Questions and Answers
1. What authors influenced your writing?
My biggest influence was probably Robert B. Parker, although not his detective stories or his characters, but his writing style. He has such a lean, stark style where he lets the characters and their dialog carry the book. Early on I suffered from flowery descriptivitis: it's a writing disease that ranks right up there with rampant pompositiosis. Show me an average North Dakota sunset and I would give you thirty pages. Readers will be happy to hear that, thanks to Robert B. Parker and a few others, I've been cured, or at least the disease is in remission, most of the time, I think. Discovering Elmore Leonard's "Ten Rules for Writing" didn't hurt either.
2. What author's do you like to read?
I like authors who can tell a good story that's also funny - where the author doesn't try too hard so the story stays first, and the humor remains intrinsic within it. I also like a good scam. Donald Westlake did both brilliantly, especially in the Dortmunder series. He also managed to portray the exploits of an ongoing burglary gang without a lot of blood and gore. In my family, a new found Westlake gets passed from North Dakota to Alabama, over to Illinois, down to Kansas, and back to North Dakota. I've become The Keeper of the Westlakes, but even though I have a bookstore, they are not for sale. Sorry.
I've read all of Nelson DeMille's work and thoroughly enjoyed most of it. But lately, he's either gotten lazy or he's spending too much time helping his daughter (who is also a writer) get her career going. Anyway, the last book, The Gate House, became a bit tedious with all the repetition and flash-back material.
I don't read much by old dead guys any more, but if I get the chance, I'd like to revisit Mark Twain and Oscar Wild.
3. What are your favorite books?
Richard Grenier's The Marrakesh One–Two, published in 1983, is one of a kind. He takes assassinations, coups d'etat, hijackings and Arab political bloodlust and writes a very strange, ironic, and funny book. The plot revolves around the interagency, intertribal, international problems encountered by US film maker, Burt Nelson, in making The Life of the Prophet Mohammad. A brief skimming of the Koran will quickly show why this filming should never have been considered, much less attempted. It's a hoot. Joseph Kanon's Los Alamos, Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth, Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael series, Robert Ludlum's The Road to Gandolpho (although I think he wrote that and The Road to Omaha as Michael Shepherd), The Midnight Examiner by William Kotzwinkle, Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistomology, Ernst Becker's The Denial of Death, and Albert Ellis' Rational Emotive Psychotherapy. The last three get a bit heavy, but hey, you asked.
4. What is the target audience for Beauty Tips?
It started as a guy book, because I was writing about David and Jonathan dreaming and scheming their careers into skyrocketing orbits. But then Jane and Mary came along and all bets were off. My wife enjoyed it (she's a girl); so who knows? The main characters are young people starting their careers, so I suppose youngish people or people starting a new career will enjoy it. Also, people who like humorous fiction should give it a go.
5. Who or what influenced you as a person?
Growing up in the Dakotas where I've plowed the fields, fished the lakes, and roamed the Sisseton hills is probably the most pervasive influence. And nothing will set your thinking straight faster than a brisk walk in a thirty mile per hour January wind.
In the summers during high school I worked for my Uncle Elvin. He was the most gentle and patient man I've ever known. When I would run into the ditch with a truck load of grain, or nearly burn out the pickup clutch trying to drive up a ditch in second gear, or fall asleep while cultivating and tear up a quarter mile of corn, he would stop what he was doing and come over. He'd get off his tractor, take out his tobacco and papers, roll a gnarly cigarette, and cup his hands to light it in the wind. He'd say something goofy or profound like, "I bet you learned that in driver's ed." Then he'd chuckle, shake his head, get back on his tractor, and drive back to what he was doing.
In my high school Howard Grumbo was a pretty good coach, an awful history teacher, and a below average public speaker. However, he was a man of substance with principles and I always knew where he stood. I was a kid then, and kids need that.
My town and family were full of powerful influences. Most were good and life's too short to deal with those that weren't. Most of them are dead by now anyway.
6. What is your writing schedule?
It is catch-as-catch-can depending on the stained glass work on the tables - at least until I reach a certain point where a prolonged concerted effort is required to bring things together. Then I commit to a schedule and I write after work from six P.M. until about eleven. Then I print it out and set it on the kitchen counter. When Susan gets up the following morning she reads it and I listen. If she giggles, I know I've got a keeper.
I am most productive when locked in the glazing room during the day. What is glazing? Glazing is the act of brushing a smelly, oily, dirty, putty-like compound into the narrow gap between the glass and the lead channels to waterproof and stabilize the stained glass panel. Glazing requires little mental engagement, so my brain is free to create. By evening I usually have a full story line ready to go, and all I need to do is write it down.
