Author Interview With Al McDermid

· by · in
At_Bahji_by_mcdermidToday we have an interivew with author Al McDermid.
So, what exactly do you write?
 
I’m an eclectic writer. In 2012, released a collection of poetry based on the Tao Te Ching, and earlier this year, published a co-written mystery set in 1949 Honolulu (written with my friend, Aki Liao). I’m currently working on the second novel in that setting, as well as a magic realist piece.

Other WIPs include a dystopian story set in a technologically advanced, alternate universe bereft of gunpowder, a collection of bizarre and/or surreal stories, a memoir recording my own brushes with history, and a tribute to Richard Brautigan.
 
I’m currently focused on writing crime fiction.

How would you describe yourself in a short third person bio?
 
This is the bio that appears on my Amazon author’s page:
 
Al McDermid is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, with a B.A. and M.A. in U.S. History. He wrote his Master’s thesis on the first failed attempt to have Hawai’i annexed to the United States following the overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy. It was here that he also met his friend and co-author, Aki Liao.
 
He was born in Michigan, where he lived for most of his childhood. He joined the U.S. Navy upon graduating high school and served aboard three different ships and at the U.S. Naval Station at Subic Bay in the Philippines. He was in Hawai’i when his second tour ended and decided to stay.
 
He now lives in Tokyo, Japan, with his wife, Kaoru Iwabuchi, and a Russian Blue named for Anais Nin.

What made you initially want to write? Has your motivation changed since then?
 
It’s hard for me to be sure how I got started. I kept a journal during a trip driving from Michigan to California in 1973, but that has since gone missing. I also did some journaling while I was in the Navy, and during my first stay in Japan in 1985-86, but I didn’t start thinking about writing seriously until I was in college, where I discovered I was actually pretty good at it. That’s probably my best answer; realizing I could do it well preceded the desire to do it seriously. Now, my main motivation is to make a living at it, which may or may not happen, since I’m also a pretty stubborn advocate of self-publishing. I’m further motivated by Kafka’s warning about what happens to writers who don’t write.

What do you think is the most important part of writing?

For me, it’s sitting down and typing one word, then the next, then the next, because if I’m not always writing, I’ll stop and who knows how long it’ll take me to get back to it. No, one thing trumps that; for years I’ve dabbled in multiple projects, flitting from one to the next like a hummingbird, while finishing nothing. What I finally figured out is that I need to be working on one primary project, with one other in the wings when I get seriously stuck on the first.

What is your favourite part of writing?
 
I enjoy writing dialog, and so sometimes I write long conversations between characters which usually require my going back and adding some details so text doesn’t look and read like a script (though script-writing does not interest me). I even write background scene which will not appear in the book in this way. I like the editing process as well because I believe this is when I do some of my best writing.

Tell us an interesting fact about you.
 
I was in the Philippines during the filming of Apocalypse Now and I worked on the same boats used in the film. Later during my two-stay there, I was stomping around out in the forest and later became very ill. The village healer who examined me said I had been attacked by faeries.
 
Do you have a day-job, (other than writing)?
 
I teach English as a second language to businesspeople.

Do you prefer a physical book or an ebook? Why?
 
I have come to prefer e-books, though I was late coming to this. I first became interested because of Kindle Direct Publishing. I had a book (All That Is: 81 Meditations Inspired by the Tao Te Ching) that I was sure no publisher would take (due to it being too similar to many other such books), but I wanted it out there, and KDP made that possible.
 
I’ve since come to prefer e-books for a number of other reasons, such as being able to take my library with me, the availability of samples, being able to highlight and share passages, and because my reader (a Kindle Paper White) is easy to handle.

Tell us about your latest novel.

I’m working on a novel titled The Cheongsam Bombshell, which is the second in a series featuring Navy cop, Frank Keegan, who appeared in A Halo for Red Betsy, which became available on Amazon earlier this year. Both novels are set in Honolulu at the end of World War Two. In the first novel, Keegan is on his way out of the Navy, and is merely passing through Hawaii on his way back to San Diego after a four-year tour in Occupied Japan. When a Navy nurse is found murdered, however, he is asked to join the investigation. At the end of the case, he elects to remain in Hawaii for a variety of reason, one of them being Julie Flynn, the title character of The Cheongsam Bombshell. When Julie is framed for the murder of her estranged mother, Keegan sets about clearing her, but in the process uncovers a shady deal involving surplus weapons, black market activities that began during the war, and a trio of psycho socialites willing to kill to protect their inheritance.
 
So, how long does it take you, on average, to complete a first draft?
 
I have three times participated in the National Novel Writing Month (though once I used the time and motivation finish Red Betsy, which had been begun years earlier) and so there times have ended up with 50,000 rough words, which is not a bad start. That being said, a fully flushed out first draft would probably take me 6 to 9 months to write, but since the writing has up to this time been so uneven, it’s hard to say for sure.

