas for some Historical Fiction stories that have deep personal meaning for me. One is Saint Patrick, and the other has to do with a Revolutionary War ancestor of mine.
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?
This is a nearly impossible feat for me. I’d want to take all my books. Narrowing a list down to 3 or 4 is mind boggling. The only thing I could submit would be the following: The Bible, the Oxford English Dictionary, My Cousin Rachel, by Daphne du Maurier, and The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Both the novels are psychologically disturbing and great literary achievements. The Bible is obvious, for each time I pick it up to read I learn something new. The OED is the best source for researching anything. It has has so many quotations from fiction and nonfictional writings it could be like reading the first paragraphs of thousands of books. Not only is it inspirational to write my own, but it gently reminds me that I don’t know the meaning of a great number of words.
Oh, maybe I might change the list to include Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens. No…
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