publishing

Author Interview: Sanjiv Behera, magical realist short story writer

Monday, January 9th, 2012

Click to get the Kindle edition of Azad.

Sanjiv Behera’s imagination is a brilliant world of Venetian escapes, mythical beasts, and mysterious dancers. Fusing his South Asian storytelling tradition with stories he made up for his children, he debuts this first collection of YA magical realist short stories as a Kindle eBook. I had the pleasure of working in a genre near to my heart–the multicultural story that dances along the borders of speculative fiction–and it is with equal pleasure that I interviewed Sanjiv about storytelling, cultures, and self-publishing.

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Tell us about Azad: A Flight of Desi Fantasy. What kinds of stories do you tell?

Azad, is a collection of six short stories, all revolving around a central theme of liberation (azad means liberation in a number of South Asian languages). In the stories, main characters break free from the confines of their lives with the help of mystical forces, artifacts, or supernatural beings with roots from the South Asian peninsula. I guess the stories would be classified as magical realism.

Is there a Desi storytelling tradition that you draw from and elaborate upon, or would you YA magical realism?

I would say that I draw from a bit of both.

Growing up (my father probably doesn’t know this), I looked forward to long road trips in the family station wagon, because during the ride, he would tell stories, mainly about Indian mythology. I recall being on the edge of my seat, listening to his version of the Ramayana or tales from the Mahabharata, both classic Indian epics. These stories are so pervasive in India. Children have been exposed to them through bedtime stories, plays, and dance performances for years and years.

Also, while putting me to bed, my mother would recite Indian folktales involving some sort of supernatural phenomenon, stories that her mother told her when she was young, stories that were undoubtedly passed on by her grandmother.

Magical realism first caught my interest in my teens. I read Salman Rushdie’s “Haroun and the Sea of Stories”, which till this day, remains one of my favorite books of all time.

Many of the stories feature characters who are confused, confined, or oppressed by their circumstances. None of them starts out believing in the supernatural⎯but magic aids your characters anyway, helping them gain clarity or escape. Is the magic a metaphor for imagination? Or should we take it at face value?

At face value, the use of magic in my stories makes for good entertainment. But it does serve another purpose. I wanted to demonstrate how powerful and influential a helping hand can be, how it can even change the course of a life. Specifically, I wanted the reader to understand that, to a certain extent, they themselves can actually become the magic in the lives of others, especially the exploited.

I wrote these stories because I was moved by something I had read about the plight of India’s trafficked children. All of my proceeds from this book are being donated to a charity in India that works to stop child trafficking there. So, those that have purchased the book already have become the magical azad in a few children’s lives.

What is your cultural background? Do you think a writer has to be part of a culture in order to write about it?

I am a second generation Indo-American. My parents immigrated in the 60s, and I was born and brought up in North America. While my life outside the house was stereotypically American: going to school, playing sports, hanging out with friends, and being exposed to a variety of cultures: mainstream and sub. Inside the home, my life was very Indian: eating Indian food, speaking the language, listening to Indian music, etc. We spent the majority of free time associating with the local Indian community as well.

I don’t think that a writer has to be part of a culture to write about it. But, to adequately capture all of the nuances and subtleties of a culture, one must do some extensive research. Writing about other cultures can be and has been done rather well. Stowe, Kipling, and Martel are three authors that immediately come to mind.

What advice would you offer other writers who are considering self-publishing?

Go for it! There is nothing to lose. With the advent of the Kindle, Nook, and iPad, self-publishing is now quick, cheap, and offers widespread distribution. You can literally deliver an electronic book to practically every computer, tablet, or eReader in America, England, Germany, Spain, Italy, and France. And the list of countries is growing.

Yes, you have to work hard to raise awareness about and market your book. But that is true of all books. And if you manage to sell some books, the profit margins are incredible.

Since self-publishing is gaining steam, it’s best to put your best work forward. Find a great editor to make your work stand apart. Really, my editor was amazing! She helped to bring out the intricacies of my characters, which made my stories so much more compelling.

Also, have an attractive cover. With all of the choices people have these days, you really need something to draw readers in.

What are you working on next?

Currently, I’m in the process of writing a middle-grade, science-fiction novel.

