Interview with John Oehler
I love doing author interviews, especially for authors whose work I have read and enjoyed. Please allow me to introduce to you John Oehler. Below is an interview in which he was kind enough to participate.
1. I read Papyrus and Aphrodesia and was riveted by both. You have a knack for mystery and detail, whether historical or well-researched professions like perfuming. What inspired you to write these stories?
The initial idea for Papyrus came to me in 1983 when I was in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and noticed a potential way for thieves to break in. Over time (by which I mean decades, because I was not yet a serious writer), the story concept expanded tremendously. The theft now occupies only a chapter and a half.
Interested readers can see my original sketch of the break-in route by going to http://johnoehler.com , pulling down Papyrus from the Novels tab, and clicking on Behind the Scenes.
Aphrodesia is another story that took years to mature. I first became interested in fragrances while living in London in the mid-80s. I started collecting perfume samples, perfume books, and articles on the psychology of scent. I wanted to write a story centered on fragrances but couldn’t think of an interesting plot — until I met a master perfumer in Versailles who told me that creating a true aphrodisiac is the Holy Grail of the perfumer’s art. I thought: Bingo! I can make a story out of an aphrodisiac.
As with Papyrus, you can read more about the origin of Aphrodesia on my website. Pull down Aphrodesia from the Novels menu, click on Behind the Scenes, and you’ll see two entries illustrated with photos of the master perfumer and of ISIPCA, the perfume school in Versailles where the story begins.
2. You got an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for Papyrus and First Place in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association for Tepui. How did you feel about being recognized so well on these novels? (Also, what’s your secret to success?)
Papyrus was a semifinalist in the 2009 ABNA competition, ranking in the top 1% out of 10,000 submissions. I was thrilled. At the same time I was disappointed, because the Publishers Weekly reviewer praised everything about the story except for the “downbeat” ending — a major character died. It made me wonder if a more upbeat ending might have advanced Papyrus into the finals. I knew, from critique partners and others who had read the story, that opinion was divided about 50:50 between those who loved the last chapter and those who didn’t. Ultimately I decided to change the ending.
As an aside, I have toyed with the idea of posting the original ending on my website. But beyond those who read this interview, very few people are even aware that the current last chapter was not my first choice.
Winning the PNWA competition was probably the biggest surprise of my writing career. It’s a major contest that attracts lots of agents and editors. I’d entered a thriller titled Tepui and received a hint that it might be a finalist. At the award ceremony, I was sitting at a big round table with my wife and about ten other people as the finalists were read off. When my name was announced as the winner, I blurted, “Are you shitting me?” The whole table laughed.
Perhaps the coolest thing was that this led to a role reversal. Like most unpublished writers, I’d endured years of frustration playing supplicant to the deaf gods of agentdom. Now, suddenly, agents were courting ME.
In the end, the agent I signed with turned out to be a poor choice. Several months into our relationship, she sold a YA fantasy for half a million bucks and a second YA fantasy for a quarter million. She lost interest in thrillers. On the flip side, I lost interest in agents and have been more than happy to self-publish ever since.
Secret to success? I’m certainly not as “successful” as I’d like to be. But I attribute my modicum of popularity to excellent teachers (like Chris Rogers) and critique partners I trust and respect. I strive to create unusual characters, take them to places most readers have never seen before, and keep readers guessing what’s going to happen next. I also try to engage all of the senses, to help readers feel like they are in the story, not just reading it.
3. I’ve posted reviews for Aphrodesia and Papyrus here on my blog, but I haven’t had the pleasure of discovering Tepui. Can you tell us a bit about it?
Tepui is the story of a burn-scarred botanist who treks into the remote Venezuelan highlands in search of a living fossil but stumbles onto something far more astonishing, and deadly.
This story stems from my work and travels in Venezuela and on the history of the region.
4. Tell us about your other writing ventures. What other brilliant ideas have you got up your sleeve? When can we expect to see your next book?
Tepui will be the next book I publish. I’m currently refining it and hope to get it out by the fall.
I’m not sure what will come after that. I’ve always loved old books and libraries. While visiting a monastery in Prague last Christmas, I spent an hour contemplating their library and especially their locked collection of forbidden tomes. I’d like to set a story in that environment. The idea might sound derivative of The Name of the Rose (one of my all-time favorite stories), but I would set it mainly in modern times.
