When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I was six
years old, listening to stories from my mother. One story was adventures of
Bertram, authored by Paul Gilbert—the ibex, the velocipede, the father on
business in Omaha. And the other was a cave man hero named Oogli, with a wife
named Oompah, a nod here to Alley Oop. With those stories in your head, who
wouldn’t want to be a writer?
What genre do you write and why?
I write
mysteries because I have the mouldering manuscripts of five experimental novels
gathering dust in my author’s closet.
In a
mystery, you have modular scenes—the crime, discovery of the crime, reporting
the crime, sleuth onstage, witness interview (Christie runs these in a
tantalizing string)—scenes with purpose and time limits—and that helps me keep
a tight structure.
Tell us about your latest book.
Murdock
Tackles Taos is #6 in the Matt Murdock Mystery Series, a romp through the
mountains of Northern New Mexico—Murdock has 4 books in SoCal and one in
Seattle—but the big change in Murdock Six is his encounter with ex-cop Helene
Steinbeck, who demanded her own POV, which jostled my writing out of the First
Person Private Eye Film Noir narrative into a shifting Third Person, Murdock
scenes trading off with Helene scenes. The writing is tighter, the action moves
faster. Early reviewers are making nice comments—so maybe I did something
right.
What marketing methods are you using to promote your
book?
This
interview, a blog tour, a book Launch party, begging friends for help, a
book-signing here and there—but the internet is crawling with hungry writers
littering cyper-space with their spoor—and Facebook-itis has shortened the
life-span of each sound-bite online—so we are all equal, Dante’s Inferno is on
the same plane as the flimsiest urban fantasy which creates its own little vampire
Hell. Strange times for us all.
What formats is the book available in?
Paper and
Kindle.
What do you like to do when you're not writing?
I meditate. On the floor, on my back. Knees up,
legs on a bolster, just lie there and be at one with the floor and then do
specific core exercises. I listen to Lozanov-inspired French tapes—French read
against Baroque music—so I can order beefsteak in Paris and not wind up with a
Swiss hotdog, laced with cheese.
Who are your favourite authors?
In
college I gorged on Thomas Wolfe—now he overwrites. In graduate school I
discovered T.S. Eliot and heard his lines singing. When Prufrock sings that
line about the mermaids: “I do not think that they will sing to me,” I bounced
off the walls with envy. In prose, Hemingway got close to the singing line in
The Sun Also Rises: “Looking back we saw Burguete, white houses nd red roofs
and the white road with a truck going along it and the dust rising.” At Beloit
College—I taught there for 12 years—I took my classes through Nabokov’s Pale
Fire a dozen times—lots of sly laughs in those pages. My favorite dialogue writer is Tom
Stoppard—what an ear.
These
days, I am an old man reading other old men like Don DeLillo and James Salter. The
opening of Mao II is a stylistic
dazzler (Crowd Eye!).
For
my writing work—detective fiction—I read the detective writers who help me hone
my technique: John Sandford, T. Jefferson Parker, Robert B. Parker for dialogue
and jokes. I just finished David McCullough’s book on Paris in the 1830’s, preparing
for a trip to the City of Lights. I devour the Paris Review interviews with
writers. I’ve been reading Camille Paglia’s Sexual Personae for a dozen
years—I’ll be dead before it’s done with me: each Paglia sentence is it’s own
universe.
 |
| Robert Ray |
What advice do you have for other writers?
1. Do writing practice with a group. Louisa’s
Writers has been going for 20 years. Look it up on Facebook.
2. Forget about publishing and work on your
sentences.
3. If you’re writing a novel, buy a used copy of
THE WEEKEND NOVELIST, it’s better than the revised version, which was butchered
by the editor, and do the exercises.
4. If you’re rewriting a novel, get my weekend
novelist book on rewriting and start with Subplot One.
5. If you don’t know how to find a subplot, watch
the movie called Moonstruck—it’s got six and it’s cute.
What's your favourite quote about writing/for writers?
Elmore
Leonard: “I try to leave out
the parts that people skip.”
What's the best thing about being a writer?
Writing with
other writers. Reading aloud. Working sentences until they sing.
Where can people find out more about you and your
writing?
I have a cool blog, with my buddy Jack Remick.
Here’s the url:
Anything else you'd like to add?
Thanks. You
folks ask good questions. I appreciate the chance to answer.
