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Questions:
Answers:
What
is your primary motivation for writing?
As
an adult, my primary motivation to
become a writer has been to fulfill
a childhood fantasy. Ever since I
was able to read and write I’ve
been in love with and fascinated,
comforted and entertained by books.
I remember a time, when I was quite
young, finding a box of books in a
storage room in my parent’s
home—I’m not sure how
it got there or who it belonged to—but
it was filled with a wide variety
of books including Jacqueline Susann’s
Valley of the Dolls, Philip Roth’s
Portnoy’s Complaint and several
Nero Wolfe mysteries. And I read them
all, relishing in the world’s
they opened up to me, a naïve,
young boy living on the Saskatchewan
prairie. When I was nine years old,
my first niece, Kim, was born and
as soon as she was old enough to pay
attention, I used her as a guinea
pig for these elaborate stories I
would not only write, but also illustrate.
I remember them being about a group
of woodland creatures—including
a couple of young rabbits (whose father—it
was later revealed—turned out
to be the Easter Bunny), a raccoon,
and a bear cub—who had these
great adventures in an enchanted forest
type of place. The stories were so
popular (even though no one ever saw
them except my nieces and nephews)
that they became…well they became
my first series.
Growing
up I continued to write in one fashion
or another—either stories, early
attempts at novels, in a journal,
I even remember tape recording (no
VCRs back then) my favourite TV shows
and transcribing them with a typewriter
(no laptops then) to practice creative
writing. (I’m sure my transcriptions
included many bizarre details the
writers and producers of those shows
never envisioned.) Throughout this
period my focus was not so much on
the process of writing, but on the
creative and dramatic aspect of the
stories themselves—what were
the characters wearing, how did they
relate to one another, what were they
feeling…how did they make me
feel.
Once
an adult, various factors influenced
me to believe there was more wisdom
in leaving behind creative writing
than in trying to develop it into
something I could make a living at.
Over my years of university education,
careers ranging from bartender to
teacher to chartered accountant, my
writing skill was something I often
used, but more as a tool rather than
as a creative outlet. However, I’m
quite certain I was the last person
in Canada to have finally given up
writing “letters” (in
longhand) to people—but I do
somewhat keep up the tradition with
colourful e-mails.
Every
year around New Year’s, my partner
and I have had the habit of reviewing
the past twelve months and defining
goals for the next. And every year
I would say the words, “I wish
I had made the time to do some writing”,
followed by the words, “This
year I will make the time to do some
writing”. Finally, in 1999,
I meant it. I had a successful career
as an audit manager with an international
accounting and audit firm. It was
a great position, I loved the people
I worked with, but it wasn’t
my passion. I had recently heard the
saying, “Life may be short,
but it can be wide”, and it
really struck me. Life is short, too
short not to make it wide, and only
you can make your own life wide. And
sure, I knew the chances of my falling
flat on my face were good, but what
fun and excitement I would have before
that happened—and if it did
happen, I knew I’d have the
tenacity to pick myself up, dust myself
off and try again. It may sound a
bit pie-in-the-sky, but I really do
believe, for me anyway, that when
you are pursuing a lifelong dream,
a childhood fantasy, you are infused
with a courage and love of life and
drive to succeed that invigorates
you and not much can hold you back.
Who
or what influences your work?
So
many things influence my writing.
I think most writers or artists can’t
help but to be influenced in some
way by almost everything around them
from whom they talked to that day
or what they ate for lunch. For me
some of the greatest influences are
travel, the people I have and have
had around me, the careers I’ve
worked in and my experiences living
life as a gay man on the Canadian
prairie.
I’ve
had the great good fortune to travel
to over a dozen countries including
India, Ukraine, France and Indonesia,
many of which show up in my writing.
I’ve worked as a shoe store
manager, a bull cook in a Uranium
mine, the head bartender at the Saskatoon
airport, a teacher and an auditor.
And from all those places and all
those jobs and so many other things—committees,
boards, hobbies—I’ve been
involved with, I have met and gotten
to know many terrific people. I’m
a people watcher and my brain works
in such a way that although I may
not remember someone’s name,
there’s a good chance I’ll
remember what you were wearing the
last time I saw you or whether or
not you’ve changed your hairstyle.
And I love to talk to people and ask
them questions about their lives.
I may not always know exactly what
day of the month it is, but I do have
access to knowledge about how various
types of people walk or talk, the
sound they make when they eat or how
they react to a specific situation.
Then I mush up all this information
and use it to create characters for
my writing.
Other
writers in many diverse genres also
influence me. I read fantasy and mysteries
and biographies and gritty thrillers
and romance novels. There is nothing
better than finding an author—who
creates in her or his books—a
world I can believe in. I’m
a big fan of escapist writing, books
that take me away on a bit of a vacation,
either because of the story-line or,
more often, characters I want to spend
time with and learn more about. There’s
no better feeling than when an author
I enjoy—in my case it could
be Michael Nava, Patricia Cornwell,
Robert B. Parker, Suzanne North, Katherine
V. Forrest, Sue Grafton, John Grisham,
Ellen Hart or Kate Calloway—releases
a new book and I can find a lazy afternoon
by the pool or evening next to the
fire to indulge myself in their words.
Describe
your writing process.