In a similar vein, I’ve long wanted to write a story set in western Ireland during the Viking raids of the early 900s. It would center on a mixed male-female monastery with a round tower that serves as a repository for volumes rescued from the anti-intellectual book burnings of the Dark Ages. I’m torn between this and the Prague story. I don’t think I can do both, because there’d be too many similarities.
I’ve written parts of several other stories I’d like to expand if I live long enough. One centers on a powder created by an 8th-Century Arab alchemist (a real person) that extends life for centuries, provided you keep taking it. The story opens with the spectacular (true) robbery in 1976 of a bank in Nice, during which thieves spent an entire weekend looting safe deposit boxes in the underground vault. In my twist, the thieves were working for a woman who knew the powder and the alchemist’s formula were in one of the boxes, and that’s all she wanted.
Most of the others involve things like ancient mysteries and labyrinthine puzzles.
5. What got you started in the writing world? Have you always wanted to write or is it a passion you discovered later in life?
In high school I wrote poetry about society’s outcasts, some of which was published in a scholastic magazine. In college I occasionally ghostwrote sonnets for girls who were supposed to write them as a class assignment. Simple rhyming poetry always came easily to me.
What started me writing novels — or trying to — was hubris. In the late 70s and early 80s, I traveled internationally quite a bit and spent my time on planes reading Robert Ludlum
Flash forward several years and I’ve finally finished my first version, a 240,000-word tome I called The Papyrus of Tiye. A friend of mine offers to take it home with him at Thanksgiving and show it to his mother, a vice president at Bantam. P.S. It came back with a note that read, “Tell him to take a creative writing class.”
Exit all traces of hubris, never to return. Enter the long, hard slog of learning to craft stories that OTHER people enjoy reading.
6. Your writing style is truly unique; I’ve never read another quite like you. Who are your favorite authors to read? Who inspires you?
Interesting that you should mention my “style.” I was once told that I don’t have a style. In truth, I don’t think about it when I write. But when I proof a story, I do notice a lot of “habits” that surface on every page.
Modern authors I enjoy reading include Ken Follett, Michael Crichton (before his stories became political), Umberto Eco, Nelson DeMille, Daniel Silva, Trevanian, Frank Herbert, Stieg Larsson, Wilbur Smith, Elizabeth George (her earlier books), and Laura Hillenbrand (a monument to writing beautifully under major adversity). Sadly, several of these authors have left us.
If I had to pick one author who inspires me, it would be Michael Crichton. As a scientist, I like the way he turns science into adventure and often combines that with history. My own stories do the same.
7. Your ‘on location’ scenes in your books are so detailed. Have you traveled to the places you write to describe them so vividly?
What a wonderful compliment. Thank you.
Yes, I’ve traveled to many of the places I describe: Egypt for Papyrus, France for Aphrodesia, Venezuela for Tepui. In fact, I’ve traveled to fifty or sixty countries and lived in six. But there are places in my stories I have not visited. Two examples are Yemen in Aphrodesia and Sudan in Papyrus. For these I used my experiences in Somalia, combined with books and articles I have plus a lot of Internet research.
If you’re going to take a reader to someplace exotic, I believe you have a duty to make that place as real as possible. And not just visually. What does it smell like? What sounds do you hear? How does the food taste? What textures do you feel? Those details help the reader feel “there.”
8. Other than writing, what are your other hobbies and interests?
I read a lot, of course. I love to cook. And my wife and I continue to travel as often as we can. She’s a member of the Mars Science team, which operates and analyzes data from NASA’s Curiosity rover, so our travel opportunities are limited by the rover’s activities. But we manage to get away frequently and always enjoy the foods, wines, art, music, and history of the places we visit.
Then there’s our Old English Sheepdog, Elfie, who has her own Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/elfie.oehler) and takes a chunk of my “spare” time.
As to interests, name something, and I’m probably interested. I have files on everything from art, poisons, labyrinths, and magic to ancient and medieval history, symbology, gold, gypsies, and food. Probably I’m most interested in things that influence the way we think and behave, especially early Catholicism, medieval Islam, taboos, superstitions, and the like.
9. If there is one thing you’d want your readers and fans to know about you, what would it be?
My whole reason for writing is to please my readers and make them hungry for more of my work. I want to share with them the excitement of exotic places, the richness (and sometimes terror) of foreign cultures. And (don’t kill me for saying this) I try to educate by painlessly integrating elements of history, art, and science. I love it when readers say, “I never knew that.” And I love it even more when they wonder, Could this really happen?
