Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I wrote a number of technical books in my career in the aerospace/defense industry, but I only wrote my first novel after retiring from that technical career. That first novel, however, is an epic two-volume literary fiction novel of 1,258 pages, the equivalent of at least three average novels in length.
ABOUT MYSELF: Despite only becoming a writer after retirement from a career in the aerospace industry, I believe I was uniquely prepared to write my epic first novel, “Tares among the Wheat.” I drew on my broad travels, diverse experiences and rich cultural heritage to develop the vivid characters and far-flung settings included in this saga.
I was born the seventh of eight siblings on a farm in Oklahoma. After leaving the farm at seventeen I utilized my farming and ranching skills to hire into commercial jobs, paying my way through two college degrees. I believe my vast work experiences, throughout my career, contributed authenticity to the fictional characters and their situations described in my novel.
Each of my grandparents took part in the Indian Territory’s celebrated Cherokee Outlet Land Run of 1893. They were the sons and daughters of immigrants from first to twelfth-generation Americans, including Irish, German, Czech, Dutch, and English. They participated in America’s history, from the Revolutionary War and through the great Westward Expansion. Their rich and colorful cultures, customs, and superstitions are the legacy from which I drew in creating my characters, plots, and story lines.
I borrowed from cherished tales of my relatives’ experiences during the dramatic eras of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially from the perspective of the southern Great Plains, to create the backdrops to my storylines. Glimpses of the momentous events of the era World War I, the Influenza Epidemic of 1918, oil booms and busts, the decadent Roaring Twenties, the doom of the Dirty Thirties, and the horrific Dust Bowl, I wove into the pages of my intriguing tale.
When not engaged in our love of world travel, my wife and I reside in our energy efficient house of my personal detailed design, constructed between forest and meadow on the farm where I was raised.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest novel is titled, “Tares among the Wheat.” It is an epic two-volume novel of classic literary fiction. When searching for my novel, readers should be aware that there are other works with similar titles. My novel must be differentiated by my name as the author, H. Melvin James.
MY INSPIRATION: From my early childhood, I recall the stories and tales of my family, tales recited from their first-hand experience and those recalled from generations past. My ancestors were mostly of German, Irish, Dutch, and Czech lineage.
Their cultures were rich, colorful, and strongly held. I was impressed by their tales and fond of their knack for storytelling.
Upon retiring from a career in industry, I found the time, without much pre-occupation or distraction, to acquiesce to my dormant urge to write the essence of those stories of my ancestors.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I do not write to a detailed outline. I begin writing with a concept that will become the heart of my story. That concept necessarily includes ideas for integrating particular characters. I envision the heart of the story, the “storm of drama,” to deeply affect the emotions of the primary characters. I believe a symbiotic relationship between the personalities of the characters and the drama of the “storm” is imperative for the reader to sense and feel a degree of the tragedy or the glory that the protagonists experience. That concept requires the invention and development of the characters in conjunction with the mounting and approaching “dramatic storm.” Not having a prescribed outline, affords me the freedom to invent and develop the framed stories, plots, and characters to enhance the primary storyline as it builds up to the dramatic storm and in the aftermath, mysteries are solved, and conflicts are resolved.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
At least two readers stated in their reviews, that my writing style resembles that of Charles Dickens. While I admire Dickens’ writings, I believe I was more impressed by reading the potent writing of Earnest Hemingway and the descriptive writing of Jack London. I also admire the wit of Samuel Clemens and the tragic and remorseful emotions of Edgar Poe and Robert Frost. But overall, I must admit that my mother’s storytelling probably most affected my desire to write and my writing style as well.
What are you working on now?
I am again, as I did with “Tares among the Wheat,” writing based on my personal acquaintances and my own experiences. I am currently writing a classic first-person detective story. It is a murder mystery set on a remote island in the Arctic Ocean. The tiny island serves as field station for secretive military operations, including surveillance of electronic transmissions emanating from land, sea, air, and inner space.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I developed my own website: www.h-melvin-james.com
I found far more people interact with me through my Facebook page: (H Melvin James)
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100041712480074
From my primary website, visitors can link directly to a dozen other social and business websites of mine.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
1. Write of what you know. Utilize research to enhance and to validate your personal knowledge of the subject.
2. Keep writing, even when your inspiration stalls. Make notes for other stories. Jump ahead, beyond the roadblock and write the ending. Develop new characters to enhance the story.
3. Don’t quit before your book is finished. Having finished a book is a tremendous feeling of accomplishment. If you quit, you will always regret it. Finish the book even though you lose heart in it, for you can always rewrite it and make it better, and better.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Do not insult your reader by explaining the obvious. Do not upset your reader by nonchalantly or arbitrarily “killing off” a character that you developed so effectively as to become beloved by the reader. However, the death or tragedy of a beloved character can be a major element in the storyline, but it must be realistic, rational, and understandable.
Refrain from excess. I have read horror stories that cross the narrow line between frightening and ludicrous, as Edgar Allen Poe warned. There is also a narrow line between romance and comedy, mystery and fiasco, and so forth.
What are you reading now?
I am reading again, “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” by Ernest Hemingway. I recently read again, Catch 22. I do not often read books a second time but when I do, I am pleased to discover passages, notions, and descriptive techniques that I did not notice or appreciate before.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I will finish my mystery novel by this summer and get it published before Labor Day. With the slow demise of COVID as a major killer, I hope to arrange for book signings, book readings, and other opportunities to promote my novels in public. I plan to combine my love of travel with self-planned tours to site-see and promote my book in traveling about North America.
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?
First and foremost, the greatest book ever written, the Bible. Regardless of any person’s religion or creed, most admit that the Bible is more thought-provoking, more descriptive, more poetic, more historic, and contains more wisdom than any other armload of books ever written. Then, War and Peace, because I have never read it cover to cover, and to read again, The Catcher in the Rye, Paradise Lost, and A Tale of Two Cities.
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