1. What would you say is your
favorite part of being an author?
That’s an easy one,
AJ: the writing itself. I started writing when I was twelve, and 33 years later
I have a PhD in English. I taught writing for nine or ten years, I’ve won a
couple writing awards and have books coming out, and I’m making a little money
at it…and all that stuff is nice, the social standing and respect, the fame and
groupies (not!)…but it can’t compare to the pure pleasure of writing.
Seriously, if writing
is an onerous chore for someone I’d suggest they do something else. The writing
has to be enough reward, in and of itself, because all that other stuff has the
shelf life of quicksilver. And more likely than not, fame and big money will
never come to a writer. For most of us, it doesn’t. That’s the reality. So the
writing has to be enough.
2. Do you stick to one
kind of book? Mystery, suspense, thriller, romance?
On purpose? No. But my
novels may have strong elements of more than one genre. For example, I have two
books of a trilogy coming out this year, and while the main plot is the
spiritual journey of a girl, a recent immigrant to New York, it’s also a love
story between her and a boy. Persimmon
is both a spiritual journey and a quirky romance.
Look at most
successful series writers like Robert Parker or Janet Evanovich. While they
wrote suspense or private eye novels, their books are also a lot about the love
lives of their characters.
There are some kinds
of books, though, that I have no interest in writing. Horror? Forget it. I have
no interest in being in that neighborhood for the length of time it takes to
write a book or a script. Scripts, I write those too.
3. If you had to tell new
writers something important about becoming an author, what would it be?
You want to save
yourself time and headaches? Think about structure and pre-writing. In my opinion,
writers should only spend 20 to 30 percent of their time writing the first
draft. But they’ll turn out a more finished first draft, in the budgeted 20 or
30 percent, if they also spend 20 to 25 percent of their time on pre-writing.
In your pre-writing,
build your major and minor characters with an eye toward conflicts. Those
conflicts should play out over a plot that has a beginning, a middle, a late
middle, and an end.
That’s a structure
built on four acts. I taught the four-act structure for a number of years in my
screenwriting classes, and it’s a very serviceable framework. You can read
about it in a very good book called Storytelling
in the New Hollywood. Doesn’t matter what you’re writing,though, a novel or
a screenplay, it works just as well for both.
4. Out of all your books,
do you favor one over another? If so, why?
Well, I’m not sure
what you mean by ‘favor’. But when I think about it, what you meant doesn’t
matter because I don’t. The reason is that, for me, it’s all about process and
practice. If I’m not writing this book I’m working on that one, or answering
questions like these, or writing a blog or a letter, or a script, or a short
story, or commenting on someone else’s novel.
It’s all about working
with the clay of language, and either carving the rough draft, hewing down the
rough work into a closer semblance to my intended meaning, or polishing the work
into really nice prose. Whatever I’m working on, which ever stage it’s at, I’m
practicing the craft and the art, and that’s what turns me on, that’s what
gives me satisfaction. Sometimes it’s exacting, other times I’m writing words
as fast as I can, scribbling them down, and other times moving chunks around
and deleting whole phrases.
Really, I don’t have a
favorite piece of work because it’s all about the satisfaction of doing the
work.
5. Do you have any stories
you want to work on in the future?
Oh, a few. (Chuckles)
Like a few dozen. Seriously.
Off the top of my
head, I have a serious novel about a corporate soldier who needs to atone for
his sins. But before I start that one I have to write the third novel in the Sword
of the World series, the trilogy about the girl in New York. I signed a
contract for four novels with Mountain Springs House, a small publisher in
Indianapolis, and I already had two in the trilogy written…so now I have to do
the third. But I’d also like to adapt three of my screenplays.
Hey, did you know that
two of the first heroes in American history were black men? It’s true. One was
a slave and the other was 76 years old. (Laughs) That’s the log line for one of
my best scripts.
6. How do you come up with
your stories?
Most of the time it
has to do with theme or concept, which, I guess, is rather unusual…but not
really unusual because almost immediately a character will come on the mental
stage to embody the theme. Like the girl in New York: it’s all about the power
of art. When we practice an art it mirrors the cleansing creativity of god. In
those novels – Persimmon, Persimmon Tree and
Persimmon Seed – the girl is a
practitioner of komdo, a sword-oriented martial art. It’s her spiritual path to
personal integrity and power. That’s the theme, the power of art to cleanse our
lives and give us integrity.