10. Previously you have participated in book signing events in the Houston area. When (and where) can we expect to see you out and about again?
Nothing scheduled at the moment. But when Tepui comes out, I hope to have several signings. I’ll definitely let you know. Signings offer a unique opportunity to speak personally with potential readers, and I look forward to the next round.
Meet Tom Sechrist
1. Describe your book and its inception. What made you decide to write this?
“The Stones of Andarus” is the first book in The Devenshire Chronicles series. It introduces us to the main characters and sets up the premise for the rest of the series. A demented Master Mage named Xavier annihilates a village in order to obtain the Stones of Andarus, which legends claim contain a fragment of the power of creation mixed with the twisted essence of a crazed sorcerer named Andarus. Daimion Devenshire realizes what is at stake and sets off on a desperate quest to stop Xavier from unleashing the unholy power of these three ancient artifacts. Joining him on this adventure are a group of unlikely heroes including The Lady Brianna Standish, governing lord of Prothtow Province, Shantira Dubris, sole survivor of Xavier’s attack on her village, Raven Darkseed, rouge adept of the Mystical Arts and Zandorth Krahl, Warrior of the Ancient Class.
What made me decide to write this was a desire to write in a genre I had never tried before. Prior to “The Stones of Andarus”, I had writt
en manuscripts in multiple genres including westerns, science fiction, and detective/thrillers. I had always enjoyed a good Fantasy story and one day in 1998 I decided to try my hand at it. Little did I know that I was setting out on a story that would dominate and consume me for over a decade.
2. What were your influences? Is there anyone from your genre you especially admire?
My biggest influence when it comes to writing is Ms. Joynelle Pearson. When I was 13 I had a very explosive temper. One day that temper led me to punch a brick column in my schools court yard. Needless to say I wound up in the nurses station with an ice pack on my very swollen hand (thank goodness nothing was broken). Ms. Pearson happened to walk by and saw me sitting there. She lifted the towel over the ice pack and shook her head. She looked up at me and said, “You really should get a handle on that temper of yours. Have you ever tried writing a short story about whatever it was that angered you?” That piece of advice started me down the path of becoming a writer. At first they were just really bloody and violent short stories. As time went on I found that it really did help ease my temper and I really enjoyed the writing process. Those initial short stories started being expanded with actual plot lines, character development and so forth.
My other writing influences include Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, Clive Cussler, Dean Koontz, Louis L’Amor and, of course, Tolkien. In the Fantasy genre I really enjoy C. S. Friedman, P. N. Elrod, and George R. R. Martin.
3. Many authors are heavily influenced by their environment when they write. Where is your safe space? Do you have mood music?
I don’t really have a designated place to write. Sometimes I write at my desk, sometimes I write in my backyard, and sometimes I write in my bedroom. I would have to say that my muse decides the environment I’m going to write in.
I absolutely have to have music blaring through my headphone when I’m writing. I have a very long playlist of all types of music on my computer. Everything from rock to rap to instrumental to big band to jazz, the list is practically endless. Sometimes I’ll pull up an Epic Music track on YouTube and write to that. Like my writing environment, it seems my muse picks the music as well.
4. What do you find to be the easiest of the writing and editing process? What is the hardest for you?
The easiest is the writing of the first draft. I don’t worry about the mechanics of writing, I just write, let the ideas flow and hope my fingers can get the ideas out as fast as my mind is producing them.
Editing gets tedious after the fifth or sixth time through the manuscript, but I enjoy the process of seeing where I’ve made mistakes and how to keep myself from repeating them. I also have a very talented editor (Rogena Mitchell-Jones) who has been a tremendous help in improving my editing skills.
The hardest part of the writing process has to be starting a new book. The excitement and urge to write are so strong and yet, getting that first sentence out has always been the hardest part for me. I’ve spent hour upon hour staring at that blank screen and blinking cursor and… nothing. I have lost count of how many millions of first sentences/paragraphs that I’ve deleted trying to get that new story started.
5. Many authors participate in book signings and conventions. Artistic authors like yourself who write and create for this genre do especially well at ComicCon and Comicpalooza. Are you interested in branching out into the event world? What would your ideal celebration of The Devenshire Chronicles look like?
I would love to branch out into the event world. I think book signings, conventions and other events where I can introduce readers to the world of The Devenshire Chronicles would be ideal. The perfect celebration of The Devenshire Chronicles would feature a booth with copies of all my books for sale, all sorts of book swag, portraits I’ve created of all the characters and a monitor set up playing the book trailers and other videos I’ve created for the series. I would be there signing copies of the books and talking with people about the books, writing and other creative processes. It would be great.