Is there any question you hoped I would ask?

Well, you’ve pretty much hit all of the main points. Maybe how did I get started in writing?

I’ve always enjoyed writing stories. But, writing became more meaningful to me once I had children. I wrote my first novel when our first child was born. Now, I find myself writing for the kids constantly: constructing stories that excite them and introducing concepts that challenge their thoughts. I don’t know how my stories will evolve as they grow older. But, in the end, it’s all about creating something significant in their eyes, something valuable to them.

Be sure to visit Sanjiv’s website, Rickshaw Books, for more about Azad and Vikram and the Enchanted Seals.

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What is speculative fiction, and how do I write it? (Or, how to make sh*t up.)

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

The next of wave of what’s hot in the YA literary world looks like “speculative fiction.” Sound vague enough? For starters, think of it as a more advanced course in writing vampires and zombies. Or, of vampires and zombies as training wheels for your speculative imagination.

Speculative fiction is a term that emerged in the 1970s and ’80s to capture books that blurred the line between realist fiction, science fiction, horror, and other genres that typically came laden with readers’ expectations for what they’d find between the covers–be it aliens, ghouls, knights, or lifelike representations of ordinary people going about their ordinary lives. But remember, we’re talking about stories, here. Art. Like people, they’re hard to pigeonhole. In the whole history of storytelling, there is a vibrant history of borrowing, quoting genres, and referencing previous literary works–think of Dante’s Inferno, in which the poet wrote himself into his own story, with Virgil as his guide through layers of myth, history, and hellacious monsters. Speculative fiction has grown out of a long human history of making sh*t up, which you can see, for instance, in Ward Shelley’s astounding and educational cartoon creature that depicts the evolution of science fiction. (Click on it, but be warned: Plan on spending a good twenty minutes marveling at it.)

But since we’re trying to categorize our writing for agents, publishers, and readers, it helps to understand why a certain kind of “making sh*t up” produces speculative fiction, and why tossing a space ship battle into a novel about a lepidopterist is just gratuitous.

First, all speculative fiction requires world-building. World-building is a specific literary task. Orson Scott Card wrote an entire how-to book on world-building, and it’s a pretty good starter manual if you’re new to this kind of writing. Basically, you saw simple world-building in most vampire and zombie novels–the writer must create a context and explanation for her monsters. At the other end of the spectrum, you have a novel like The Hunger Games, where Suzanne Collins invented an entire world for her characters. If the world works, you suspend your disbelief. If it doesn’t, we start grilling the writer (e.g., “Waitasecond, how can a biological warhead explosion in Chicago infect everyone in America at the exact same moment?”), and voila, you’ve lost your reader.

Second, the speculative element must have meaning that shapes the story. This is the most important part, I believe, and it’s why I love the genre. It’s the “thought-experiment” that you are conducting in the pages of your novel. It’s why I include canonical and literary works such as Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, Jose Saramago’s The Stone Raft, and Patrick Suskind’s Perfume in the speculative fiction category with writers who typically come to mind when we think of genre fiction, such as Ursula K. LeGuin, Octavia Butler, Philip K. Dick, Neil Gaiman, Anne Rice, Ted Chiang, and China Mieville. If you look at the speculative fiction element in any of the “literary” works, you’ll find something meaningful, something thematic, encoded there:

The Handmaid’s Tale: Ofred’s enslavement is a critique of Christian fundamentalism.

Beloved: The ghost of the dead baby is a constant reminder of the impoverished, impossible circumstances that required her ex-slave mother to kill her.

One Hundred Years of Solitude: The isolation of the Buendia family and century of outsiders’ invasion and influence mirrors the colonial history of Latin America.

The Stone Raft: The rift that appears between Spain and Portugal mirrors the cultural divide between the two nations.

Perfume: The protagonist’s supernatural sense of smell and concomitant alienation motivate a series of murders whose goal is the manufacture of a perfume that will make people love him.

For an academic but useful perspective on how a novel’s speculative element is tied to its meaning, check out Wendy Faris’s book about magical realism, Ordinary Enchantments, and read Chapter 1. Or don’t. (I’m a lifelong bookworm who learns by reading. Maybe you aren’t.) In any case, you see the same principle at work in The Hunger Games, where the speculative world is a critique of a very familiar situation in American life: violence as entertainment.

