Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I live in a college town near Chicago with my wife, daughter, three cats and my books. I’m a computer guy and teacher as my day job. I have a diverse range of interests, from computers and history to martial arts. I love animals and have had a wide range of pets, from dogs and cats to a sugar glider. We did a stint as a foster home for orphan Samoyeds. I’m also a long-time science fiction and mystery fan. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was in fourth grade and finally succeeded in becoming one six years ago. I have four published novels, with a fifth one coming before the end of the year and four more pretty fair along in the pipeline.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest book is called Snapshot. I got the idea for it when I was thinking about all of the animals that have gone extinct over the years. I had a weird stray thought: We back up our computers. We really should be backing up our planet. At that point the light bulb went on. What if somebody was backing up our planet, making copies of it at various points in history? Cool idea. My first thought was that whoever was making the backups would randomly reintroduce animals that had become extinct, but then I realized that if the backups were living, they would be a perfect place for adventures.
That evolved into a universe where extra-terrestrials have been making continent-sized living replicas of Earth’s continents since at least the age of dinosaurs. They put these replicas in snow-globe-shaped artificial universes which are connected by gates high over their oceans.
The result is a limitless universe of continents, each pulled out of some part of Earth’s past, but each of which has kept evolving since they were backed up. So people from a copy of the US taken last year can fly to an Africa that still has dinosaurs or a Europe where descendants of the Nazis still run things or a North America where Native Americans have been left alone for the last 500 years. They can also fly to another copy of the US taken in 1953 that has gone down a very different path socially and technologically.
The bottom line is almost an embarrassment of riches in terms of story ideas, more stories to tell than I can possibly write in a lifetime–stories that are a lot like space opera, stories of exploration, stories of people meeting other versions of themselves.
In case you haven’t figured it out, I’m enthusiastic about the concept
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I tend to write the bulk of a novel in November as part of NanoWrimo, then finish the rough draft in March or April. I edit in the summer and try to get at least one novel out each year. I haven’t always succeeded, but that’s the goal and I’m getting better at it.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Phillip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld and World of the Tiers books were a huge influence, as were a lot of Asimov’s and Poul Anderson’s books. I would love to be in the Asimov/Anderson class as a writer.
What are you working on now?
I have another Snapshot novel in the works and a third one at the ‘rough draft that needs a lot of revision’ stage. My novel Char is finished and currently in the middle of a Kindle Scout campaign. It’s an interesting idea: A brilliant cavewoman finds herself in the modern US, gets embroiled in a murder and tries to survive, elude a police hunt and figure out our society.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I’m still trying to figure that out. The landscape keeps changing. Awesomegang looks good. It’s affordable and looks pretty professional. I’m also trying a few others to see where there is a good return on investment.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
First, understand that being a professional author is a long and ongoing journey. Some people claim that you have to write a million words of crap before you write something at a professional level. That’s probably not too far off. A million words of fiction is about two years of full-time writing, and in most professions it takes about two full-time years to really get proficient.I’ve only seen one person write a nearly professional-level novel the first time out and they are an exceptionally avid reader who also spent many years dealing with interesting people out in the real world. Chances are very high that at least your first attempt at a novel and maybe your second and third will be embarrassing when you look back at them a few years later. Mine certainly are.
Second, if you want to get better as a writer, you have to read fiction. Surfing the Internet doesn’t do it and may actually cause your skills to regress if you do it to the exclusion of other reading.
Third, do interesting things in real life. You can be a brilliant wordsmith, but if you don’t have anything to say, you aren’t going to write anything interesting. You get interesting stories by interacting with the real world with a writer’s eye.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
I forget who said it, but someone said, “If someone can be discouraged from becoming a writer, they should be.” That’s good advice. Writing is a tough business that requires a tough skin and a lot of persistence. If bad reviews or poor sales will make you stop being a writer, you’re probably better off not trying for publication, though if you enjoy writing you should definitely keep it up. Just don’t try for publication unless you have the tough skin.
What are you reading now?
A couple books on plotting, plus the fourth book in CJ Carrela’s New Olympians series, a sort of alternate history where people started getting superpowers in the late 1920s. He does a great job of taking that rather silly premise and making a very solid, logical world that could easily follow from people getting superpowers. I just finished Lisa Brackmann’s Dragon Day, a mystery involving an American living in present day China who gets involved in some very treacherous cross-currents. Brackmann knows China very well and has a good eye for incongruous little details that make the story feel real.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I plan to spend the next six to eight months finishing the books I have nearly finished, but haven’t put the finishing touches on yet. I have four novels and two story and essay collections, all of which are a month or two of polishing away from being publishable. I prefer writing to doing the final editing and polishing, but if you don’t get stuff out there people can’t buy 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?
I think I would cheat and take my Kindle and a solar charger. Okay. I know that’s a cop out. If I really had to just take 3 or 4 books I would want something that I could enjoy at multiple levels, noticing new things each time I read it. That would mean authors that I don’t normally read. Maybe something by Greg Bear or Stephen Baxter that I wouldn’t normally take time to read but feel as though I should.
Author Websites and Profiles
Dale Cozort Website
Dale Cozort Amazon Profile