The next novel I have
coming out (probably in early February) is about a construction contractor
whose son gets him into a nasty situation with a drug cartel. The concept there
was to write a love song to the workin’ man, which you don’t see too often in
literature. It developed into a really nice suspense novel called The Destroyers…but that’s how it
started, out of my appreciation for the workin’ man, the unsung hero of the
world. (Shifting in his seat) That’s not to say workin’ women aren’t heroic.
That’s just another book.
7. Do you base your
characters on people you know? Or are they completely fictional?
My characters are
completely and absolutely fictional. That’s for purely pragmatic reasons, which
I need to explain. I’ve worked with many writers who try to write books and
scripts about people they know or knew, people they admired or people who hurt
them. Almost every time, they created severe problems for themselves and made
their job as a novelist much harder. Why? They were hobbled by the need,
consciously or unconsciously, to adhere to history and the person or situation
in their past. I think writers do that because they’re trying to process the scourges
of their lives, and enshrine the pleasures.
Oh yes, I’ve had so
many students who were motivated by trying to get past some traumatic
relationship, usually with a parent, by writing about it. Not good. Maybe it’s
good as therapy, but in terms of artistic ‘success’ of one type or
another…usually not good.
8. Besides writing, what
would you say is your favorite thing to do?
Right now it’s a toss
up. I’ve got a new love for hunting wild mushrooms. We just moved out into the
country, an old farmhouse in western Massachusetts. Out here in the woods I’ve
discovered the joys of cooking chicken of the woods, golden chanterelles, black
trumpets and maitake. Oh yes, and I was able to get off coffee by substituting
chaga, which has the highest concentration of anti-oxidants ever discovered.
And since I now have a
barn, I’ve also carried out an idea I had 20 or 30 years ago, which is to turn
old pianos into furniture. That’s a strenuous and difficult process, but I’ve
turned out two desks so far, one from a baby grand piano and another from an
upright. That’s where I write, on the baby grand desk, and it’s a reminder.
It reminds me that great
writing is a symphony of fascinations. No instrument dominates in a symphony
and in writing no fascination should reign supreme. Rather, all the
fascinations that glue a reader to the page should blend to the right degree,
whether it’s humor, sex, smells and tastes, elegant language, snappy dialogue,
action, quirky characters, suspense, ideas and philosophy, politics, farce or
romance. I’m sure you can come up with others, but some fascination should
always be at play in each word of the novel.
There’s your quote: A
novel is a symphony of fascinations.
9. What do you hope to
accomplish in writing books?
Accomplish? Um…that’s
a tougher question. ‘Accomplish’ implies a product or an outcome, and to be
honest, ever since I was a fat twelve year old boy I’ve enjoyed the process
itself and wasn’t quite so product- or outcome-oriented as other writers may
be.
If I compared myself
to a figure out of history with some accomplishment, it would be Babe Ruth. (Makes
a hand gesture: straight up, no kidding) I am the Babe Ruth of writing. I
always swing for the fences. When I start a novel or a story I am always out to
hit a home run, to write a masterpiece.
Seriously, if you sit
down to write a story or novel and aren’t out to write a masterpiece, what’s
the point? To make money? Go sell real estate. To get famous? Not likely. To
have sexy cachet? Spare us, the world is already full of posers. To improve
your craft? Fine, go for it.
My one signal piece of
advice to anybody who writes is this: always intend to write a masterpiece. And
know that it’ll never happen in the
first draft. If you write 20 drafts and fail (and you just might) at least
you’ll improve your writing. You might also write a novel much better than you
thought you could write. Still, do not rush
to publish. There’s an old saying: Publish in haste, repent at leisure. Take
the time to rewrite and polish, knowing that your integrity is on the page.
You do not write the
book. The book writes you. Write a novel with integrity and you will have integrity.
Take Persimmon, published in September 2013.
It went through 25 drafts. At 80,000 words each draft, that’s two million words
I wrote and polished for one novel. It may not be a masterpiece, but it’s as
damn close as I could get it. And it changed me. I deepened my understanding of
Taoist philosophy and the mind-body connection. It helped me understand what
it’s like to be a stranger in America. It taught me about integrity.
Wow. Lend me a hand,
AJ, so I can get down off this soap box.
10.
How would you
define Doc Pruyne?
I’m a wood cutter who
sharpens both sides of his ax.
Thank you so much for spending the time with me and Doc on this interview of sorts. If you want more info on Doc you can go to his links that are listed below.
And remember to check in next week because I am going to be featuring another author to author blog. Till next time happy reading,
AJ
** Links to find Doc Pruyne**
Doc
Pruyne’s blog can be found at http://www.chucklingduck.net
Also find
him at https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7305941.Doc_Pruyne