6. Did you learn anything about yourself or the world you live in by writing this book (that isn’t included in the book itself)?
Over the 16 years that I’ve been involved in The Devenshire Chronicles, namely The Stones of Andarus, I’ve watched myself grow as a writer and a person. I go back to the original first draft of Book 1 and I almost cringe at how bad the writing was. At the time I thought it was the best piece of literature ever produced, but looking back on it now, I can see how much I’ve grown. My wife has read both versions and she has made the observation that I’ve seasoned as a writer and a person since I began this story. As I have grown, I can see how the main characters of the story have grown as well. I have learned that while my skill as a writer has improved tremendously over the past decade, I still have much more to learn and that there is always room for improvement.
7. How have your friends and family reacted to your content?
My friends and family have been tremendously supportive of my writing. I have to temper their praise with the fact that they are my friends and family, but it’s good to have that kind of support.
One of my friends is hooked on the series and is always asking me when the next book is coming out and that I need to hurry up. She says she actually misses the main characters in between books and can’t wait for the next one.
My wife, Renee, is, without a doubt, my staunchest supporter and the primary reason Book 1 was ever published. When I met her three years ago I had given up on ever publishing The Devenshire Chronicles. She read part of “The Stones of Andarus” and encouraged me to keep writing. She has become my sounding board for story ideas and keeps me on track when I get discouraged or distracted.
8. What are your future writing plans? Do you have other books in the works?
I am currently working on Book 3 of The Devenshire Chronicles entitled, “The Amulet of Talmara”. I’m hoping to have it released later this year. I also have ideas for a pirate novel, a science fiction novel, a western, a post-apocalyptic novel and another Fantasy novel as well.
9. Tell me about your art ventures.
After I had released “The Stones of Andarus” I wanted a book trailer to go along with it. I had watched several book trailers and started playing around with a movie making program. I produced a crude trailer but I was never completely satisfied with it. I needed/wanted characterizations of the characters in the book and I didn’t want to use someone else’s artwork or photographs. I saw the trailer for “Sanctum of Souls”, a work in progress by Bex Pavia who is a friend of mine. She had 3D representations of her characters and I was blown away by that. I asked her how she made the characters and she introduced me to a 3D graphics program.
Over the next couple of months I played with the program, watched tutorials and experimented until I was finally able to produce the first 3D rendering of Daimion Devenshire. That was a very powerful moment for me. I had always pictured Daimion in my mind, but to actually “see” him was incredible. Once I had 3D portraits of all the main characters I started revamping my book trailer and found that I absolutely love doing that sort of creative work, almost as much as I love writing.
Since then I have gone on to produce a book trailer for Book 2 “Predator & Prey” and have gone back and replaced the text-on-screen in both trailers with my own voice over work.
I have also produced a video which is a remake of the original “Hawaii 5-0” intro. In the remake I call it “Prothtow 5-0” (Prothtow is a province in the books) and I use the characters from the book as its “stars”. I did it for pure entertainment value and the fact that I so enjoy making these videos.
I have found it’s a good outlet for me when I have a particularly bad case of writers’ block.
10. If there was one thing you’d want fans to know about you, what would it be?
I don’t write these books to become rich and famous (though I won’t deny the more pleasant aspects of that thought). I write these books because I want to touch people the way I’ve been touched through someone’s writing. I pour everything I have into these stories so that maybe, just maybe, someone will read them and feel like we have some sort of connection. I want people to read my work and feel like we had one hell of a good time together and it leaves them with some very warm and fond memories.
The Stones of Andarus (Kindle/ paperback)
The Stones of Andarus on Smashwords
The Stones of Andarus book trailer
Predator & Prey book trailer
S. Smith Book Signing – Earth Day Every Day Part Four
The Half Price Books Clear Lake store was a lovely host today for S. Smith’s first signing of her Texas Earth Day Tour.
The weather was gorgeous, a little chilly for we Texans, but quite beautiful. A great day for an author from Oregon to set up shop in Houston.
Last night, in preparation, I made seedling cupcakes. Yet another great Pinterest idea that the Texas humidity took a toll on. The fondant sort of got floppy the warmer it got throughout the day, and the green sort of melted a bit. But over all, I’m pleased with my first try.
We met new readers today, and enjoyed chatting with the customers in the store. Of course, the first and most common questions was, “What are the books about?”
