Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I think the best place to start with this question is to get out of the way that yes, I’ve been writing forever, and yes, I’ve been reading since I could understand how letters form sentences. I have a degree in psychology and after counseling many screwed up people in this world, that was enough to make me realize I never want to do that kind of work ever again. I mean, like NEVER EVER EVER AGAIN. Instead, I taught myself how to code websites and when I’m not doing that, I’m writing every chance I get.
I also played music in a somewhat famous-ish kind of band, called From a Second Story Window. did that for several years, and right after I quit doing that, I went and lived in Japan. I also made an iphone app called eMobo, which was the first app that brought the Japanese cell phone novel format to the western world.
My best creation so far has been my daughter, who is the love of my life and the person I do everything for. Having somebody to live for is pretty awesome.
I have written one book so far, but am currently working on a trilogy about cryptids. It’s my Game of Thrones, as it has over 80 characters and lots of storylines. Just good fun overall.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest book is KAI, and it was inspired by my time living in Japan and about a particularly nasty stretch of counseling I did in Chicago. It’s about a young girl from Hiroshima who wants to destroy the world, and also about an adopted Korean girl in Chicago who keeps having mysterious things happen to her, and the connection between these two girls is at the heart of the narrative.
I lived in Hiroshima for awhile in order to have a true understanding of what it would be like to grow up there and see and feel the things somebody who lives there would experience. I also felt like Hiroshima is a symbol for how creativity can be the earmark of destruction, and this plays into the overall theme of KAI. I guess it wouldn’t be too hard for a reader to also connect the fact that the Korean girl in the story is a counselor who also deals with people who have destructive habits, and I explore what it means to be destructive instead of productive when you decide to create something out of a selfish need to heal. And that’s one of many things that inspired me to write KAI, as I seen a LOT of selfishness during my tenure as a counselor in Chicago, mostly from patients who couldn’t see past themselves due to how damaged they were inside.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I think the strangest writing habit I have is that I don’t write consistently. Sometimes it takes me a month to write a single sentence. While that’s not particularly strange in itself, I think my reason for doing this might be considered eccentric. I’m a method writer, which means that in order to really write about something, even if it’s just a few words, I absolutely must feel it and live it and believe it or else I feel like I’m lying to my readers. So for instance, I’m working on a story that involves somebody using the ebola virus to kill thousands of people. My research had put me in a position where I’m asking all kinds of questions to biochemists and disease specialists all over the world about how to grow and cultivate ebola. I have actually gone so far as to work directly with somebody who deals with viruses as part of their job and asked to be able to visit a LEVEL-4 BIOLAB, in order to be near the virus, and to see it and understand the precautions necessary to raise the virus to a lethal level in order to kill thousands of people. Now, of course, I can’t tell you how many people slammed the door in my face or have raised an eyebrow at me for asking about this kind of stuff, but I feel it’s absolutely necessary to know everything there is to know about my subjects, even if it means putting myself in danger or getting my name put on an NSA watchlist for inquiring about such potentially dangerous things like I just mentioned. I guess that’s kind of unusual, yeah?
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Way too many to list, but I think of right away Haruki Murakami, Ryu Murakami, Brett Easton Ellis, Banana Yoshimoto, Natsuo Kirino, and Stephen King, to name but a select few. I read so many books every year that it’s impossible to really narrow down anything that has influenced me in a major sort of way, as everything I read sticks with me to some degree. I do think 1Q84, by Haruki Murakami, is perhaps one of the biggest influences on what I write and how I write. I love how Haruki likes to have a conversation with his readers. He doesn’t care so much to impress me or you with big words or flowery descriptions of things. Reading his stories is like having him sitting right next to you at a bar while both of you are downing beer after beer. Pretty soon, his story becomes so blurry and full of magical realism that you feel drunk from it all, and this is the sign that he’s good company to have at a bar. And this is exactly how I want to write and think is the best form of writing for me to try and emulate.
What are you working on now?