No matter where on the literary spectrum you fall as a writer, if you set out to write speculative fiction, choose your novel’s speculative element before you make final decisions about your protagonist or plot line–because the character’s actions (and hence the plot) will be a response to the world in which she lives. This is really no different from Lajos Egri’s excellent advice to choose your theme before choosing your character or main conflicts.

Bottom line, in speculative fiction, the novel’s central thought-experiment is its theme.

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An interview with author David Seaburn

Friday, February 4th, 2011

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David Seaburn’s third literary novel, CHARLIE NO FACE, was released this week by Savant Books. I first read a draft of this novel in the summer of 2009, and was impressed by its guileless young narrator and by David’s sensitive way of handling a radically disfigured main character. The editors of Savant Books were impressed, too, and he signed his first independent-press publishing contract last year. To coincide with the book launch, I spoke with him about the small press experience, his background as a therapist, and its role in his fiction.

1.    You have published your third novel in five years, the first with Savant books. Tell us about CHARLIE NO FACE.

Charlie No Face is a coming of age story about an eleven-year-old boy and a misunderstood, disfigured hermit (based broadly on an actual person) and how their unlikely friendship redeems them both.

It is set in my home town (Ellwood City, Pa.) in the late 1950s. Jackie lives with his father. His mother died when he was an infant. In the summer of 1959 a series of setbacks forces Jackie’s father to leave town to look for a new job. Jackie has to live for a short time with his only relative, Great Aunt Dee. During his time with her, he encounters Charlie and both are transformed by their unlikely connections.

2.    When I read an earlier draft of CHARLIE, I was impressed with how little character development needed to be done—you are a strong writer of the human emotional spectrum. How has your background in psychology (and even in the seminary) contributed to your approach to fiction?

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"Common to all of my work is an abiding interest in the struggles that make us human---loss, fear, hope, uncertainty, connection, separation, meaning, seeking, questioning, love, guilt, wonder, joy and storytelling."

It’s interesting that you should ask this question. Although I read extensively, there is no doubt that the best source for my novels has been my experience as a psychotherapist and minister. My other two novels draw extensively from situations I have encountered as a therapist. I feel comfortable with the interior lives of people. That is where I get my creative energy. The themes that are most important to me—loss, fear, hope, uncertainty, connection, separation, meaning, seeking, questioning, love, guilt, wonder, joy, and storytelling—are influenced by my theological training and my own personal journey. In Charlie, among other things, I explore the theme of the “other” in society. How do we create the “other” through our own beliefs and perspectives? How do we treat someone who is “other” than us? What happens when we discover that the “other” isn’t really other at all, but is very much like us; in fact, is us. I thought a child’s experience of this would be enlightening and refreshing. My life’s work has been about relationships. I guess it’s no surprise that my writing focuses on the same thing.

3.    Your fiction is inspired almost exclusively by true events. How restricted to the facts do you feel when you write, and where does imagination take over?

I don’t feel restricted at all. In Charlie, for example, I knew of the real life Charlie when I grew up in western Pennsylvania. He was also called the Green Man, because, as I note in the book, his skin was green from a childhood electrocution. I wanted to know the details about his accident so that I could represent that part of the story accurately. But other than that, I didn’t know anything about his character or his life. All of that was created in the process of writing. The line between “fact” and “fiction” is very thin. In each of my books, factual events play a part, but I never feel limited by them. They provide a canvas upon which I can paint my picture.

4.    You’re a unique writer, in that you let the story lead you through the writing process, but you are also able to be prolific. Having seen a number of writers get stranded without an outline of some sort, I am curious how you stay on point as you work through a draft.

This is puzzling even to me. When I was in academics and wrote a lot of journal articles, I was often encouraged by co-authors to write more from an outline, but I never did. I always felt that an outline sucked the life out of what I wanted to say; that it preempted the serendipitous; that it limited spontaneity. I always have the story in my mind, even if I don’t write words for days or weeks. It is always there. I often don’t know where the story will go exactly, but I feel confident when I sit down to write, that the characters will figure it out as they leave my thoughts and travel down through my hands and fingers onto the computer screen. Sometimes, after the fact, I will jot down a few words summarizing chapters so I can maintain a sense of flow, or I can move more easily back and forth through time, but usually it’s all in my head. I don’t know how it stays there, but it does.