If you’re stumbling across my blog for the first time, Seed Savers is a young adult series about a dystopian society where growing your own fruits and vegetables is illegal. So naturally, an underground organization is created to keep the art and know how of gardening alive. It’s good garden sense mixed with the danger and adventure of kids on the run from the government entities hunting them down.
There are three books in publication that Sandy is signing and selling right now, but the series is set to be five volumes long. The story is pretty epic, in my opinion, as you can tell if you read through all the past Seed Savers posts featured on this blog. I adore this woman and all her work, and I hope that everyone who purchased her book today feels the same way when they’re done reading.
S. Smith will be at Good Books in the Woods Friday night and then at Half Price Books Humble 1-3 pm and HPB Montrose 6-9 pm on Saturday. If you missed today’s signing, please make time to see S. Smith at the other Houston stores before she flits off to Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas. The author is from Oregon so this very well might be a once in a lifetime opportunity!
Meeting S. Smith – Earth Day Every Day Part Three
I couldn’t have had a more perfect day. It all started with an amar
yllis bloom opening and an email. S. Smith had arrived in Houston and was looking to hang out before her first Half Price Books signing tomorrow.
Today I finally had the pleasure of meeting S. Smith, the author of the Seed Savers series. I never thought this day would actually come, as I am a book reviewer in Texas and she is a young adult fiction writer from Oregon. But lo and behold! She had a reason to come down south and booked a Texas Earth Day tour starting with Houston.
I was delighted that she wanted to go for a walk in the woods by our house. It was a joy picking along the trails, chatting, with my daughter and her husband in tow. We talked about the difference in the woods of Texas from where she lives in the Northwest.
Below, kiddo, Sandy, and her husband stopped for a rest on a fallen log.
Sandy will be at the Half Price Books in Clear Lake tomorrow from 1-4 pm, Good Books in the Woods on Friday evening, Half Price Books Humble on Saturday from 1-3 pm, and the Montrose HPB store that evening from 6-9 pm. Her books are works of fiction for young adults about a dystopian society where growing your own fruits and vegetables is illegal, a fitting discussion topic for an Earth Day celebration.
April Events 2014!
The month of April is full of Earth Day celebrations. More specifically, S. Smith, author of a dystopian young adult series that I can’t seem to rave enough about, has planned a trip to Texas from Oregon! I’m so excited!
She will also be at the Montrose HPB (hpb.com/011) on Saturday, April 19th, 6pm-9pm.
Then she’ll be making rounds in San Antonio, Austin, and finally Dallas! Check out her website for more details on events in those cities: http://authorssmith.com/book-news-and-events/
Also, although I am based out of Houston, this is a Dallas event that I support with all my heart and would love to attend if I were able:
Interview with Jennifer Theriot
Meet Jennifer Theriot, Texan, CFO, wife, grandmother, and AUTHOR!
1. Describe your book and its inception. What was your muse so to speak
Out of the Box Awakening is a romance novel centered on middle aged lovers and stresses the importance of family and friends. I got the idea to write a book after reading the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. I had to read it 3 times to actually get the core of the story.
I took two of my closest friends to dinner one night and over a glass of wine casually mentioned that I was thinking of writing a book about middle-aged lovers. The actually dared me to do it with enthusiasm.
We all agreed that there just weren’t romance novels out there about women like us; hence the dare was accepted and the writing began.
My muse would be Kevin Costner. As soon as I started writing the book, he was hands down Ash Harper in every sense of the word.
2. You’ve written a romance. Is this the genre you prefer to read? What are your favorite titles and authors?
Romance is my favorite genre. I love Maya Banks, Lisa Renee Jones, S.C. Stephens and Cherrie Lynn. I loved all of their books.
3. Writing romantic stories, I find, always invites quite an array of emotions from people in the real world. How have your friends and family reacted to your story content?
For the most part, my friends and family are behind me one hundred percent. My friends have read the book of course but my immediate family (husband and kids) Ehhhh….
no. And truth be known, I don’t think I want them to. There’s some things better left to the unknown.
4. Just like when I read, when I write I find myself drawn to certain characters more than others. Did you have a favorite in your own work?
Oh goodness YES! Todd O’Malley is the tatted up, pierced good-looking rock star that resembles Adam Levine. In the book, he becomes best friends with the main character Olivia. Their relationship as he describes it: “Olivia is like having a mom and a best friend all rolled up into one smoking ass hot chick.” I have to say he’s by far the most colorful and fun character. Ash on the other hand is the Romeo every woman would want in her life. Those two are my dream guysJ
5. Many authors are heavily influenced by their environment when they write. Where is your safe space? Do you have mood music?
