Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’ve been a Psychotherapist, specializing in working with Post-Traumatic Stress, for 35 years. Although I’ve published non-fiction works in this field, Do You Want to See the Videos is my first novel. I lived in Miami, where the book is set, for twenty years, but for the past fifteen years have lived in Asheville, North Carolina, where I love hiking in the mountains.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
I was asked the question “Do you want to see the videos?” by someone from the DA’s office many years ago about a client I was seeing at the time. My sense was that these videos had been passed around and viewed by many of the people in the office. I was appalled and, at the same time, was aware that my own imagination was full of images. It was a memory that stuck with me over the years and eventually evolved into the book, which is only very, very loosely based on any particular client.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
My commitment to myself was to write a minimum of four sentences every day. Even when I wasn’t sure what might be happening next in the book, that would typically start the juices flowing.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Linda Fairstein’s Thrillers, by and about a New York District Attorney specializing in sexual abuse cases, provided a model for writing about something I know about intimately with expertise. I love the way she has interwoven historical detail about New York City with strong characters and absorbing plot lines. “Gone Girl,” with all of its plot twists, was another major influence. And Mac McClelland’s “Irritable Heart” provided inspiration from a non-fiction perspective.
What are you working on now?
I’ve got multiple ideas percolating at the moment. “Do You Want to See the Videos” focused on traditional “talk therapy,” but I also have worked for years with children and adolescents and so, one plot revolves around revelations emerging from play therapy with a child, and another set in a wilderness based therapeutic boarding school, are both in development.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I have found that promotion is much more difficult than writing. Goodreads has been most helpful, but I am still very new to this aspect.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Read, read, read. Read in lots of different genres, not just the one in which you write. And write about what you are compelled to write. If your book is not compelling for you, you can hardly expect that it will be for anyone else.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Find what you love to do. And then figure out how to eat while you do it.
What are you reading now?
I just finished “Like a Fading Shadow” by Antonio Muanoz Molina. While not a “page turner,” it is an amazing novel about James Earl Ray and about the process of writing a novel. It highlights the difference between a collection of facts and a story. Since one of the underlying themes of my own book has to do with the relationship between facts and meaning, I found this particularly interesting.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Finding readers!
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?
I would want long books that I remember loving, but haven’t read in a long time. Perhaps, Steinbeck’s “East of Eden,” Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury” and Ken Kesey’s “Sometimes a Great Notion.”
Author Websites and Profiles
Phil Sageser Website
Phil Sageser Amazon Profile
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