Interview With Author CT Magus
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I am a retired educator and attorney. I live with my wife with the prettiest blue eyes ever (boyfriend-girlfriend, husband-wife for 59 years). We live with my basset hound named Hubert (after St. Hubertus who, long ago, bred the basset and Hubert Davis of UNC basketball fame), my wife’s cuddly little Maltipoo named Bruiser, and two cats, one of whom sleeps beside my computer while I am working, and a jet black cat named Merlin, of whom everyone is terrified, except me. I have run 50 marathons, but now that I am retired, I’m too busy to invest that kind of time in training, so now I only do halfs. When I can get Merlin out of my lap, I try to read, write, raise roses (only with partial success), and spend time mowing grass and gardening in the summer and carrying wood for the fire in the winter.
There will ultimately be four books (and maybe more if I can get to them) in this series. I have also written a memoir of my days in the Peace Corps in Iran (I did a lot of good, didn’t I?) and have done enough genealogical research to write a history of my children’s families after finding my side is descended from Knights of Arthur’s Round Table (if there was such a thing). Then I found my wife is a direct descendant of Robert the Bruce. She now insists I address her as “your majesty.”
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My current book is Journey to Camelot. There were a couple of inspirations. One was a trip to Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, rich in Arthurian tradition. It is magnificently beautiful and historically important—though traditional stories are lost in a fog of time. The second was listening to Le Morte d’Arthur while running (from Librivox.org). I listened to these wonderful stories and one day had the thought, wouldn’t it be great if I could introduce my grandchildren to these people? Then I came up with the idea of writing them into the stories so that they became participants and active members of that far-off world. So it began.
Underlying all these “inspirations” is my dismay at the disconnect between us (humans) and each other, all sentient creatures, and the earth herself. My dogs bark; my cats purr and make themselves understood. The earth speaks too if only we listen and try to understand. As a species, we seem not to be listening or understanding her language. In fact, we hardly even seem to know that she is speaking. So, I have tried to put things in the mouth of Merlin, or the kids themselves, that might someday help them understand a more holistic relationship between them and the web of life and their responsibilities within it. Once I started, there was nothing to do but complete the series.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I do have unusual writing habits. My regular daily run is four miles. It is there that thoughts emerge. They rise like bubbles in a carbonated drink. Somewhere in mile one, pain pries my mental fingers loose from the reins of my intellect. Along about mile two, ideas emerge. Somewhere around mile three, ideas grow and flourish. After mile four, I stumble into the house, hot and sweaty, and make a few notes. The next morning, I write what I thought about on the run. Mile after mile, day after day, books emerge. There is no magic, only slow, plodding persistence.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I love Tony Hillerman and would love to be as good at telling a tale as he. Dan Brown can spin a pretty good yarn as well. Of course, I owe a great debt of gratitude to Sir Thomas Malory for pulling together all these old stories as he sat molding in an English prison. Flannery O’Conner is the best, most precise writer I have experienced. Then there is Victor Hugo. I try to emulate them all as circumstances dictate.
What are you working on now?
I have three more books in this series, written but not yet polished and published. Each of them is very different. The second weaves the characters into the fabric of Le Morte d’Arthur and the quest for the Holy Grail. In the third book, they find the Grail and describe their experiences and how they make meaning of them. Lastly, another book concerns Merlin’s initiation of the kids into their roles as shamans.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I don’t know. Awesome Gang is my first effort at promotion.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
You have to write a lot of trash to get to something good. The only way to become a good writer is to sit down and write. And, of course, the ultimate truth is, “there is no good writing. There is only good rewriting.”
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Happy wife, happy life.
What are you reading now?
Wailing Woman by Tony Hillerman, Merlin, Priest of Nature by Jean Markale, The Fairy Gates of Avalon by Gareth Knight, Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, and everything I can find by Rollo May and Joseph Campbell.
What’s next for you as a writer?
A sequel to the series came to me while running a half marathon. I don’t know if I will get to it.
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?
Le Morte d’Arthur (Winchester manuscript),
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe,
A Tale of Two Cities, and
Beloved, 81 Poems of Hafez.