My “space” consists of being curled up in my chair with my feet up on the ottoman, Mac Book Air in lap typing away with ear buds in listening to the playlist for my book. I find that I can still spend time with hubby that way and have the best of both worlds.
Music is a huge influence in my writing. I’d wanted to use lyrics from a particular recorded song in my book and quickly discovered the red tape and bureaucracy involved with permission to use. That being said, I wrote my own lyrics and I’m so proud to say, a dear musician friend wrote music to them and recorded it. It’s even on iTunes.
6. What do you find to be the easiest of the writing and editing process? What is the hardest for you?
The easiest is of course the writing. The hardest is during beta reads when the readers come back with their comments. It is probably the most intense part of the process for me. I have an incredible beta reader, who has also become a good friend. She knows my characters like the back of her hand and calls me out when she’s not feeling what she knows I’m trying to say. She and I have had many discussions and she pushes me to emotionally engage the readers with a scene. Her words are “Jen, you know what’s going on and how the characters are feeling….take us there in your words. Make us feel it with you.”
7. Did you learn anything about yourself or the world you live in by writing this book?
Funny you should ask that…. The answer is yes. This journey has made me much more confident about myself as a 59 year old woman who considers herself forever young. I’ve never felt better inside or out. If anything, my main character Olivia has given me the authority to express my feelings in the real world. I’ve talked to a lot of ladies in my age group who like me still enjoy sex, they like date nights with their husbands and significant others. They like to wear sexy lingerie and dress trendy. It’s an incredible feeling and I believe when you feel good about yourself, others can see that.
8. I’ve met a lot of authors with drastically differing views on this… would you ever be interested in a TV or movie deal for your series? If so, how involved would you want to be? (There every step of the way? Or hand it over and let the film people do their thing?)
I could totally see the Out of the Box series being made into a movie…I’ve even got a dream cast put together. Probably every author visualizes his or her book getting made into a movie or TV series.
What a lot of authors probably don’t realize is how much of a long shot that is. A movie/TV series doesn’t just magically appear and the things that go into the making of a series or movie and moreover the likelihood of it actually coming to fruition is daunting. Finding investors to actually take a chance on financing a project like…very difficult!
I would definitely be a hands-on type. It’s my personality. I’ve got to have my hand in every detail which drives me crazy but that’s the way God made me.
9. You’ve just started participating in book signings and are writing another book. What direction do you see your writing career headed? Where would you like it to head?
I love doing the book signings. At first I was terrified!
I love interacting with people and meeting other authors.
I do plan to continue writing as long as people keep reading my books. I’ve finished the second book, Out of the Box Regifted. It’s currently in editing and I’ve started the 3rd and final book in the series, Out of the Box Everlasting. (The trilogy is called ARE. That way, readers will know what book is first and last in the series because it spells a word)
After Everlasting, I’ll do a book from Todd’s POV and then I’m on to a completely different series. I want to continue to write about middle-aged lovers. I feel there is a market for this. Women my age don’t always want to read about twenty-something characters…
10. Every reader or writer has a favorite bookstore (and if you don’t, please don’t spoil my delusion!). Now is your chance for a shout out! Tell us who you love and what you love about them.
I could sell my soul to Half Price Books! I’ve never gone into one and come out empty handed.
I also like Barnes and Noble.
Something about a good old bookstore just feels right. When you walk down an aisle, if you listen closely enough you can hear the characters in the books whispering “Buy me, buy me!”
Long live the bookstores!
Interview with Science Fiction Author George Wright Padgett
George Wright Padgett is the author of the science fiction title Spindown
1. Describe your book and its inception. What was your muse, so to speak?
I tend to question things about the world and our place in it. When I started writing Spindown I wanted to explore the age-old topic of nature vs. nurture – Are we born who we are to become, or are we only the byproducts of our experiences? And what does it mean to be free? Believe it or not, I leaned heavily on Golding’s The Lord of the Flies as a study of characters reacting individually and as a tribe with and against each other. I freely admit that the Draad flashlight is a version of the conch shell of authority that is found on the island in his book.
My writing style is that I tend to reverse engineer my stories. I start with the question and then work my way backwards filling in the holes until there’s a logic for why things are as they are.