Several books, actually, but mostly a massive trilogy about cryptids, the Pan Gu mythology, and the end of the world as a beginning of a new cycle of life. I’m also researching my next few books, one involving the Aum Shinrikyo cult, a guy who wakes up every morning to a different girl in his bed, and a massive idol group in Japan all fighting each other and getting murdered in order to reach the top of the J-POP industry. All fun stuff in my eyes for sure.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
There isn’t one particular thing I’ve found that works better than most, but I would say it’s a combination of being persistent and reaching out to THOUSANDS of bloggers, facebook and Goodreads promotions, and going out and talking to people directly about your book but not being a sales person about it. I think if you are interested in having a newspaper write about your book, you should get to know the people at the newspaper. You should try to find out what they like, maybe go buy an editor a beer and sit with him at a restaurant, and basically put a lot of time into making it so that you asking for help isn’t so one-sided, at least in terms of getting the word out about your book.
Also, I think it’s important to try to think outside the box depending on your book and what you’ve written about. If you have just finished your opus on super heroes, go dress as the main super hero in your book and walk down the street to promote your story and give out free copies to people in exchange for possibly reviewing your book on Amazon after they’ve read it. Stuff like this might just have you run into somebody who is a major influencer. You know, the people who have ten million friends on Facebook but maybe two friends in real life, and all it takes is one great comment by them on their Facebook wall to send you from being an obscure author to superstardom. You never know.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Don’t write for money or fame or because you think your story is original. It isn’t, and you won’t win the author lottery like you think you might. Being a real writer requires you to do three things and do these three things well: First, be humble always. You must always appreciate every single person who reads your books or encourages you or even trashes your work. Just take it all in stride and keep your head bowed at the altar of books. Second, you should learn to be a marketing expert first, then an author second, if you want to actually make money as an author. If you don’t care about making money, then this isn’t so important I suppose, but I do feel that every author usually wants to have strangers read their books, right? It’s a given that most authors will have friends and family read their books, but the real treat is when a complete stranger messages you on Twitter or Facebook and says your book changed their life, or they can’t stop thinking about that crazy character death on page 245 of your latest novel, or that they want to marry you and wake up every morning before you to make you milk tea and wait on you hand and foot so you can write without worrying about petty life stuff like eating and bathing and washing your clothes or doing the dishes, because they will do these things for you and to you. I joke, but you get my point hopefully. Third, and most important of all, write from the heart, and write often. Write about what excites you and about what you love the most in life, but please don’t write fleetingly. Write like it’s all you know. So if you love zombies and dare to contribute another book about zombies to the already long in the tooth catalogue of zombie books out there, do it in such a way that inspires both you and everyone who reads it. Maybe make it about the President of the United States being a zombie but only after he gets upset about something that happens in his life, and not because he is suffering from that incurable zombie disease that’s going around in the book universe. You know, just… be creative at all times, and never stop writing. Or stop after you know you can’t say anything more that’s useful or interesting to yourself or to anyone else.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Never expect anything from anyone, and this way, you’ll never get hurt. My video store manager and long time friend said this to me, and to this day, it’s the hardest advice to follow, but it’s the best advice to living a perfectly happy life when everyone lets you down or the world once again shocks you with another mass murder, suicide, death of a beloved icon, or terrorist attack.
What are you reading now?
I kind of read in shifts, depending on what is interesting to me at the time, so it’s hard to answer this question. There is a cool book called QUICK DRAW, which I just started, and it’s about a detective in Los Angeles dealing with a gruesome murder of a family (so far this is all I’ve read). I’m also reading a massive book on the Star Wars Universe, and I’m also finishing up a book called MM9, which is about Kaiju attacks in Japan.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Besides continuing to write? Well, my focus lately has been learning to better market my books and get my name out there so that I can do this professionally for a living, but it feels counter to what I feel is why I’m writing in the first place. I just want to tell stories and have fun watching and reading the reactions of those who read about my characters and all the crazy stuff that happens to them. But who knows what is truly next? I have no idea, honestly. I just want to be able to keep living long enough to tell at least four more stories, and then maybe I’ll retire and play old Nintendo video games from my youth for the rest of my life. Or maybe I’ll have more stories to tell.
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?
Ah! My brain just exploded at this question.
Okay, I’m going to try….
1. 1Q84, by Haruki Murakami
2. Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson
3. The Apprenticeship of Big Toe P, by Rieko Matsuura
4. Real World, by Natsuo Kirino
And maybe if I could sneak one more book onto the island, it would be Piercing, by Ryu Murakami
Author Websites and Profiles
Derek Vasconi Website
Derek Vasconi Amazon Profile
Derek Vasconi’s Social Media Links
Goodreads Profile
Facebook Profile
Twitter Account