Q1. Hello, can you please introduce yourself? Readers would love to know more about you.
A1 I was born in Rome, New York, the third of four brothers. I loved playing in the creek and hiking in the woods nearby. My love for the outdoors has stayed deeply embedded in my soul. I had marvelous parents. Both of them were highly principled and valued kindness and honesty. They both loved the outdoors. In high school I was on the debate team and became very interested in public policy. My friends throughout my life always liked talking about the philosophy of life. My spirituality was always very important to me. Without a faith in a power greater than myself and developing some humility, I could never achieve peace of mind.
I love words and language. I have always been interested in sincere expressions of truth, which is a lot harder than one might think.
That is probably the core of who I am. The details of what has happened in my life reveal themselves in my writing. After spending my childhood in Rome, I lived in Alabama and in Ohio with my family. I came to Texas for college and have been in Texas ever since. I majored in English and economics at SMU and went to Law School at the University of Texas in Austin.
I also lead a band and write songs. We have lots of fun performing our Americana Jazz style music.
Q2. What were the key challenges you faced while writing your book “The Black Wall: River to the Wasteland”?
A2. Getting started and staying with it. I wanted the book to be perfect, but I did not want to let the perfect be the enemy of getting a product finished. As I have told friends who wanted to write songs, you can’t write your second one until you finish your first one.
Q3. What books or authors have most influenced your own writing?
A3. Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, William Faulkner’s Sound and the Fury, George Eliot’s Silas Marner, and Many more too numerous to list. These were the first one’s that came to mind.
Q4. Whatโs your favourite spot to visit in your own country? And what makes it so special to you?
A4. The Atlantic Coast. Both North Carolina, and Alabama. I love to see the vastness of the horizon over the ocean and to hear the rhythm of the surf and feel the warmth of the sun. I chose these coasts because they are the ones where I visit with my family.
Q5. What inspired you to write the book ‘The Black Wall: River to the Wasteland’?
A5. I was haunted with the image of being hemmed in by self doubt and wanted to share that experience and the escape from this haunting through a story about a person struggling with being lost in his own mind.
Q6. How long did it take you to write your book ‘The Black Wall: River to the Wasteland’?
A6. The idea first came to me about twenty years ago. Seven years ago I put together a story line and started writing it. Then for a year and a half I put the pedal to the metal and finished it. Then for six months I had to work on polishing it and formatting it for publication.
Q7. On what platforms can readers buy your books?
A7. It is now available at Amazon. It is enrolled in Kindle unlimited, so if you have that you can get it for free.
Q8. Tell us about the process of coming up with the book cover and the title ‘The Black Wall: River to the Wasteland’?
A8. The book cover shows the horror in which the main character is trapped. In a boat being poled by a mysterious silent person in a dungeon surrounded by black walls. The title refers to the wall of a hellish box from which there may be no escape. The subtitle reflects the futility of being stuck in this box in a boat in a river that seems to go nowhere, if there were any destination it would be a worthless place of desolation.. It also is an allusion to T.S. Eliot’s poem, “The Waste Land” and its themes of the seeming futility of life. Many of the motifs in the poem are also present in the book.
Q9. When writing a book how do you keep things fresh, for both your readers and also yourself?
A9. The characters are multidimensional and drive the story forward, Every chapter has a rising action and another interesting development in the plot. The main motifs of the book recur, pulling the story together in a cohesive whole.
Q10. What is the most valuable piece of advice youโve been given about writing?
A10. Make yourself start and finish. It is scary because as long as it is just a vague idea, you can fool yourself into thinking it is perfect. When you write it, it has physical reality and all its bumps and warts get exposed. But you can clean them up. It takes courage to overcome this fear and put it out there knowing that it was the best you could do. You can’t worry about whether it will be good enough. It will be. Trust your instincts and just write it. You will be surprised as you write because the story will take on a life of its own. The characters will start talking themselves with you only listening to them. Other characters you had not thought of will show up. They are sometimes the best characters of all. Your subconscious is more creative than your conscious mind. But it can’t be heard unless you start writing and keep going.
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