For example, I decided to start with characters that were blank canvases that I could expose to extreme situations and watch how they reacted to each other and solve problems.
For it to work I had to answer to myself why would these people would not have any emotional experiences and yet be full grown adults? The solution was make them have lives that were severely isolated – keeping them from each other as much as possible and when they were forced to interact with each other they would be drugged into a stupor.
Then the question arises how or who would do this – So by reverse engineering I realized that it must be an ore corporation behind it and to save money from sending people to Jupiter to mine, they use harvested clones to do the labor. That’s just one example of how as I would walk through one door and answer a question, there’d be another waiting behind it. When all of the doors were opened (save the final one) the story was over.
2. Your book has ‘classic science fiction’ all over it. What authors do you read and do you consider them heavy influences on your writing?
I’ve read a tremendous amount from the classic authors Asimov, Clarke, etc. (as a matter of fact, I recently finished Foundation again).
One thing that I’ve always appreciated about those writers is the level of authenticity in their stories. I spent many months building and rebuilding on paper the vast mining compound on Ganymede before I wrote a single word. It required a stupid amount of discipline to resist the urge to dive right in, but my deferred gratification paid off. When it came time to write the story, all that I had to do was to ‘activate’ the characters to run and follow them as if I were an imbedded reporter.
I didn’t set out to write a modern story in the classic sci-fi style; in fact I am humbled to have Spindown even compared to those great works. All that I can attest the results to be my exposure to their styles must have seeped through into my story. I feel like the character in The Amazing Colossal Man who accidentally wanders into a plutonium blast in the desert. The radiation transforms him due to his exposure to it, not through anything that he did. I was exposed to the radiation of many great storytellers.
3. Just like when I read, when I write I find myself enjoying some characters more than others – regardless of their role in the story. Did you have a favorite in Spindown? Who was it? Why?
Wow. It’s too difficult for me to pick just one – so I won’t. (I’ll do my best to avoid spoilers for the uninitiated.) I enjoyed watching Prall 4167 develop throughout the piece. Here’s a guy that is used to being in control, and is faced with his entire world being turned inside out. Readers undoubtedly cast him as a villain, but when you clinically review what he does and why he does things, he sort of makes sense. He’s the most practical one of the escaped clones and never displays a shred of self-doubt. Don’t misunderstand, what he does/allows is reprehensible to say the least, but he doesn’t see himself that way- he is only about one thing: Survival of Prall 4167. Can you blame him? His Machiavellian approach to situations intrigued me to the point that when it was time to assign the characters their suffix numbers, I gave him 4167 (my birthdate of 4/1/67).
Another part that was fun to write was the interactions between Martin and Buck. By the time we meet up with them again, they have been companions for a very long time. They remind me of an old married couple; they bicker with each other, but there’s no mistaking the love that has developed between them over the years.
Ah… then there’s Fowler and Sholve. I enjoyed how Fowler usually has his plans backfire on him or not go exactly how he thought things would work out. Often Sholve has to bail him out in some way. In all, they end up making a good team, with her problem-solving skills and his physical strength. One of my favorite exchanges between them is when they have opposing views on if they should ‘contaminate’ the Setter character with the knowledge of what is actually happening to clones on Marius 516. They come at the situation with polar opposite philosophies, forcing the reader to pick a side- Do we let him go on, and live blindly? Or do we confront him with the truth allowing him to decide for himself what to do?
George and Grey Gecko Press at Half Price Books Humble
4. Did you learn anything from writing your book? What was it?
My inability to spell and use proper grammar is far worse than I could have ever imagined (even with spellcheck)
5. Exactly how much research was needed to pull off this level of scientific expertise? What was that process like?
As I mentioned before, I probably spent way too much time on this. I found that my compulsiveness seems to require a ridiculous amount of backstory and detail for whatever I’m working on. An example of this is how an early draft of Spindown had the clones speak a hyper-restrictive tongue called Chone. I developed the entire language removing any ‘hot words’ from their vocabulary. The result would have made Orwell’s writers of NewSpeak blush it was so limiting. It took a month of refining over and over. It was beautiful- and every bit of it ended up on the ‘cutting room floor’. While readers likely will notice the absence of the personal pronoun of ‘us/we’ from the first half of the book, that is the only thing that remained! It became too cumbersome for the clones to speak – a month totally wasted! I also know more about Ganymede than any non-Nasa personnel is allowed.
