Interview With Author R Chapman Wesley
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I grew up in rural central Virginia, the son of a family physician father and an English teacher mother. Although in retrospect, I was always destined to be a physician, I had an energetic creative side that found expression mainly in poetry, but I dabbled in virtually every form of expression including painting, photography, and dance. Besides reading, I had a great love of movies, but always with something at stake, like “Spartacus.” It was not until my first retirement that I had the time and space to explore expression as a storyteller.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The name of my book is The Well; “A Fountain for Life, or a Pool of Death.”
An unexpected, incredulous discovery by a novice physician-scientist of color, eliminating a whole category of human suffering, sets off his quest for a universal cure but, for others, an assassination-driven multinational, clandestine competition for the ultimate bioweapon.
Professor Anatoly Popov, an esteemed virologist and Russian-born defector, steals the world’s deadliest virus from a counter bio-terrorism lab. His aim – to alter its properties with the remains of an interstellar meteorite to create a universal Cure, based upon an ancient Chinese legend. But the theft sets off a murderous clandestine multi-national competition for the ultimate bioweapon. Now with his time running out, Popov must pin his hopes upon Cmdr. Rex Lee, an ex-Seal medic and novice physician-scientist, and a desperate search mission in the Amazonian rainforest of Brazil to restore the promise of THE WELL.
As a child, I was always concerned by existential threats to humanity. As a physician, albeit a cardiologist, I became deeply interested in pandemic threats from the SARS-Coronavirus and later H5N1 and H1N1 influenza viruses.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I try to visualize my entire story beyond a simple schematic outline before committing to placing pen to paper. Then I write my story using screenplay format focusing on images, actions and only plot points of dialogue. Then I write the novel.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment; the internal dialogue between and within the protagonist and the antagonist); Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist; a spiritual quest and transformation that ends at the place that it began); James Redfield (the Celestine Prophecy; a quest propelled by the recognition of seemingly incongruous, synchronistic events).
What are you working on now?
“The Horse”: In 1947, a young ex-Marine Wyoming rancher, whose wife died in a relocation camp after childbirth, seeks a cure for his 5-year-old Japanese American daughter’s terminal illness based on a “calling” from a Native American legend.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
www.RChapmanWesley.com From there, one can read my first chapter, “The Monk.” In addition, one can hear as many as 5 audio clips of my personally narrated audiobook.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Ask: What is the theme of my work? What is it that I am desiring to communicate? I do not subscribe to the tactic of writing to figure out the story. Before starting, it is critically important to know the beginning and the end, and the key moments in the middle connecting the two. Visualize in your mind’s eye your entire story as a silent movie that at some point magically generates sound and dialogue. Show as much as possible without telling. Show what a character is feeling more than what he/she is thinking. Let the character’s actions reflect the thinking. What should your audience feel at the end of your story? They will remember more of what they felt than what they thought.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Forget commerciality; only develop stories and themes that excite you. Secondly, thou shalt not bore!
What are you reading now?
I am re-reading my favorite Shakespearean play, “Macbeth.”
What’s next for you as a writer?
Beyond novel writing, I am transforming my poems into lyrics for songs.
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?
There are too many to name. But if I had to choose one and its companion, it would be “Science of Mind” by Ernest Holmes and its companion, “Science of Mind 365”, which I have steadied daily upon awakening for more than several decades.
Author Websites and Profiles
R Chapman Wesley Amazon Profile
R Chapman Wesley’s Social Media Links
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