Which projects are you working on at the moment?
 
In addition to The Cheongsam Bombshell, I’m also working on a magic realist novel titled The Crossroads at Forgotten Lake, which is about a small group of people from various times (1933, 1968, 1987, and 2012) who get trapped in a 5-square mile bubble somewhere in the Midwestern United States. It’s similar to Stephen King’s Under the Dome, except there is nothing malevolent going on, and some people pass through without getting stuck. The protagonist, Charlie Turner, is a lost soul grieving over his much beloved parents who were killed shortly before the story begins. The story revolves around Charlie trying to figure out the idyllic strangeness of the place, while also falling in love with a younger woman who is actually 30 years his senior (or would be in the “real” world).

How do you come up with the titles for your books? And do you have the final title before completing your book, or after?
 
The Cheongsam Bombshell came to me while I still thinking about the book and had written very little, and subsequently, the story thus far has been shaped by that image (I also plan for Julie Flynn appear in another novel, and I already have a title for that one). However, the titles for The Crossroads at Forgotten Lake and A Halo for Red Betsy came to me during the writing process, from settings and images that appear in the stories; both began with working titles I knew I would not be keeping.

How has writing changed your life?
 
I’m one of those creative people who cannot settle down and before I started flitting among various writing projects, I was dabbling in everything. I had wanted to be a painter, and perhaps would have gone that route if I could have managed to stay put for long (I “suffer” from wanderlust). Still, I think the linear nature of writing helps to chill me out the way I think painting might not have been able to do. Working out plot problems also helps me to focus.

Where do you get inspiration for writing from? Do you listen to music whilst writing or have a ‘writing cave’?
 
I always dread this question because I don’t have a good answer. The Crossroads at Forgotten Lake, for example, sprang from the opening sentence that had nothing to do with the surrealism that eventually followed it. Other times, an unusual connection between two mundane things will occur to me. I have a story that begins with:
 
The first thing I noticed was my office door splintering and the door jams giving way as her transport pod materialized in the wrong place. The second thing I noticed, as she stepped out of her pod, were her legs, which took the long, scenic route up to her very short and silken hemline. I would have noticed them first if she had landed properly and walking in.

Where did that come from? I have no idea.
 
I listen to recorded nature sounds when I write, particularly falling rain.
 
Is there a particular form, style or genre that you’d like to have a go at writing? Why?
 
One of my favorite writers is Richard Brautigan because he is able to do things with language that I ache to emulate, though try as I might, I cannot force my head into that space. Along those same lines, I would like to write some compelling slipstream.
 
However, I would also like to write a sweeping historical novel of the type written by James Clavell or Leon Uris

Favourite book and/or author(s)?
 
For years, my favorite book was Richard Bach’s Illusions, and the initial impulse behind Forgotten Lake sprang from a desire to write a similar book, though the latter is now a very different kind of story.
Three of the most amazing books I’ve ever read were Wild Seed by Octavia Butler, Time’s Arrow by Martin Amis, and Thomas the Rhymerby Ellen Kushner because they are written so skillfully that my reactions (different in each case) were visceral. Another favorite, which I’ve read many times, and assigned when I taught World History, is Sheri S. Tepper’s The Gate to Women’s Country.
Now that I’m writing crime fiction, that’s also what I primarily read. Among my favorite crime writers are Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane, John Sandford, and Robert Crais. My all time favorite crime novel is God is a Bullet by Boston Teran (I’ve got some serious title envy to go with that).
 
I current favorite writer is James Lee Burke. He writes the most lyrical descriptions I’ve read anywhere and he has more insight into the human condition than most writers I’ve encountered in any genre.

Do you think it’s necessary to have a degree (of any sort) in order to be a successful author?
 
I have no doubt that studying history helped me to become a more disciplined thinker and a better writer. The amount of writing I had to do to earn my degrees (my M.A. thesis was the longest thing I’d ever written up to that time) also contributed. That course of study was a great help to me, perhaps it was even essential (it is possible that I would not have become a writer had I not had those experiences), but I doubt having a degree is necessary for all individuals.

What would you say to those who want to become a writer? Any advice?

Think of any great musician and consider how many bad notes he or she had to play or sing on the way to becoming great. Writing is like that; becoming good mean stilling gallons of ink. Just accept that that your first stuff may not be that good. That’s all right. The great thing about writing is that any piece can always be rewritten.
 
Another thing that has helped me a great deal has been to seek out honest critiques of my work (people who gush over an unpolished manuscript are not your friends in this). Then, once I receive an honest assessment, don’t defend it or explain it. Even if it appears that the reader has missed the point entirely, I keep my yap shut. And I always consider that they might be correct. As a writer, one is always free to accept or reject suggestions and criticisms, but if you’re caught up defending what you wrote, you might miss something important. That has been my experience anyway.