Doug, I’m honored to have this opportunity to discuss life, literature, and writing with you.
My first question for you is about your literary preferences during your teenage years. Were you an avid reader back then? If so, did you have a favorite writer or genre that particularly resonated with you?
My teen years were a LONG time ago, but I’ll do what I can, and maybe tie it in with what I write.
Aside from books, we got a daily newspaper which was supposed to be non-fiction, but it probably helped with my reading and reasoning skills. At that time we got periodic magazines – I remember Saturday Evening Post and Colliers, there may have been more. They had stories, usually non-genre, but I think I found “Day Of The Triffids” in one of those magazines, That horror story about killer plants, led me to write “Ubik” a few years ago.
We probably had books assigned to read for school, but I can’t remember any. I think my favorite kind of story at that time was science fiction, which matched my taste in “space opera” like “War Of The Worlds” and “When Worlds Collide”. The distinction between science fiction and horror sometimes overlapped. Those interests led to my parody “Space Opera”, and the serious “Three Planets”.
Curently I think of most science fiction is more scienceless fiction because most of it is absurd. Grab a wormhole get instantly transported a thousand light years.
If you had the chance to go back in time and relive your life as a 20-year-old, would you prioritize reading and writing more than you did before, knowing what you know now?
I’d probably do the same wrong things, but there could be changes. I might have read and written more. That could have leaving some things out – If I spent more time on words would I have had less success with math? We’ll never know unless I can pretend to be 13 again.
Between solving tough math problems and writing an awesome new story, which one really sparks your interest?
I’d say I like writing the story better. Any math problem that I can solve somebody else has and could solve. All stories are somewhat alike, but no one has written stories exactly like mine.
For a while X / Twitter presented math problems. I had some enjoyment solving some of them. It took me back since I had not used much math since actuarial work. Recently a math friend presented a problem that I have not solved. What is the largest circle that can be enclosed by a 3X4X5 triangle. I have not solved it. Sometimes a story or math problem would occur that I couldn’t solve until I slept on it literally.
In your opinion, does everyone have the potential to be a writer? What characteristics or skills do you believe are essential for a successful fiction writer to possess?
I suspect your question has puzzled people before.
If someone can write and has imagination, that person can write fiction. The simplest version of fiction is “what if?”. What if we had another ice age, what if a leader was only interested in personal profit.
Stephen King wrote a manual for successful writing. Obviously, his plan worked well for him. I didn’t finish the book, so I’ll have to make up my manual for success writing fiction. This is a good place to note that I consider myself a successful writer because I’ve been published and gotten some good comments. I don’t pass the requirement that it made me rich. Here we go:
Read widely, all kinds of books fiction and non-fiction. Get some education about writing. I have little, and I ignore much of what I’ve learned such as limit adverbs and exposition. Here is the hard part – have lots of experiences. Here I’m fairly limited. My occupational training was mathematics, and I became an actuary. That’s nothing like the cliche training for writing – mine for gold, work on a fishing boat, ride a motorcycle around the world. Hanging out with other writers might help, I don’t know. One should be interested in people and society.
Intelligence and an active internal life might be an advantage.
That’s all I can come with. Made me think.
Considering your mention of Stephen King, it’s clear that he has had some influence on your writing journey. Would you consider him one of your favorite fiction writers? If so, what aspects of his work or writing style resonate with you the most?
I’ve enjoyed many of his books but have not read much of his writing lately. One obvious way it affected my writing was in parodying some of his stories. “My Kind Of Town” tells the fictional story of how he got his plots (he has said he got his ideas from a plot store in Poughkeepsie New York), “AKA Kerry” purports to tell the truth about “Carrie”, a real person whom King exploited, “The Dumb” is a parody of his story “The Dome”, and finally his “Christine” was considered when I wrote “smart car”, but the smart car wasn’t totally evil.
Yes, he is a favorite, but while good, his stories are usually too long. His best points are the breadth of his writing, the plots, and the hooks. I didn’t care for “The Dome”, particularly since the topic had been done in the animated show “The Simpsons” in a more satisfying way and much shorter.
If you had to narrow down your list of favorite fiction writers to just three, who would they be? What qualities or unique characteristics of their writing styles have significantly impacted your own work or preferences as a reader and writer?
Over the years, I’ve had my nonfiction (largely biology / anthropology), humo(u)r, science fiction, literary fiction periods, but what has stuck with me most is crime stories. They tell us a lot about human nature.
My favorite author is Doug Hawley, but I’ll give you three mystery writers. I could list more.
Dash Hammett – He was a real detective (Pinkerton). He knew what he was doing.
P. D. James – A British civil servant who wrote about how things worked in the UK. I was fortunate to have her autograph one of her books.
Ross MacDonald – His scene was a hundred miles north of Los Angeles.
What sets those writers apart from most of the hard boiled or cozy mysteries is that they portrayed human nature as much as solving the crimes.