Interview With Author Josh Jackson
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
Josh Jackson, 47, is a former photojournalist, current writer, and avid outdoors enthusiast. His lifelong interest and passion for nature and the outdoors has led him on many adventures, mostly solo. His previous works include the nonfiction story and essay collection based on his outdoors-themed YouTube channel, There’s Always Ants; the horror short story collection set in the outdoors Don’t Go Outdoors; and the Sasquatch-filled novella Too Many Bigfoots. He has been writing since age 13. He currently resides in The Dalles, Oregon.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
“Run, Interrupted”
We all have problems trying to recreate and exercise in our communities. I wondered, what if there happened to be someone less-than-rational, someone with little to no patience, who encountered these issues? How would the city’s worse citizens react when they come up against someone who won’t back down?
While most of us either just take the slings and arrows with a stiff upper lip and a dose of maturity and self-control, there are a few out there whose reactionary mindset would spur them to retaliate, and relentlessly. Do you know whether the person beside you is dangerous?
It’s akin to the idea of living in an armed society. If you thought the driver you’re about to cut off in traffic has a gun in the center console and is ready to shoot, wouldn’t you think twice?
And I felt it was time to call out so many aspects of our hometowns that make life less livable. It’s all the so-called “petty” things, that we allow so many “small” problems to pile up that they become a big problem. At first, the protagonist was my avatar, giving me opportunity to vent, but very quickly he became his own person, a far different guy than me, and the story became his story.
Many people to whom I revealed the plot, even before I started writing, demanded I not only write this novel but call out our local city’s many, many issues, without fictionalizing the locale. So our main character isn’t my avatar, but rather everyone’s. We’ve all suffered the same things he suffers, just not so constantly. We can all relate to his experiences, his thoughts, his life.
This book basically had to be written, and while the city was indeed fictionalized for the sake of decency, people who will know what real-world Oregon burg I’m talking about. Yours. Everyone’s. The character isn’t just everyone’s avatar, his town is everyone’s town as well.
While this is entertainment, I do make a lot of statements about society, communities, and the many problems we avoid solving and simply allow to fester. This book is a mirror, reflecting without filter what goes on daily in our cities and towns. We can all be better, and we must, because the worst-case scenario is laid out in the novel in detail.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Unusual, no.
I do subscribe to the idea of “shitty first drafts.” Get it down, typos or grammar be damned. The longer you wait to craft that perfect sentence, the more likely you are to lose the great idea behind it. And you can always cut out the bad, or rewrite a sentence. Too many times I didn’t write down an idea, due to it being the middle of the night for example, and lost it by morning.
I also don’t set a time to write. When it feels the right time, I go for it, regardless of the time of day. Because I’d rather get that shitty first draft written, than lose momentum or my muse merely due to needing to stick to a “writing schedule.” I usually like to get going in the morning, but recently I wrote a 5,000 word short story in the evening. Because the muse said “write!” and I knew better than to say “wait, I’m not ready!” And I’m very happy with how it turned out!
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Like many 80’s kids I read a ton of Stephen King, but also Dean Koontz, and John Saul, though it was mainly King’s short stories that got my creative juices oozing. Who inspired me the most as a young writer, was Robert McCammon. His work made me feel that there was another level to writing, a way of doing things which King and Koontz simply couldn’t conceive. And I desperately wanted to be as good a writer as McCammon. His “Swan Song,” to me, made King’s “The Stand” boring by comparison.
More recently, I discovered the late Lawrence Sanders, and his work felt revelatory. Now THAT’s how you write a novel! Never writing down to the audience, providing exquisite detail and wide-ranging knowledge, and of course leveling up your vocabulary. His prose is so well crafted, so engaging, that I simply couldn’t dream of writing at such a level. But it really inspired me to elevate my own writing, to not shy away from taking the time to say things as I felt they should be said. To not be lazy, to not compromise, to look at every sentence and word for ways to elevate them.
