What
genre do you write and why?
For this book I wrote in the
thriller/suspense/smartass genre because I was reading a lot of Robert Crais,
Janet Evanovich and Carl Hiaasen and thought “Wait, these novels are fun and
easy, and I enjoy reading them, why don’t I do one of those?” So, I did. My next book is more Joyce meets Marquez meets
Kierkegaard, so, a tad more serious and less fun. But it uses words with many
more syllables, so there’s that.
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| https://amzn.to/2Lqtyri |
Tell us about your
latest book.
It’s a
fast-paced thriller with laughs. Hopefully lots
of laughs. It follows IRS agent Mark Douglas and his IRS buddies as they take
on the Mongolian mob, a eunuch hitman named Juju Klondike, some plastic-surgery
enhanced terrorists and a partridge in a pear tree in an attempt to find
justice for his murdered friend and boss Lila. Oh, and there’s a conman
magician, a romantic magician’s assistant, a strange BBQ-lovin’ billionaire,
and a deranged and dilapidated ex-Mexican police force drug-sniffing dog, too.
So, you know, the usual.
Do you read your book
reviews? How do you deal with the bad or good ones?
Every reviewer has been incredibly nice and
positive about the book, so I feel very
flattered and happy that whatever the heck I was trying to do seems to be doing
it. If/when I get a bad review, I have these fun-loving scar-covered Ukrainians
I know, big, bruising hands-like-hams kinda people (the men and the women) who all hang out together
when they’re not in prison and like to…you know, play with baseball bats and
giver-of-bad-reviews’ knees. All as a lark, mind you, as I don’t think of
myself as an angry or vindictive sort of person, but that’s probably how I’ll
deal with any bad reviews. Or, I’ll get drunk and rage against the coming of
the night.
Who are your favourite
authors?
I’ve read EVERYTHING (and still do), but when I
was younger, it was all the good highfalutin stuff. Nabokov was important to
me. “One Hundred Years of Solitude” was high on the list. Fitzgerald when I was
starting out. Samuel R. Delany’s “Dhalgren” when I was a teenager. I remember
reading Terry Pratchett’s imported first books and William Gibson’s short
stories before anyone else knew about them. A lot of 20th Century
poets. Jane Austen. Dinesen/Blixen’s stuff (second best plot creator evah).
Kafka (first best plot creator evah). A LOT of Mexican, Central and South
American writers. I don’t know, pretty much everything back in the day. Now I
read scif/fantasy and thriller/suspense like eating peanuts. I go through a lot
of books. Take away TV and movies but leave me my books!
What advice do you
have for other writers?
Write EVERY day. Screw the rules, after a while
you’ll realize they don’t work; they’re just there to sell “How to Write” books
and give some structure for people just starting out. After you’ve written
enough you’ll understand all that stuff is worthless. All that writing is about
is creating characters then TRUTHFULLY watching them do what they do without
your interference. You write truthfully and not get in the way, and you’ll
write just fine. (Hey, I’m still
learning that.) Oh, and write EVERY day.
What's the best thing
about being a writer?
I roll out of bed, do exercises, shower, grab
coffee/tea/bubbly water and start to work by 6:30am. No muss, no fuss, no
people to deal with (until later when the calls and skypes and discussions
start), and just the work. My time is my own. Unfortunately, my time is my own
and I’m ALWAYS working, seven days a week, and many more hours than 9 to 5ers
if you add it all up. People think I have free time, and I don’t.
Where can people find
out more about you and your writing?
markzaslove.com is a good place. You can see my
horrible picture, too! Whoohooo! I was going for the serious writerly-look. Ha!
I sure fooled them! But there is a bio of me, and reviews and interviews and
fun stuff like that. Also, for more interaction, there’s my FaceBook author
page (https://www.facebook.com/MarkZasloveAuthor/), and my Twitter author page,
(https://twitter.com/mark_zaslove) and my Instagram (better pics there) author
page (https://www.instagram.com/markzasloveauthor/)
where I try to actually be fun and witty and not too much of a
stick-in-the-mud.
Who
is you favourite character in your book and why?
The main character’s girlfriend adopts
(against the main character’s better judgement while trying to avoid a eunuch
hitman’s barrage of bullets at a vet’s office) an old, mangy, blueberry-vodka
swilling ex-Mexican drug-sniffing dog El Repollo (The Cabbage…don’t ask). Why
is he called The Cabbage you ask? Years before, when the dog was on the force,
there was a drug bust gone bad and the ten Mexican policemen were ambushed by a
hundred cartel members with machine guns in a cabbage path. The dog went into
the cabbage path with the hundred cartel members, and only the dog came out. Hence the name.
Why
do you think readers are going to enjoy your book?
Well, I’d like to think there aren’t a whole lotta IRS
main character heroes, so, hopefully, that will be interesting. I mean, the
guy’s funny and rowdy and fights for right, as well as extra-specially auditing
tax poseurs and skinny jean-wearing hypocrites. You gotta love someone who does
that, right? Plus, I think the other characters are fun and friendly and
bizarre and sexy, threatening and sometimes a little scary. I’m not trying to
reinvent the wheel, but if readers have half as much fun with my book as I did writing
it, then I’ve done my job.
How long did it take
you to write your book?
The funny thing is that in Hollywood
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