Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m a science fiction writer based in Los Angeles. I’m also an expert spelunker, a devoted student/practitioner of shaolin kung fu, a former spy, and an octopus psychologist (just kidding–I’m only one of those things).
I’ve just launched my first ever published title, The Heresies of World (Book 1 of the “World” series), on Amazon Kindle Unlimited. I also have two free short stories that take place in the same universe available on my website (www.oabeckett.com), with more to follow. My goal (tentative, of course) is to release one free short story every other month, so check my website for updates.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
I’m just starting out, so my novella, The Heresies of World, is both my latest publication and my first ever. It’s Book 1 of a series which will (if all goes well) span several hundred pages of thrilling prose, replete with political intrigue, action, adventure, romance, and humor (shameless plug). Plus, ample amounts of laser guns and robots. You can never go wrong with robots.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I like to alternate between pen and paper and typing on my computer. I generate ideas by scribbling furiously with black gel pens in composition notebooks, then I give the ideas prose form by typing madly on my laptop keyboard. When I get stuck, I get up and pace around, sometimes mumbling lines to myself like a madman (fortunately, I usually do this in my apartment when no one but my cats can see me). It’s a frenzied, fevered, frenetic process (how’s that for some consonance?), but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I love Ursula Le Guin. She’s a true genius, an innovative thinker, a deeply humanitarian yet radical mind, and a killer prose stylist. Oh, to be as good as Ursula! (but I digress). I’m also a big fan of Isaac Asimov, Phillip K. Dick, Arthur C. Clarke, Samuel Delaney, Alice Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr.), George R. R. Martin, and many others, both “genre” and “literary” (problematic terms, I’m sure many will agree, but sadly unavoidable when discussing science fiction). On the more “literary” end (although Le Guin and Delaney, at the very least, are undoubtedly literary enough to upend these silly distinctions), I enjoy modernist poetry (e.g. Stevens, Eliot, Pound, Moore), as well as the fiction of Graham Greene, J. M. Coetzee, George Orwell, Toni Morrison, Arundhati Roy, Patricia Highsmith, and Alan Moore, to name a few.
What are you working on now?
Right now, I’m trying to make progress on the second installment in the “World” series, tentatively titled “All of World in Time.” I am also slogging through some short story ideas, because I need/want to get another story out soon (either free on my site, or “perma-free” on Amazon–I haven’t decided yet, so stay tuned).
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I’m still trying to figure that one out, given that I’m a new author. So far, I’ve got a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a website, and an Amazon author page. I’ll get back to you when any of these starts to bring me success! (the woes of a first-time writer, “first world problems,” and all that nonsense). Perhaps this Awesomegang interview will do the trick!
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Read as much as you can. Write every day if possible. If not, set up some kind of regular schedule. Read Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art–if that doesn’t motivate you to get your butt in gear as a writer, nothing will. Most importantly, swallow an ample serving of salt with any advice you take from new authors you just stumbled upon on the internet!
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
“The amateur believes he must first overcome his fear; then he can do his work. The professional knows that fear can never
be overcome.” — Steven Pressfield, The War of Art. OK, I know. That’s not really advice. It’s a pithy quote, an aphorism. But the implied advice–to press onward, to do the hard work of writing, in spite of fear, self-doubt, and skepticism–is worth its weight in gold.
What are you reading now?
Blacksad by Canales and Guarnido, The Man in the High Castle by Phillip K. Dick, The House of God by Samuel Shem, and re-reading the Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I have a couple of ideas I’m plotting out in my notebooks that I might tackle after I finish the “World” series. But right now, “World” is all I’m actively working on.
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?
Other than Pressfield’s War of Art, which I think I’ve mentioned enough in this interview, I’d want to bring the King James Bible (endless source of poetic inspiration–I remember reading that Hemingway liked to recite from it aloud to get his bardic juices flowing), the Riverside Shakespeare (for similar reasons), The Dispossessed by Le Guin (I can read that book over and over and never become bored), The Foundation trilogy by Asimov (despite its flaws, it always gets me going in the space operatic mode), and The ABC of Reading by Ezra Pound (say what you want about Pound and his unfortunate politics, but this book is a single-volume literary education–you learn as much by disagreeing with it as you do from absorbing its message). OK, that was more than 4, but what writer could really survive on just 4 books?
Author Websites and Profiles
O. A. Beckett Website
O. A. Beckett Amazon Profile
O. A. Beckett’s Social Media Links
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