My habit is to completely immerse myself in the research and the world building of the story. This is fine, but a good writer has to edit out the artifacts that do not advance the story – sorry, Chone language.
Click to visit Grey Gecko Press
6.How did you come across Grey Gecko Press? How has that relationship been for you?
I encountered the owner, Jason Aydelotte at a social gathering of other Houston area writers. He’s the author of the acclaimed Dying of the Light Zombie series. He had just self-published his first novel in the trilogy and his enthusiasm about publishing was contagious. He told the people at the table that he was considering helping others learn how to do what he had done for their stories. Over time, his help and advice transformed into GGP. He left his day job to start Grey Gecko Press for authors who wanted to ‘storm the castle’ of traditional publishing with him. I was fortunate (and maybe crazy enough) to be counted among them. That was ten-thousand books ago. Since then, everyone there has been remarkable. Without Grey Gecko, there would be no Spindown because I likely would not have finished it. Jason’s team was the mid-wife to my book.
7. If Spindown were to be made into a movie, who would you want to tackle it? (JJ Abrams? Joss Whedon? Steven Moffat? Some unknown?)
Sid and Marty Krofft (Google it, kids).
Seriously, I am flattered that so many readers have said that they’d like to see Spindown on the big screen. I love movies, especially sci-fi, and my writing has been influenced by dozens of classic flicks, but at the end of the day, I’m just a storyteller, not a movie producer. It’s fun to think of, but what do I know about any of that? I’d welcome it if someone felt they bring something to the story, but I’ll leave it to the experts.
8. Other than writing, what are your hobbies and talents?
I play jazz piano (under a different stage name), I do graphic design, and am neck-deep in writing the songs and script for a full-length musical.
9. Do you listen to music while you write? If so, what were some of the musical influences you had while writing Spindown?
Music is a very important part of my life, so much a part of it that songs/genres that I listen to when not writing easily distract me when I’m ‘working’. I do this kind of Pavlovian conditioning thing in which there are some classical and ambient selections that I ONLY listen to when writing. It helps to trigger my brain into knowing that ‘It’s time to write’ when this music is played:
Philip Glass – Symphony No. 9, Low Symphony, Heroes Symphony
The soundtrack to ‘Monster’s Ball’
Brian Eno – Music for Airports
Anything from the band Pauseland
and a minimalist band from Austin called ‘Stars of the Lid’
Listen to Philip Glass/No.9 and read any of the chase scenes from Spindown. You’ll find that they match up perfectly.
10. If there was just one thing you would want your readers/ fans to know about you, what would it be?
I’m a big dork. Really I am (my wife and kids will attest to the fact). I don’t allow myself to take my self too seriously, and I will do anything for a laugh (anything). I still feel and view myself as the 4th grader version of myself. Sure, I get to drive a car, I can order wine in a restaurant, and do ‘big people’ stuff like that, but after you pull back all the layers, I am still just as silly, needy, and unreservedly amazed with the universe as I was way back then. And for better or worse, if I haven’t grown up by now, I think that I’m probably stuck this way – and I’m okay with that.
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L.B. Simmons to Release Second Novel
The author of Running on Empty
For those who loved L.B. Simmons’ Running on Empty, or merely want a small taste of her writing before diving into a full novel, comes the novella “Recovery.”
“It reads like a long epilogue to Running on Empty,” Simmons says about her latest book, “Let them know that they will need to read RoE to know what’s going on!”
The back jacket reads…
I have the perfect life.
I’ve finally found my happy ending.
I fought through the loss of one husband, lucky enough to be given a second chance at a lifetime of happiness. Settling into our new lives, however, may not be as easy as it seems.
What really happens after the fairytale ending? What happens after the prince rescues the princess? After he sweeps her off her feet and carries her off into the sunset? Do they truly live happily ever after?
Well…
This is our story.
Even though it
is only 30,000 some odd words in length, both the author and her readers are excited about this new installment and her upcoming book signing tour. Remember that you heard it here first… she will be in the Houston area signing copies of her books in early to mid August at two Half Price Books locations.
L.B. Simmons is a graduate of Texas A&M University and holds a degree in Biomedical Science. She has been a practicing Chemist for the last 11 years. She lives with her husband and three daughters in Texas and writes every chance she gets.
Contact her:
http://www.facebook.com/lbsimmonsauthor – Facebook
http://www.lbsimmons.wordpress.com – Blog
http://www.twitter.com/lbsimmons33 – Twitter
lbsimmons33@gmail.com – Email
Anakalian Whims 