5.    Many writers are surprised to learn how many small presses exist on the spectrum between, say, HarperCollins and self-publishing. What has your experience been with Savant? Would you recommend still seeking a literary agent—and if not, did you handle the details of your contract yourself? What advice would you give to writers who are considering a small press?

It is remarkably complex “out there.” Everything I don’t like about writing happens when the story has been completed. You may not know it, but bringing you on as my editor when I was preparing Charlie No Face, helped me not only improve the story, but feel confident enough to go on to the next step which often is like opening your insides up to strangers who tromp around with hardly a care about what they are doing. My experience with agents has been dismal. I haven’t succeeded in interesting any of them. Several have said I was a good writer, but each of them also said they couldn’t market my books confidently. My stories aren’t Big Stories; I’m not a Big Name; I don’t have a Unique Hook. I found that if it didn’t look like it would make a lot of money (Gee, I don’t have any vampires in my book!), agents aren’t interested. And if they aren’t interested, there is no way to reach the big publishing houses. That leaves small, independent publishers who are willing to take a chance and want to produce good literature. Savant Books and Publications has been that for me. The publisher, Dan Janik, is growing a small publishing house and is trying to attract and keep a cadre of writers who would like to stay and grow together. That is pretty unique.

Would I suggest that other writers forego seeking an agent? No. If you can get good representation, more doors, more options will be available to you. But be ready for a very bumpy ride. As for the contract, yes, I handled the details of what was a very conventional, no frills contract.

You can visit David’s website at www.davidbseaburn.com or check out CHARLIE NO FACE on Amazon here.

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Midnight and I’m Not Famous Yet (Homage to Barry Hannah)

Monday, January 24th, 2011
Rothstein's book is available in hard copy and Kindle format through Amazon.com.

Rothstein's book is available in hard copy and Kindle format through Amazon.com.

This week’s comprehensive post is by successful indie author David Rothstein. He recently launched his Civil War novel, Casualties, which is based on a true story about a woman who set out with a horse and wagon to rescue her husband from a Confederate POW camp. Besides being a compelling story told in a powerful, lyrical narrative voice, the novel has benefited from its veritable marketing juggernaut.

When it comes to approaching well-known authors like Lee Smith, getting his book into stores across the country, and creating film and sales opportunities at every turn, David is in his element. So, who better than he to ask for advice? With that, I turn it over to him.

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You’ve written your novel. You’ve workshopped it until you’re wondering if those other people are reading the same manuscript you are. All the typos are gone. You’ve figured out how to convert it to eBook format, got a great cover design and it’s all ready to upload to Createspace or Lulu or whomever. You’re self-publishing because all of your queries turned up dry.

Congratulations. You are now a small businessperson. Actually, you’re a small retailer. The real work has just begun.

When we start out to write a novel or a collection of poetry we don’t typically think of how to get it to market, how to sell it, how to distribute it. If we’d thought hard about those things at the beginning, we might never have gotten to the final draft of our stories. Instead, we exhibit a kind of naive courage. Most writers know little or nothing about running a small (or maybe any) business. But that’s the stuff you need to know if you’re looking for any kind of commercial success.

There’s really nothing mysterious about success in a small business, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. The rules of small retail are basic and consistent. Here are a few of the more important ones you’ll need to know and master.

The first three rules of retail—especially small retail—are: location, location, location. In getting your book to market that translates into distribution, distribution, distribution.

The distribution problem has largely been solved through Amazon and maybe Lulu for print, and Smashwords, Kindle, iBooks, et al for digital. That’s the upside. The downside is that with the cost of entry so low there are many more authors and books with which you’ll compete. But you know that.

Marketing is the sine qua non of commercial success. It is you getting your book in front of people who will be most likely to see value in it and will be motivated to pay for the opportunity to experience your story.

