Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
My work mainly deals with managing medical disasters areas, that is, planning a correct response, responding to a harsh event and then Embed social rehabilitation. It is a preoccupation including a lot of contact with people in their most vulnerable situations. This occupation has also led me to witness tough scenes during the past twenty years, some of which will not let go until the day I die. Fortunately, I could function well under pressure and with high mental strength. And one more thing that helped me is the fact I write. Since I remember myself as a child, I write in my notebooks almost everything that happens to me and turns these things into fantastic stories. I always wrote stuff to myself and never attached importance to writing beyond the fact that it was a hobby allowing me to return to a routine very quickly, to explain to myself that I was the only logical thing in an unreasonable situation. About four years ago, a friend asked me if I would like to participate in a novel writing competition. At first, I hesitated but then decided it might be fun. For a month during the nights, I wrote my book in the drafts of the email on my cell phone. Finally, I submitted the manuscript and completely forgot it until I told that it had won the competition. From that moment everything rolled fast, too quickly; The book “Ten Simple Rules” was published and immediately became a best seller. That feeling was great, I thought, “if the audience liked it, he would probably love my other books as well.” And I was right, half a year later my second book came out “Reasons to kill God” and was a fantastic success in Israel. I hurried, couldn’t help myself, and immediately published another book, “Wicked Girl” followed by another one of short stories.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My inspiration for “Reasons to kill God” comes from everything I experience. Any look, sound or smell can give me a new idea. Usually, during the day I’m busy at work, so most of the ideas come to me in the few hours of sleep that I manage to sleep at night. When that happens, I wake up immediately and start writing the idea. Once the concept exists, it is a matter of short time before the book is ready. To the very question of inspiration, because my work touches on the most challenging areas of life, which my writing naturally deals with, So, in most of my books, there are at least three layers of content hidden from the reader’s eyes, and he discovers them slowly during reading. My heroes are the most wretched people you can think of, yet the right end written for them is only in the eyes of the beholder. On the other hand, there is nothing in my writing that is self-explanatory; usually, my plots will surprise the reader right up to the last word in the book because, I learned in life and I apply it in my books, understanding is a matter of proportion and depends on our momentary perspective.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Since I’m almost out of the house because of my type of work, I do most of the writing in remote places and late at night. Sometimes there is no lighting, and usually, the electricity is minimal, so I don’t have many choices but improvise. Nevertheless, to this day I finished writing seven books, all of them I wrote on my cell phone, in my Gmail drafts. Sometimes my wife laughs at me in this matter. “Who writes books on a cell phone?” She asks me, and I don’t have the right answer, so I reply with a smile, “I do.”
Usually, my subjects begin with a dream or, more precisely, a nightmare. Since I have engaged in this profession of wounded and dying people for almost twenty-five years, it is tough for me to sleep, and when I do so, I have bad dreams. So, I wake up immediately and start writing the chapters, and the whole writing process from that moment takes about one to two months until the book is ready for my beta readers to have their mind of it. My inspiration probably comes from sights and stories that I see and hear during work. Over time all these are processed and changed, taking another form. My books deal with the difficult issues of life, not necessarily dark, humorless stories, but most subjects that people don’t openly talk about – the worldview from the eyes of a Nazi criminal or a Pedophile, the point of view of our perfect enemy or that of the most cunning deceiver ever Entered our lives. All these presented to the reader as one piece at the end of the insights that the reader can agree or deny them. In every story I write, there are at least three layers and many plots that intersect each other into an entire story that moves on a past-present timeline. The reader will enjoy the first reading of what the eye views, during the story he will try to guess where this story leads him. In this context, I have not met anyone who has read my books and managed to think the end of the story during the reading, at least not until he finished the last word of the book. Mainly because what happens in it depends very much on the perspective of the reader at the same point he is at, and his willingness to penetrate the story’s guts, sometimes even finishing the book and immediately rereading it to find this time he is reading a completely different one.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Most of them written in Hebrew so it won’t say a thing if I’ll share it. But I love most any kind of fiction.
What are you working on now?
Mainly trying to write two new books whose idea has been bothering me for several months.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
So far I have published my books only in Israel so that when it comes to advertising abroad, I’m a novice. It’s funny to say it, but I find myself starting from scratch, building a community of readers, contacting people to read the book. Yet I am enjoying every Minute of doing so while I still got time to write.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
I’ll start with a question; For whom do you write your words?
Is it for yourself or to an audience that will buy the book in stores.
Separate your need to write words and the marketing efforts of those words. I found writing as the most effective tool (except for my family) to remain sane in the complex world in which we live. Therefore, if I had not written, I don’t know where I would be today and what my mental state would be. On the other hand, the desire that everyone will read what we’ve written and appreciated our work as writers push us to publish our words in all kinds of ways. At first, these are just words that try to break out as a simple post on Facebook or Twitter, then you publish short stories on websites, and finally, you put a book in stores and sell a lot of it (wouldn’t we wish it was so simple). Note that once you put the writing pen on the table and start marketing your words, you are less writer and more of a sells man.
I made this mistake at my beginning as a writer, and from the moment I did so, the writing gradually diminished until it almost disappeared. And if for a moment we go back to the question I asked and the first paragraph of this answer of mine, then this was the moment I understood for whom I write my words.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Finish school and then do whatever you want.
What are you reading now?
I just finished reading Kim Edwards’ excellent book, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter.
What’s next for you as a writer?
If my first book succeeds in Amazon as I predict it will, my readers can expect another six books that are already waiting in the drawer. Three of these books have not yet published (not even in Hebrew) and they excite me primarily because of the variety of their stories and the issues they bring to surface. Together with all of these, I am currently working on writing two more books.
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