Interview with Kurt Kamm

Interview with Kurt Kamm
Tell us about your latest book.
Code Blood is a chilling and suspenseful novel which has won a number of literary awards. It takes the reader into the connected lives of a rookie fire paramedic, a Chinese medical research student, and an obsessed killer who stalks her.
Interview with Kurt KammColt Lewis, a young Los Angeles County fire paramedic, responds to his first accident. A young woman dies in his arms. Her foot has been severed but is nowhere to be found. Who is the woman, and what happened to her foot? During a weeklong search, Colt obsesses over the victim and risks his career to uncover her identity and find the missing foot.  His search leads him to the high-tech medical research laboratories of a major university and to a dark and disturbing side of Los Angeles—an underworld of body part dealers and underground Goth clubs.
A Li is a brilliant Chinese graduate student conducting stem cell research. She is unhappy in Los Angeles, yearns for her home in the highlands of Tibet, and thinks of her family and long-departed twin sister. A Li carries Bombay blood in her veins—the rarest blood in the world.
Markus, a collector of body parts and rare blood, is after the elixir that flows in A Li's veins. He will do anything to get it.
Emergency medicine, the science of stem cell research, and the unsettling world of blood fetishism and body parts come together in this edgy L.A. Noir thriller as Colt uncovers one mystery after another. When he finally learns the identity of the accident victim, the last of his illusions are shattered.
What advice do you have for other fiction writers?
You have work at it on a regular basis, and spend hours at your computer with only your characters to keep you company. Much of what you will write you will delete, and you will have doubts about what you are doing. There will be days when you consider giving up and walking away. There will be days when you ask yourself, "Why am I doing this?"  You had better love writing, because the process itself is the greatest reward, so be sure you enjoy the journey. You may complete your novel and the N.Y. Times Book Review (and a lot of other reviewers) may ignore it, but if you enjoyed writing it and think you have done the best you could do, then that in itself is the reward.
So, when you are sitting at your computer trying to get started, take a sip of coffee and repeat three times, "I love writing, I am having fun right now, and that's why I am sitting here." If you mean it, you are on your way.

Interview with Kurt Kamm
What's the best thing about being a writer?
I enjoy writing fiction. I like to imagine characters, think of their personalities and personal quirks, and translate that into a fictional life for them. Code Blood is full of such characters, and I still have to laugh  when I go back and read about some of them. Sometimes when I am doing something else, I think of one of my characters and have a conversation with him/her.
I also like the idea of leaving something permanent, a novel, which will remain in (electronic) existence for some extended time.
Where can people find out more about you and your writing?
I have a website which describes all my books and awards. http://kurtkamm.com/ It also has some short blogs and some great pictures.
I also have an Amazon author’s page.  http://amzn.to/2qsa5vi
 Who is you favorite character in your book and why?
Markus may be my favorite character in all of the six books I have written. He’s smart, but uses his intellect for bad ends. He’s selfish and blames everyone but himself for his problems. His medical history as a child (he’s an albino) has damaged him and twisted his personality. He is obsessive and self-destructive. When he sets out to get a sample of the rarest blood type in the world (Bombay Blood) he wreaks havoc on himself and those around him. He sounds awful, but you have to love him.

How long did it take you to write your book?

I have written six books, each has taken about 24 – 30 months. There are four phases: First - conception and research (8 months); Second – Initial struggle with writing the story (12); Third – Rewriting, smoothing and polishing (6); Fourth – Editing, editing, editing (6).

Interview with Kurt Kamm
Who designed the cover?

One of the characters in Code Blood, Audra, has a full body tattoo. I am friends with a woman named Justice Howard, who is known around the world for her pictures of women with tattoos. She provided me with the picture of the woman on the cover. Here it is in the original, I hope it is not too shocking for your readers. This lady spent approximately $30,000 for the tattoo and it took over 3 years to complete.

My publisher, Monkey C. Media developed the cover, blending in the flames that appear on all of my other book covers.

Where can a reader purchase your book?

It’s amazing to note that Amazon now sells about 70% of all books in the United States. When I was a kid, I loved to just wander through bookstores. Doing it online just isn’t the same.

Code Blood is available in paperback and Kindle through my website, http://kurtkamm.com/ or on Amazon http://amzn.to/2q3sj5n


What are your thoughts on self-publishing verses traditional publishing?

There is good news and bad news about self-publishing. It has allowed many talented people access to the public market and at a reasonable cost. The problem is that many who self-publish are not very disciplined. Traditional publishing demands editorial perfection, and any writer who makes it through the process produces (with the help of his editor) a polished piece of work. Self-publishing instills no discipline, and many authors print work which is badly written and badly edited. My advice to those who would self-publish is to edit, edit, edit your work, have it proofread by a professional, then have it worked over by an editor. Only then should you self-publish.

When you’re not writing, how do you spend your time?
I am an exercise freak. I was a competitive bicycle racer and still spend 2-3 hours a day riding my bike.  Weight workouts are a must. I also (surprise!) read a lot.



1 Comments

  1. I read this book and had trouble putting it down. I didn't realize the author wrote 6 books so it seems I have a lot of catching up to do.

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