So that’s where the hard part comes in. You need to get your work in front of potential buyers, i.e., readers. And that’s actually true even if you managed to get a book contract from a publisher, because as an unknown you’ll probably not get much of a marketing budget or placement in bookstores or on their lists. It will still be up to you to do those things. How you do that with a book is no different from any other small retail enterprise getting in front of its potential buyers.

With a novel a huge part of marketing is self-promotion and self-promotion is not a natural thing for new writers to do. I think it’s especially the case with self-published new writers. Even if you didn’t start out that way, as you’ve gotten rejection after (disingenuous) rejection it will rub off on you. You’ll end up believing somewhere inside you that by self-publishing you’re not as good as the others. That’s what the publishing establishment wants you and your potential buyers to believe because it reduces the competition. As Kurt Vonnegut might say, “Sometimes I don’t know about the publishing establishment.”

And maybe you’re not as good. But maybe you’re better. But only readers can tell you that, not agents, or editors or writers’ groups or anyone else. If you’re going to be rejected, be rejected by those who count. The ones who count are readers who will pay you for your work.

Whenever you doubt the legitimacy of self-publishing it will help to remember the Impressionists. When the snots of the Paris Salon refused to show the Impressionists’ work, Monet, Manet, Degas, Cezanne and others rented an exhibit space just down the street and did their own show. They called it “Le Salon des Refusés.” The Exhibition of the Rejected. They self-published. And we all know the outcome.

Then there’s pricing. Pricing can be pretty tricky, especially when you don’t know how much your product has cost you and you haven’t set any revenue goals. Early in the game you have to determine how much you have invested in this product. With a novel that means how much your time and passion and labor are worth. If you don’t know that and are expecting any kind of return, you’ll probably not get it.

The chat rooms, blogosphere, writer’s groups are full of talk about pricing. One of the worst pieces of advice I’ve seen is that you should give your work away to build a “platform.” To me that is pure nonsense.

There’s the basic rule of perceived value. If you’re selling your eBook for ninety-nine cents while the others are going for upwards of $7.99, then the perception is not that yours is a bargain, but that it must not be as good as the others. If you try to sell at that price you’re telling potential buyers that is how much you think your own work is worth. If you give it away you’re telling potential buyers your work has zero value. You cannot compete on price. You must compete on value.

You can’t sell something by giving it away. There’s a selective process that happens: if you give your stuff away, or give away large portions of it, your fan base (to the extent that you develop one) will become people who want something for nothing and you’ll be the sap giving it to them. All those people who are happy to download your first book for free will not be there when you write the second and ask them to buy it. You’ll have rewarded them for the wrong behavior. And you’ll have driven away the readers who are willing to part with their money for something they believe has value. I believe you should never let people preview more than three percent of your book. That will push you even harder to make the first few pages compelling.

Another rule of retail is, “Mark it up to mark it down.”  You might need to mark your price down later in the game. If you price your work with the minimum margin when you initially publish it, you can’t mark it down if you need to. Plus you’ll already have signaled something unfavorable about your estimation of its value. And any early sales will not have yielded the maximum return for you.

If you’re in the right market and you’re selling on value, price is not the principal deterrent to someone buying your work. It takes as much effort to sell something for $5 as it does to sell something for $500 or $5000. Ask any retailer. It has to do with the way consumers typically make buying decisions. If you think your work is as valuable as anything written by Phillip Roth, or Cormac McCarthy or Tom Clancy or fill in the blank, that’s what you should price it. If you don’t think it’s as valuable (not necessarily as good, but as valuable), you probably need to ask about your reasons for writing in the first place.

Be really careful about blogs and chats—which ones you read, which ones you respond to. The conversation on most writing blogs (except Sarah’s, of course) is a lot of people talking to one another and none of them have the answers to the questions they’re asking. It’s mostly a churn of angst and speculation and daydreaming. It’s like being locked in a room with a bunch of people who don’t know how to pick a lock, but have no limit to how much they can talk about being locked in a room.

In my opinion if you’re at the marketing stage and don’t know what to do, you’d be better off getting your advice from a small retailer, someone selling pet supplies or apparel or car parts. If they’re still in business in this economy, they’re the people who know what you want to know. You just have to know what questions to ask.

