Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
Hi, my name is Jay Bazzinotti. I live in Boston and love the city so much that I give tours as a hobby. My first book was a technical manual on how to troubleshoot IBM networks in the 1980s (yawn). It was well accepted in technical circles and was reprinted twice. My first novel was the story of a policeman whose partner is shot to death before his eyes, called “The Double Solid” and was optioned for an NBC television series that was never made. After that I wrote a business success book for college students (and others!) sold on Amazon under the title “Lessons on Success from a Failure” by Jay Howard (a pen name used to protect the guilty). I also have written a book about the technological changes that hit America in the second half of the 19th Century and followed it up with “Calf Pasture Pumping Station”, the story of a down and out bar owner who must solve a vicious crime before the perpetrators decide to punish him for trying. I also write for Quora.com and have had more than 10 thousand articles published including articles in many famous magazines and publications worldwide. I have been interviewed on NPR and had articles on the BBC, in Forbes, Huffpost, Fatherly, the Beijing Times and many more. I have over 100 million page views and more than 50,000 followers.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
I have always wanted to write a book about Boston and my first is “Calf Pasture Pumping Station”. I’ve read Robert B Parker and Dennis LeHane and other books set in Boston and I thought they all missed something, the certain essence of Boston that I wanted to capture. All of the locations in the book, no matter how surreal, are actual places. The Calf Pasture Pumping Station was a major castle built in Boston in the late 1800s as a pumphouse used to move sewage into the harbor. Abandoned in the 1960s, the forbidding building still sits near the ocean, filled with rusting machines and water and looks like something out of Frankenstein. It is the perfect setting for crime and mayhem.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
When I write I lose track of time. I can start at 5:30AM and look up to find it is now dinner time and I haven’t gotten up once. When I write, I try to write the scenes of the book that intrigues me the most first, in no order, then I move them around to fit the timeline of the story and alter them and fill in the gaps to bring the story together.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Herman Wouk is my favorite author; his book “The Caine Mutiny” stands out as the best book ever written in my opinion. Daniel Keyes’ “Flowers for Algernon” changed my life with its writing and concept. Recently, my favorite book is “Cutting for Stone”, which moved me to tears. I have read all of Parker’s “Spenser for Hire” books, all of the Dick Francis and Ed McBain mysteries but truly, one of the best mystery writers of all time is Donald E. Westlake, who not only wrote incredible mysteries, but made many of them into light comedies with hilarious sub-plots as well. Jasper FForde’s “The Big Over Easy”, a serious investigation into who pushed Humpty Dumpty off the wall is both an incredible mystery story and a wild adventure into the surreal. I’ve read it a half dozen times.
What are you working on now?
I am working on a sequel to Calf Pasture Pumping Station called “The Assassin’s Wife” that picks up a few months after the end of the first book. It’s a book of revenge and desperation and the things people will do for love and money.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I have been pretty successful using Quora.com. Since I have a large following, I encourage my readers to try my book. Offering free copies in exchange for reviews is helpful. I also give a lecture series on Boston at libraries and other venues and use my soapbox to push my book, since many of the historical locations are used in the story.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Do be a good writer you must read a great deal and you must write all the time. You can’t be a good writer if you do not write. You have to be able to string a sentence together in such a way that it compels the reader to move on to the next sentence, and the next. Using vocabulary and insinuation to briefly describe a person, a room, a location, a situation is critical to moving the story along. One of the problems with the book “Moby Dick” is that Hawthorne spends six pages describing one room – it destroys the story. Let the reader use his imagination.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
“Every single thing you do today is preparing you for the life you will lead tomorrow. As Sun Tzu said, ‘Sweat more during peace, bleed less during war.’ Or in the words of Muhammed Ali, ‘Having the will to win means nothing because everyone wants to win. It’s having the will to prepare to win that matters’ and ‘Getting thrown to the mat means nothing because sooner or later everyone gets thrown to the mat. To be a champion, you have to get up off that mat and fight one more round. All you have to do is fight one… more… round.”
“Your attitude is the single biggest determinant of success in your life. Nothing is more important or more powerful than having an unrelentingly positive attitude. Nothing.”
“If there must be an absence of pain for joy to exist then the individual is doomed. We must find a way to experience joy despite our pain because everybody hurts. Everybody. Everyone is fighting a secret battle we cannot see and the line between victory and defeat is often razor thin. Sometimes a person is standing right on that line and doesn’t even know it. A kind word or gesture from someone could be the thing that pushes them forward to victory, while a mean word or spiteful gesture could be the thing that pushes them backwards into defeat. That is why kindness is so important. Words and actions have power and consequences. Be the kind of person who helps others achieve their personal victory and you take part in achieving your own as well.”
What are you reading now?
“The Last Policeman”, the story of a young detective living in Concord, NH at a time when a huge comet is heading for the earth and there is less than a year to live. It’s both a mystery and a description of the crumbling of society and describes how people might react when faced with the inevitable end.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I am excited about the sequel for my current book. I am trying to write a series a la “Spenser for Hire” or the Jack Reacher books. In my opinion, the flaw with Spenser and Jack Reacher is that they never grow. They never change. They never learn. They are born, fully formed, without human flaws or weaknesses. They win every fight, they out think every enemy. I believe a flawed hero is more human, more like the rest of, trying to get through the day, trying to help a friend, fighting his own demons and be successful at life. If there is no growth, no setbacks, no self-doubt, then there is no challenge – there is never any doubt the character will succeed. Without doubt there is no suspense.
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?
“The Caine Mutiny” by Herman Wouk; “Catch-22” by Joseph Heller; “Cutting for Stone” by Abraham Verghese, “Berlin Noir” by Phillip Kerr, “Lost in a Good Book” by Jasper FForde and of course some book on how to survive on a desert island. That would be good.