Reflections on my first radio interview

I had my first radio interview last week on a local station, KOOP 91.7 FM, on a show called Writing on the Air.

These are some of my reflections:

My wife listened to the interview that evening while I walked Logan. When I came back, she told me, with a big smile on her face, that she really enjoyed it. I haven’t listened to it, but I have considered how I would have answered the questions better or expanded on certain things. Then again, I’m a writer, not a speaker.

Tim Ferriss posted on Twitter:
”It is far more lucrative and fun to leverage your strengths instead of attempting to fix all the chinks in your armor. The choice is between multiplication of results using strengths or incremental improvement fixing weaknesses that will, at best, become mediocre. Focus on better use of your best weapons instead of constant repair.”

So, this is my way of focusing on my strengths rather than trying to fix my weaknesses. My spoken English is not perfect, and I’m learning that having a few minutes to talk about broad topics is probably not my ideal setting. It takes my overly analytical, overthinking brain some time to gather my ideas and speak them coherently. Still, it was a good experience that I’m eager to repeat.

These are some of the questions I remember and how I would answer them if it were a written interview:

1) What would you tell someone who wants to become a writer?

I said: “Tell the truth.”

This is a fine answer, but without context, it feels incomplete. I meant to say that first, you must choose what kind of writer you want to be. Is your aim to be an overnight sensation and sell as many books as possible? If the answer is yes, you should take courses on outlining and closely watching market analytics. You should write to market and carefully craft a product that sells. Nothing wrong with that.

But, if you aim to become an artist, a writer of novels that stand the test of time, then telling the truth is the only way. Even in fiction, the soul of the story is truth. The difference between fiction and nonfiction is that in fiction, the truth is dressed in fantasy or fantastical events. It’s imaginary people carrying out real settings and having real conversations. The best books in history are ones that don’t shy away from certain truths that the author saw coming from a mile away. 1984, Farehtheit 451, Brave New World, etc., are books ahead of their time by authors brave enough to tell the truth, at whatever the cost. As artists, our job is not to be nice, to pander to the crowd, or to be liked. Our job is to tell the truth.

How you measure success is important.

2) What is the 444 series about?

I said: “About four archangels trapped in our universe and looking for a way out.”

I would add that it’s about four archangels trapped in our universe that are taking extreme and, sometimes, deadly measures to get out and overtake the Ancestor’s throne. At a high level, it’s a race to power, with whatever means necessary. Of course, there is a lot more to the series. I didn’t even mention the main characters. You will have to read it to find out how it unfolds.

3) What is the hardest part about selling my books?

I said: “Since I don’t write to market, the hardest part is explaining my books.”

This is correct. The more complete answer would be simply: “Marketing.”

Whenever I hear or think about that word, I think of the great authors in history. I imagine J. D. Salinger setting up a booth and chatting up potential readers at an event or Hemingway gathering meme pictures for a social media post. It’s a somewhat ridiculous scenario, but this is where we’re at. Would they thrive today if any of them were starting out right now? That’s an interesting question.

My difficulties in selling my books are the same difficulties most authors face: there’s just too much stuff out there competing for people’s attention. Some authors believe it’s just a matter of numbers. The more books they have out, the more chances they have of being discovered and the more books they’ll sell. So there’s an army of people who are pumping out books as if they were story factories. On the popularity front, I find it impossible to compete with these people, so I have to out-compete them with quality.

This means that it takes me about six months to a year to complete the first draft of a novel. Then comes editing, cover designing, re-writing, etc. By the time I release it, I end up with a quality story that gets lost in the soup of word vomit that is the publishing world.

Not only that, but books are pumped out with such speed, such carelessness that the reader has gotten used to a certain type of story. I have read a few modern books lately, all of them with an increasingly easier vocabulary and sentences that are so close to nonfiction books that I often wonder what happened to prose and subtlety. Lately, it feels more like I’m reading a blockbuster movie or a comic book than a novel. It’s fine for entertainment value, but as soon as I read the final page, the book exits my brain as fast as it entered it. I’m left the same as I was before I read it. Unchanged. I don’t know what that means for the literary world or my books. It comes back to the question of what kind of author you want to be. Sometimes, the best you can do is hop off the machine, watch it from afar, and enjoy the calmness of solid ground. I’ll write the best books I can write, each one a snapshot of my journey. Eventually, someone will notice.

4) Do you outline your books?

I said: “No.”

I trust my subconscious to come up with better symbolism and themes than my conscious mind ever could. So, I try to abstain from any deep planning of my stories. I do flesh out ideas before I start writing, and I’ll often leave little notes when I finish my writing session so that the next day, I can come to it knowing what needs to happen next in broader terms. I leave enough room for tangents, knowing that if I sleep well, my brain will take the story in a completely different direction. That’s what happened in Messengers Rising, where my brain came up with the idea for Istahar’s back story out of nowhere. That wasn’t planned at all, and it’s my favorite part of that book.

Writing is playtime for me. If I were to worry about the plot, beats, archetypes, and the hero’s journey at a conscious level, it would become a job, a chore. I would be like a creative chef with an idea for a dish who ended up flipping burgers at a fast food restaurant because someone told him those two spices could never go together.

When I used to make music, I knew the basic chords of a guitar, but everything else was made up on the spot. I didn’t know what any of the notes and chords were called, and I didn’t care. It sounded cool, aggressive, beautiful, calming, or whatever emotion I had at the moment. I had been playing make-believe all my life and enjoyed it. I want to continue creating in the same fashion. I might sometimes know the beginning and the ending, but everything in between is a mystery to be uncovered.

5) what is your writing routine?

I said: “Write first thing in the morning before the day gets away from you.”

Yes, but also: I sit in the same chair next to a window because sunlight puts me in a good mood, and I listen to the same instrumental music because lyrics are distracting. I use noise-canceling headphones because my neighbors have the loudest car in the world. And I stay there for two to three hours and give myself a good writing opportunity. Whatever happens, happens. Sometimes that means one sentence, other times multiple chapters.

I write before checking my emails and before logging on to social media. I need my brain fresh and uncorrupted by current events. I sometimes turn off my phone, watch, and any device with notifications. The only things I might do before writing are eating a protein and fat-rich breakfast, feeding and walking my dog, exercising, and drinking green tea because I found coffee puts me in a weird manic state where I’m too jittery and often leads to bad decisions. Clarity is paramount.

Sometimes, I might journal right when I get out of bed. As mentioned in The Artist’s Way, morning pages are a great way to silence the monkey brain.

That’s it for now. If I remember more questions, I’ll add them here.

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