After
a decade as a chartered accountant,
I left my office for the last time
on a Friday afternoon and at 6:00
a.m. the following Monday I was in
my at-home office beginning research
on my first novel. The work ethic
and professional requirements of my
former careers have certainly followed
me into my life as a writer. And most
recently coming from a work environment
where every fifteen minutes of my
day was accounted for and recorded
on a charge-out sheet, I had, and
still have, a very strong understanding
and respect for how my time is used.
Although I have made many allowances
for differences inherent in work that
involves creativity and no longer
put in the 10, 20 or 30 hours of overtime
I did in previous careers, I do treat
my writing as a job that necessitates
some structure and organization.
Once
I figured out (fortunately for me
and my household) that indeed my creative
juices flowed best during regular
daytime hours (rather than in the
middle of night or some other such
thing) I created a routine that I
have now followed for years. I wake
up not much later than I did before
I began writing, get ready for the
day and head into my at-home office.
While I’m in the process of
actual writing, my day behind the
computer will range anywhere from
4 to 6 hours. I put my head down and
work. I take few breaks and often
eat lunch at my desk, so when my day
is done, often mid afternoon, I’ve
put in a good amount of work and exhausted
my mental and creative capabilities
for the day. At that point I usually
try to mentally let go of whatever
project I’m working on and go
about other activities I’ve
planned for the day. When I go to
bed at night I, in a sense, begin
work again—I often go to bed
thinking about what I’m going
to write the next day, ideas of how
to punch up a paragraph I worked on
that day, or fleshing out ideas for
a new project—so when I wake
up the next morning I often have no
need to sit and think about what to
write, I’ve already done it
and am ready to go.
I’m
a draft writer. I go through several
drafts before a piece is ready for
someone to read it. This is all, of
course, after I’ve spent a fair
bit of time working on outlines and
characters biographies and other research
as required by the story I’m
working on. The first draft will be
just punching out the story, getting
it down in chapter form based on a
detailed outline. The second draft
will be getting it into good enough
shape so that it’s at least
smooth enough to be readable by me.
Another draft will be a pure grammar
check. Another one might be fact checking.
And so on. By the time I’m ready
to have someone other than me read
it, I’ve seen it in several
different drafts. The most fascinating
thing to me about the writing process
is how things don’t always turn
out as you plan—characters turn
out to be different people than you
thought they’d be, or they relate
differently to other characters or
the story line in a way you didn’t
expect…they almost take on a
life of their own. I love that. I
really felt I’d learned a good
lesson when I finally gave in to that
and allowed myself to be flexible
enough as a writer to use that dynamic
rather than fight against it or ignore
it. I think it improved my writing
process and the resultant writing.
What
inspired you to write on the subjects
you have chosen?
The
originating ideas for Amuse Bouche
revolved around the main character,
Russell Quant, and a desire to create
a character and setting very different
from those I’ve experienced
in mainstream (and non-mainstream)
novels in the genre. As an avid reader
I could find countless mysteries with
countless different types of heroes
set in countless (usually big city)
locales. But finding mysteries set
in smaller centres yielded fewer options
and ones set in Canada even fewer
still. The quantity continued to dwindle
when looking for mysteries with gay
heroes and more so for mysteries with
gay heroes set in Canada. I found
none set in Saskatchewan.
Being
a gay man living on the Saskatchewan
prairie who knows life here can be
as fascinating and fun and wonderful
(or whatever you want it to be) as
anywhere else, I knew I had a unique
perspective from which to write a
mystery. Having travelled a great
deal throughout the world also gave
me the opportunity to add an international/sophisticated
flavour to the main character and
the story.
When
I read a mystery, I love it when there
is a dash of something more thrown
in—characters who surprise me
or ones I’ve never met before
in any other book; locations I’ve
never visited; peeks into lives and
lifestyles I know little or nothing
about. Enter Russell Quant. He is
a detective who is inexperienced,
gay and lives in the middle of the
Canadian prairie. His inexperience
makes him fallible, at times unsure
of himself, sometimes imperfect in
the eyes of the reader. The book is
not about being gay, but it adds flavour
to Russell’s life and how he
lives it and with whom he lives it.
Living in Saskatoon, as anywhere else,
has its own peculiar challenges and
rewards. It is a beautiful place where
the extremes of bitingly cold winters
and scorchingly hot summers reflect
the city itself and its inhabitants—good
fodder for storytelling.
In
addition to Saskatoon, a major part
of the book takes place in France.
I recorded those images and ideas
on a trip that followed much the same
route as that described in the book.
Every highway and hotel mentioned
is based on a real experience that
greatly influenced the original ideas
and tenor of the book. The title of
the book, Amuse Bouche, comes from
an actual experience during that trip.
My partner, Herb, has a fair command
of the French language, and upon reading
those words on a menu, his mind (incorrectly)
translated them to mean ‘a party
in your mouth’, which we, and
our waiter, found humorous (the wine
may have helped to make it so). When
I was searching for a title for the
book, I wanted something that didn’t
immediately appear clear to the audience,
but raised some curiosity and eventually
would make sense, not so much in describing
the content of the book, but rather
its feel.
Throughout
the world and even in some parts of
Canada I feel there can be a misconception
about what life on the Canadian prairies
is like, what kind of people live
there and how they fit into and relate
to the rest of the world. The same
can be said for life as a gay person.
Amuse Bouche tells the story from
these unique points of view and in
an way that is subtle, non-confrontational,
amusing and hopefully compelling enough
that readers will want to find out
more about the book’s cast of
characters.
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