When all else fails, change your expectations. That’s ordinarily crappy advice. But in this case it’s actually not that bad. If you thought you’d become a famous author and you haven’t on your first try, by changing your expectations you’ll be that much more inclined to write another book, and that one might make cash registers ring everywhere. At least you’ll live to fight another day. You’ll keep writing, and that’s what it’s supposed to be about in the first place. On the other hand if the result of your work is “only” that you finish what you set out to do and you also make your grandchildren proud of you, that’s pretty damned good. Besides, you’ll know you’ve done something that nearly all humans in nearly all the history of our species couldn’t or wouldn’t or didn’t do.

Finally there’s capitalization. You must have enough capitalization to make mistakes and recover, and to hire help when you need it. This is even more important if you’ve no experience in marketing and promotion.  At this stage we’re all pretty vulnerable. So be extra careful about unsolicited offers from publicists, book reps, all those types. Do your research to make sure they’ve actually produced and don’t pay anyone anything unless they can prove that they’ve actually produced for someone else. The best evidence is real writers with real books that have really sold.

Here are a few things that you can do to get the word out to potential buyers.

  1. Advertising still works. Place ads in media that your potential readers will likely see. You have to figure that out—who, what, where and when. Another reason you need capitalization.
  2. Readings and Signings. Even if it’s just local, the exposure and experience will be great. Go to the bookstore and talk with the decision maker and give that person a review copy. They’ll be most concerned about their margins and ability to return unsold copies. There are two ways you can do that; first, by having them buy through the big distributors; second, by taking your books on consignment. Don’t be disappointed if they agree but only ask for two copies. Then leave them alone. It’s a total high when they call you and ask for two more. The split is usually 60/40.
  3. If number two has worked, put together a book tour. It’s not that hard to do. But it costs.
  4. Approach other writers. But make sure they’re known writers. You’d be astonished at how many writers will actually give you their time and attention. Send a copy of your book with a well-composed note asking the person to read it. Real writers are suckers for good writing and if your story is as good as you believe it to be, writers will be drawn into it, and they are the peers you want. Agents aren’t. If a known writer likes your work you’ll know about it. If the news is good always ask for a review and referrals from him/her.
  5. Be persistent. If there’s someone (a reviewer, a known writer) and that person can help you, go back again and again until he/she helps you or tells you to get lost. You have absolutely nothing to lose.
  6. Do what screenwriters do. People who write screenplays know they’ll have to sell them and they develop a plan to do it. And the successful ones are not only good writers, they’re good marketers and they’re persistent. Track one of them down and talk. You’ll learn a lot.
  7. Remember what old man Stamper said, “Never give a inch.”  It’s your project, your story, your innards.

I hope this helps. And I wish you all the success you can create.

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An interview with Michael Marsden

Tuesday, December 14th, 2010

Author Michael Marsden is carving a niche for himself as an indie-published writer of ghost stories and novels set in the American West. He’s also demonstrated a fascinating approach to learning the craft of creative writing: sheer quantity. After writing twelve books in ten years, he came to me with the best of them and asked me to help him take his craft to the next level.

Besides writing, he’s active in the Idaho writing community. He has served in the Idaho Writers’ League as vice president for the state organization and president of the Coeur d’Alene Chapter. Today he has three published novels and four more in process. In addition to his novels, he has recently had poems, essays, and fiction published in SpokeWrite Magazine.

1. Tell us about SAM D’BEAR, and about your writing.

In this novel, Sam d’Bear, a big Newfoundland dog, comes into David Montgomery’s life by accident and makes a home for himself. This is not the story I started to write fifteen years ago. At a writer’s conference in Boise a literary agent told me that if I want to write mysteries I must have a series, not just one novel. SAM D’BEAR started out as the third story in my mystery series. The first two were murder mysteries the third involved arson, but halfway through this novel, I introduced a dog to the story. The dog took over; and by the end of the story I didn’t care if the arsonist was stopped–I just wanted the dog to come out all right. When Gray Dog Press started up in Spokane in 2009, I submitted the story to them and it was published this year. It was clearly a case of having a novel ready when an opportunity presented itself.