I also found historical books to be incredibly entertaining in recent years, mainly tales of the Age of Exploration, such as the Franklin Expedition or the adventures of the Duke of Abruzzi, or the stories of mountaineering from Everest or K2. Modern books like “Madhouse at the End of the Earth” by Julian Sancton got me turning some pages. The misfortune, the survival tales, the harrowing events, all regaled in such vivid detail as to take you right there on the glaciers, on the windswept Antarctic plains, dodging bergs in the Bering Sea, breaking up sled dog fights on sea ice. When nonfiction inspires you as much as fiction, you start to learn how to really tell a story.
Reality always makes for the better story, so write fiction with as much verisimilitude as possible.
Naturally, other great books and authors helped inspire me. I felt that Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose” was possibly the most masterful book I’ve ever read. I certainly read plenty of Shakespeare, though “Titus Andronicus” is probably my favorite. It’s just so dark and horrible! Add in various classic authors like Poe, Ambrose Bierce, Bradbury, etc. and you’ve got a literary base not dissimilar to many other folks. I’m not a terribly quirky reader.
So to summarize, my influences include McCammon, Koontz, and King, in my youth, and now Sanders and historical nonfiction, and many other great and classic books and authors along the way.
What are you working on now?
I’ve always loved short stories, and so I’m assembling a second collection of shorter works. I’m about a third of the way done, which is a nice bit of progress, with at least three other stories outlined and waiting to be written. And of course more to come!
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
While I do send press releases and make announcements on my website about new publication, they never seem to generate many views. Paying $5 a day to Blaze to promote my announcements seems to drive traffic, and get a few clicks on the Amazon listing, but like most indie authors, sales are not paying the bills at all. Social media doesn’t seem to actually help either, even when multiple people post on their socials about my new books. My local library has a ban on promoting local authors, which is inexplicable. I can’t even put up a flyer on their board, they said if I did they’d instantly take it down. Personally I see the only way to really get the word out is a paid ad campaign. Which means only those writers with money can get discovered. Or a publisher who can pay for promotion. So get ready to spend money to make money. Just don’t expect to make money.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
It’s very important to not rush to publication. Take the time to make sure the work is as good as you can make it. Even if it takes two years. Or ten. Or more. You’re not doing this for the money but rather because you’re passionate and you care, and want to tell a good story.
Don’t use AI for anything. YOU are the writer, solely.
And don’t think you’ll spend every day writing. The actual keyboard work is at best 20% of it. The rest is editing, rewrites, promotion, working on details like the cover, layout, blurbs, etc.
And don’t expect to make money.
Be ready for nothing but rejections. Almost all, if not all, of your submissions will be ignored, and the few you get in front of a publisher will certainly be rejected, if only due to their being hangry or it’s Monday morning and they’re cranky.
The quality of your work will not necessarily carry the day. In this and many other industries, it’s not how good you are, it’s who you know.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Again, it’s not how good you are. There’s a thousand better writers than you out there right this moment. How many are successful? Only those who know how to play the game.
Success will come down to who you know and what they think of you.
Think this isn’t true? Then why does every last book with rave reviews from national publications and famous authors turn out to be a piece of garbage?
What are you reading now?
I’m not reading, but struggling, through “The Lost Coast” by Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman. I just somehow managed to finish “The Last Coyote” by Michael Connelly. That book I nearly quit multiple times as well.
I’ll be returning to more Sanders next, that’s for sure!
What’s next for you as a writer?
Of course the new short story collection. I’m also considering whether to sequel my novella “Too Many Bigfoots,” while working with a relative who wants to volunteer as a sort of literary agent. He wants to see my new novel “Run, Interrupted” in print form, as he says, “I want to see it in the airport bookstore.” Sure, why not? I’m quite happy with the new book, he really liked it, and feels it would certainly be well received. I’d love for him to land us a publisher, and it’s exciting to feel like things are potentially starting to finally move for me in this writing thing.
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?
“Swan Song” by Robert McCammon
“The Name of the Rose” by Umberto Eco
“Nightmares and Dreamscapes” by Stephen King
The Complete Works of Shakespeare (single volume)
Anything by Lawrence Sanders, especially the Sins books, but not the McNally series.
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