7. How did you develop your characters?
I started with David and Jonathan, and Jonathan's father, Saul. With them in mind I started writing a modern day version of the Old Testament story, but as soon as the characters took shape, matured, and developed personalities the whole thing slid in the ditch. So I salvaged what I could.
Jane came next - from where, I haven't a clue. Perhaps she's my feminine side, or my evil twin, or my more honest self. I think my mother always wanted a girl. Then why does Jane look so much like your five foot three, dark haired, dark eyed wife, you ask? Oie vey, this is getting way too Freudian. I think we need to move along.
Mary is the perfect girl we dreamed of in high school: guys to worship her from afar and girls to become her. For her, perfection isn't everything; it's the only thing. Mary came to me fully formed, almost prepackaged, and dropped in my lap. She's the epitome of what happens when girls actually internalize all of the standards they were taught about being a good catholic girl. She is in fact wonderful and I love her dearly, but she's so tightly wrapped it hurts to watch. Somewhere in there is the real Mary Pope, and if she could find the means, the absolving reason, to lighten up and relax for just a second. . .
8. How did you develop the plot?
Characters first, plot second. Once I had the characters developed and I had played with them a bit, I had a pretty good understanding of how they would cope. So I would throw them into various situations to see what would happen. One thing led to another and, eventually, a hint of a trail started.
David and Jane are catalytic characters. They provoke. When they appear stuff happens. Initially, I thought Jane would carry the action, but then one of David's schemes began to take shape, gain strength, and become an absurdity so profoundly excessive that it couldn't be ignored. Once the plot direction (not the entire plot) had been developed a lot of things fell into place: new characters appeared without much birthing pain and sub plots emerged as needed. I was probably half way through the book before I knew how it would end and even then I kept tinkering.
9. How much of the story did you know before you started the book?
Some authors create a plot outline and then proceed to write. John Irving says that he writes the last line of the book first, so he knows exactly where the book is going (plot wise) before he even starts. I'm not nearly so disciplined nor that patient. In the beginning I have very little idea where things are headed. And I hate the act of writing. If it didn't provide some surprises, I'd just quit.
10. Does the book change as you write it?
Oie vey, liebling, haven't you been listening? My writing is a mess! I have character sketches scattered across the studio tables, personality profiles posted on the refrigerator (so I don't forget), setting descriptions posted on the bulletin board, possible scenarios in the word processor under scenarios, possibilities, thoughts, and what if's. The book changes so much that, in the beginning it's not even a book, but more of a collection of stuff. Then the stuff acquires a magnetic force that pushes and pulls it in a certain direction, and finally it becomes a book.
11. How long did it take to write Beauty Tips?
About eighteen months. But I have a full time job at the studio, so I'm writing after hours and when I can steal a few minutes during the day. I'm guessing the hours total was about a thousand, or around six months, if I were working full time. But that's just to get the rough book– my very best effort. Then it's sent to "so called" friends, who criticize my style, correct my messy punctuation, shred my sentence structure, tear apart my plot line, and perform prêt mortem autopsies on my living breathing characters. After the gruesome slaughter, these critics, these merciless serpents of the red pen, these daughters and sons of Satan, return my bloodied and shredded manuscript. I am convinced they are evil destroyers of truth and beauty.
After three days of mourning, hours of self flagellation, and a medicinal repast with a large bottle of scotch, I return to the manuscript. It looks like Dresden in the summer of 1945, still smoldering. I am crushed. There is no hope. More flagellation. More scotch.
Bleary eyed, unshaven, and unshowered I return to the ashen, nearly lifeless manuscript and begin to resuscitate and reconstruct, breathing life back into it. Hours pass, days pass, then weeks. And finally, it is finished. I briefly do the River Rat Dance of Joy. Don't ask. Then I cradle the reborn child and gently pass it over to Susan Mack, the final judge of all things good or evil.
Like the shower scene from Hitchcock's "Psycho" she attacks: stabbing, stabbing, and stabbing as red spurts through commas, words, phrases, and pages until exhausted, she watches as, down the drain, the circling evidence disappears. I am crushed. More recriminations. More time. More scotch. Another resurrection. And at last, it is finished.
12. Are you planning another novel?
Yes. At least one more, maybe two. Then I'm going to write a musical.
13. Will the next novel have any of the same characters?
Yes. The next novel will feature Anson Berghoffer, who slept or was semi-conscious through most of Beauty Tips. But David, Jonathan, Mary, and Jane will all be there as well.