I also have a series of North Idaho Ghost stories. Two have been self-published and two more are in revision. In a series of ghost stories the common thread is not the protagonist but the location. All four stories take place in small towns in North Idaho. The history of the towns always plays a role in the ghost stories.

2. You draw heavily on your own experiences in your work–from the landscape of the West to having a son in the service. Do you feel that your writing helps you reflect on these experiences and identities?

Writers are often told, “Write what you know.” Instead of applying that to the main plot I apply it to individual relationships and scenes within the story. I never write about a place that I have not visited–it is not enough to read about a city, a river or a mountain.

As for characters in the novel, I try to have someone in mind when I write. My wife, my sons and my daughter and now one of my dogs have all found their way into my novels. Experiences from my past greatly influence scenes in my novels most often these are well planned but sometimes I am surprised. After reading THE HOUSE IN HARRISON, my older brother told me about a weekend our family spent in an old house in Virginia. He and I explored the house and spied on the rest of the family from behind closet doors and under counters. I was four at the time and I didn’t remember doing this, but I could see the pattern in the story I had written.

3. What comes first: character, or plot, or something else?

The plot always come first, but it need not be formulated in great detail. The first version of a story is like an artist sketch in pencil; only after it is completed can I add color and details. It is in the second or third revision that the characters begin to fit into the location and interact with the plot. The main character tells me how he wants the story to be told.

SAM D’BEAR is the exception. The dog changed the focus of the story and what was to be a subplot became the main plot. At the time I was writing this novel, I had a Newfoundland dog named Keeper who would lie behind my chair or under my desk while I was writing. The agility trial in the novel reflects a trial she won in Missoula, and I felt I had to write the scene that way because Keeper was watching.

4. How did you come to writing and what has helped you the most along the way?

My mother was a writer of children’s stories. She had fifty-five published. She noticed that I always made up stories to tell my children and encouraged me to write than down and someday publish them. After I retired I set up a ten year plan to write a complete novel each year and then market the best of them. During these years I studied many books on writing, attended classes and conferences. Besides novels I wrote some rhymes and short stories which I entered in contests. I have belonged to five different writing organizations since I started writing. I am now active in only two. The greatest help has come from other writers I have met along the way.

5. As an author who has both self-published and been published traditionally, what is the top advantage and the top hassle of each?

The top advantage of self-publishing is control. I have a definite image of the story, and the book; seeing the two come together is a point of great joy and pride. The downside is the amount of work it takes, and unless you can manage to get a distributor to accept you book, your sales are limited. Gray Dog Press is a new local small press and I have a feeling of trust with them. It is much different from dealing with a large business in a different time zone.

Marketing has more opportunities when you have a publisher. The author has a strong role in marketing in either case but I don’t like being a bookkeeper or storing boxes of books in my guest room.

6. You seem to stay involved in a community of writers–both in a critique group and at the front of the room, giving talks about writing and publishing. More than ever, reaching out to other writers and readers seems to be a required part of the writing life. Is it required? What is the best way to start, and use your time wisely?

I much prefer to write and let someone else read what I say, but some people are verbal communicators. They want to hear what others have to say and to interact with the presenter. Since I have learned much from the presentations by other writers, I am obligated to try to share my experiences.

7. What advice would you give to someone else who is just learning the craft of writing novels?

Relax. Write and write until you come to the end of your novel and then write a second one. Only when I can see the entire story can I judge its worth. In my ten-year plan, I wrote twelve novels. The next year I took the most promising of the twelve and rewrote it from the beginning. It is important to share what you have written with others, but the author is only one who knows what he started out to write. Once you feel comfortable that you have said something, find an editor.

8. What question do you wish I would have asked, and what would you say to it?

That question would be, “What role do you think an editor plays in one becoming a writer?”

Nikki Arana, the most successful writer that I know personally, gives great credit to her editor for helping her become a professorial writer. I am by trial and error making some gains in my writing ability, but finding a good editor, critic, and teacher is key to stepping from the novice to professional level. The journey to be a good writer does not end with the first published book. I must strive to make my next novel better than my last and to do that I know that I need an editor.

Check out Michael’s latest novel, SAM D’BEAR, from Gray Dog Press.

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