J.P.: I tend to sequester myself in the basement
office with a lowball of bourbon, and dial in the appropriate Pandora station
for the particular manuscript. I've found choosing the optimal writing music to
be an embarrassingly crucial part of my pre-writing process. I usually write an
hour each night after my child's bedtime, and do longer stints on weekends.
Paul: If someone had the
power to step into your creative mind what would they see?
J.P.: I imagine it would look like a cluttered
basement, crammed full of planned projects I've yet to write. Open one box and you'll find a dark noir urban
fantasy like The Curse Merchant; open another and you'll find an extreme future
sci-fi. There's even a western horror lurking in one of those boxes. It's
rather like the wardrobe leading to Narnia, only with significantly more
cobwebs and the odor of whiskey.
Paul: Do you have a
favorite character in each of your series, aside from the lead? If so, which
one and why?
J.P.: Edgar Swain, Dorian's best friend in The
Curse Merchant, is a middle-aged antiques dealer who collects magical
artifacts, and is clearly baked from a youth of cannabis indulgence. Dorian
describes him as "a fistful of zen stuffed into a loud print shirt."
What I love most about Edgar is that his priorities are entirely centered on
his family. He's more grounded than Dorian, but will also never achieve
greatness… which is fine by Edgar. Fun fact: I named Edgar Swain after Edgar
Allan Poe and a street I cross every day as I escape Baltimore.
Paul: How do you find the time to write?
J.P.: Rather than finding
the time, I endeavor to "make" the time. It helps that I have a fully
supportive wife, whom I've asked to gently kick my ass down the stairs until
I've gotten my writing done. I carve out one hour each night, regardless of
mood… though using music and specific liquors helps as a kind of mental trigger
to snap me into the creative mode. It's cheating… but it works.
Paul: What is one thing you hope I do not tell the readers?
J.P.: I do hope you won't
mention how little I've read in the genre that I write. I'm a dreadfully slow
reader, and I tend to labor through a novel even when I enjoy it. I rather
stumbled into urban fantasy without planning to. I wrote the story that wanted
to be written, but I'm embarrassingly ignorant of the urban fantasy genre and
its major authors.
Paul: If
you are self-published, what led to you going your own way?
J.P.: I spent the better part of 2012 submitting
The Curse Merchant to literary agents. Overall I had four requests for a full
manuscript. One particular agent left me positive feedback (which anyone who
has submitted understands is pure gold), and summed up her rejection as a
matter of marketing. The Curse Merchant splits its audience between the female
readership of urban fantasy and the male readership of noir. Once I decided to
self-publish, however, I felt absolutely energized. The entire process has
really agreed with me. I enjoy the creative control most of all.
Paul: Do
you plot your stories or do you just get an idea and run with it?
J.P.: I am a notoriously left-brained writer. On my
blog I've outlined my pre-writing process, complete with four-page spreadsheets
for character development and plot outlines based loosely on Joseph Campbell's
Monomyth template. If I spend three months drafting a novel, I've spent two
months pre-writing. I don't necessarily espouse this as the One True Way,
however. It's just what works for me.
Paul: Do
you do a lot of editing or do you find that as time goes on your writing is
more fully-formed?
J.P.: I've been writing seriously for almost ten
years, and I've found that I'm never going to be an adequate editor of my own
work. Sure, my writing has become more rounded, particularly since I began a
meticulous pre-writing process. I never write a story I don't know the ending
to. But as I finish new projects, I'm routinely astounded at how many errors
and poor writing choices I continue to miss on second, third, and seventeenth
readings. Thank the gods for my editor!
J.P.: The Curse Merchant is the opening novel in my
Dark Choir series. It is the story of Dorian Lake, a hex-peddler in modern
Baltimore who sells hexes and charms that effectively enact "instant
karma." His ex-lover, Carmen, comes to him with a problem… she's sold her
soul, and only has two weeks to buy it back. She asks for his help.
Unfortunately, Dorian has already antagonized the soul monger, Neil Osterhaus.
As a result, Dorian must find a replacement soul for Carmen, an endeavor that
pushes his moral limits.
Paul: What inspired you to
write this book?
J.P.: I work in Baltimore, and find the city to be
a maze of old buildings juxtaposed beside new development. It's not hard to
glance down any given alleyway and find a strange, shadowed century-old brick
stoop and imagine something dark occurring inside. The city was my inspiration,
and is a kind of silent character in the novel.
Paul: Do
you have any pieces of work that will never see the light of day?
J.P.: The Curse Merchant is my seventh novel, but
the first I felt was ready to bring to market. Its predecessor is a
post-apocalyptic "powers" novel named Omnipotence. I was debating
bringing it up to snuff even though it's somewhat experimental (five character
POV's), but Eric Kripke may have changed my plans thanks to his new series,
Revolution, which has the same basic apocalypse as Omnipotence. Jury's still
out on that one. The others will never see the light of day, as they were
"learning novels."
Paul: What
do you do when you’re not writing? Do you have any hobbies or party tricks?
J.P.: Outside of writing, my greatest love is
brewing and winemaking. I'm an active member of my local brewing club, and I
compete with my homebrews. I've even won a few awards. I'm also a BJCP
Certified Beer Judge, and meet with a regular group of friends to study world
beer styles. The wine is a new thing, but no less diverting!
Paul: Thank you, J.P. That was wonderful. I hope you have an excellent 2013!
J.P.'s Blog: J.P. Sloan
J.P. on Twitter: @J_P_Sloan
J.P. on Facebook: J.P. Sloan
J.P.'s latest book: The Curse Merchant (Amazon)
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