Questions and Answers

Q: What is your writing background?
A: I have been writing most of my life. I was only about 10 or 12 when I wrote my first novel length piece. I have written mostly business and promotional pieces and little short pieces for my own amusement. It wasn't until 1999 that I started writing novels. My first novel, Angela's Truth was written in 1999, but it sat on a shelf in my office for close to 6 years before I did anything with it. I pulled it down and proceeded to rewrite it, clean it up and had it edited. It was released in 2006. I had so much positive feedback on that book that I decided to do a sequel, Truth and Vengeance. That was released in July 2010 and so far it has been receiving rave reviews from everyone that has read it. I have a couple other novels that I am currently working on, but don't have an expected release date at this time.

Q: What books do you like to read?
A:This was an interesting exercise. I walked up to my bookshelf and started reviewing the titles with the thought 'Which are my favourite books?'. Several minutes passed and I noticed that the selections I had picked were all my son's titles.

Okay then, which books do I like to read for myself? I gazed over the shelf again. Hmmm. Same titles. I get such pleasure from reading to my son that those titles are the ones I consider my favourite. My son, Shamus, was born in 2001.

2001. Trigger point. I'm on a roll! 2001: A Space Odyssey, Trigger Points. Perfect, now we are getting somewhere!

I quickly went over my collection again, before I lost focus. I decided the titles I consider my favourites are the ones that I want to read over and over. Makes sense, I read my son the same stories over and over - those that are his favourites. Children are from Heaven. I Guess you know where I am going with this by now.

Below is the short-list of my favourite titles with links to their page on Amazon. I hope I answered that question.

Isaac Asimov
Fantastic Voyage

Arthur C. Clarke
2001 A Space Odyssey
Rendezvous With Rama

John Gray,Ph.D.
Children Are from Heaven : Positive Parenting Skills for Raising Cooperative, Confident, and Compassionate Children

Michael J. Kami
Trigger Points: How to Make Decisions Three Times Faster, Innovate Smarter, and Beat Your Competition by 10 Percent (It Ain't Easy!)

Stephen King
Misery
The Dead Zone
Thinner
The Eyes of the Dragon

Dean Koontz
Brother Odd (Odd Thomas Novels)
The Taking

Eric Van Lustbader
Black Heart
Jian
Sirens
The Kaisho

Miyamoto Musashi
The Book of Five Rings (The Way of the Warrior Series)

David Saperstein
Cocoon

Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Children of the Shroud

Maralys Wills
Scatterpath

Q: It must be difficult writing novels?
A: So far it has been relatively easy for me. Once I get the idea of what the story is going to be about, I just set to it and the story just seems to write itself. I don't worry about grammar or sentence structure or things of that nature. I just write. Quite often the story will head off in directions I had not originally intended. The characters do things I wasn't expecting them to do, but I just run with it. After I have finished, I go back over it and clean up language, reorganize timelines, make modifications to the early part of story that make sense to the direction the story ended up going. Writing the first draft, if I have the time to work on it, usually takes 6-8 weeks. The clean up and rewrites can take a year or more... Again, as time allows. I love the process and the challenges.

Q: Do you write full time?
A: No. I am the traffic and inventory manager for the advertising division of a dot com based out of Parksville on Vancouver Island. I would love to be a full time writer, but like most people, I have a family and bills. Someone once said, 'the only way to make money in writing is with ransom notes'. I love that saying. As a relative newbie to the novel writing world, there is a huge learning curve and it takes a phenomenal amount of work to promote a book. The writing of the book is by far the easiest part. Getting it out there in front of people is very difficult.

Q: Angela's Truth and Truth and Vengeance are self-published. Why did you take that route with them? A: As a newbie it can be exceedingly difficult to get a book published through conventional publishing houses. There are literally thousands of new titles arriving on the market every year. The publishing houses, especially in this economy have to hedge their bets. They are businesses firstly and they have to focus their resources on authors that are going to make them money. They are approached by a great many new writers daily and they only give a couple seconds consideration to any submission that comes in. Any little mistake made in the submission and that title loses its chance at consideration. I believe the novels I have written are good. I have had a great many positive comments from the people that have read them. I believe that if I produce and distribute my work myself, it shows that I believe in what I am doing. It also allows me to establish a track record for my work. The dream, of course, is to sign with a publishing house, but until then I am going to continue writing and distributing my work and when the time is right, I will approach publisher with work and history in hand.

Q: Where did you get the idea for Angela's Truth and Truth and Vengeance?
A: It is funny what things can trigger the imagination. I was watching a program on the Discovery Channel that was discussing the sperm donor industry. It was very well done, and as usual, a fair and balanced program. The story stuck in my head for some time and I started thinking 'what if' and Angela's Truth just grew from that. After I released the novel, people kept asking for a sequel. Frankly, I thought I was done with that story, but the demand for more was such that I felt compelled to do a sequel. I put the other stories I was working on aside and wrote Truth and Vengeance. Both books were a lot of fun to write and I am very pleased with how they turned out.

Q: Which of the two novels do you like best?
A: I like them both, naturally. They are both phenomenal works. But seriously, I think Truth and Vengeance is the better of the two. I learned a lot writing Angela's Truth and was able to apply what I learned to Truth and Vengeance.

Q: What do you think of the way the book industry is heading?
A: Books are books. The written word and storytelling have been around for most of humankind's existence and will continue as long as humans walk the planet. The form it takes will continue to evolve. It started with the paintings on walls and verbal stories passed down through the generations. It evolved to being written down on paper, then to limited printing and on to mass production and is now heading into the digital world. I don't think the hardcopy of books will go away, but I do believe the amount of hardcopy books will dwindle as the digital versions become more popular. Ereaders will continue to grow in popularity and the whole industry will adapt. The beauty of the digital market is price. Works can be purchased at a far lower price and as a result, I think, people will be more willing to give work by less known authors a chance.

Q: So you are embracing the digital market for books?
A: I think resistance is futile. From a purely money making perspective, authors do make less for their work in the digital version, however, more people are likely to buy the work. I also think if people enjoy a novel there is a good chance they may subsequently purchase hardcopies for their collection or as gifts for family and friends. I just think it is part of human evolution and it is not necessarily a bad thing.

Q: You said you have other titles in the works. What are they about?
A: I'm not going to tip my hat just yet. I will say that they are stories that are different than Angela's Truth and Truth and Vengeance. They do deal with human psyche and as usual take things that are comfortable in our lives and twist them into something that is entertaining. There will be a bit of mystery, a bit of thriller and a dash of science fiction.

Q: Just yet. So you are planning on talking about the books before they are released?
A: Absolutely. I am not sure yet what form that will take, but visiting this website for updates is a good idea if you are interested. I have interesting ideas that I am tossing around concerning this and when I have completed the ground work I will get it started. Stay tuned. It should be fun.

If you have any questions that I haven't touched on here, please let me know. I will do my best to answer in a timely manner.

Thank you
-Steve