William: No, not really. I generally write
spontaneously, when I’m moved with a logical concept or feeling about something
I’ve witnessed. I don’t’ count myself a pen-for-hire or a pen-for-profit type
writer who forces themselves to brainstorm and manufacture ideas so they can
create their next product. I’m not in it for the money or the glory; I strictly
write what comes naturally from within my heart based off of my concerns or
victories. Sometimes, when someone complements my writing it energizes me to
write and my mind will open up simply based off of a kind word from another.
Paul: What types of books do you like to read? Who
are your favorite authors? Why?
William: When I was in junior high/middle school, I
told my librarian that I was on a quest to read books and she recommended JRR
Tolkien and O’Henry of which I truly liked. I read some more classics and
westerns and then one day I looked at my bible that I had never read and said
to myself, “There on my shelf is the king of all books and I’ve not yet read
it.” So, I made a vow to myself that I
should and 9 months later I finished it. I’ve since read it seventeen more
times, for it is truly fascinating. And to be quite fair with my religious
readings, I’ve read and studied many world religions and find the bible still
my favorite book of all books I’ve ever read. I’ve also enjoyed reading tech
manuals on the ‘how to’ subjects. Weird as that sounds, I find it thrilling to
read books on how to build houses, log cabins, wiring, gardening and many
others things. I find that knowledge builds my vocabulary and expands my mind
and helps me step into the world in a much broader vision of it, because I
understand how it works.
Paul: If someone had the power to step into your
creative mind what would they see?
William: Love, duty, respect, ethics, self-sacrifice,
nobility, chivalry, charity, kindness, tenderness, compassion, mercy,
commitment and morality.
Paul: What is a typical day for you?
William: Wake up. Brush my teeth. Go to work. Come
home and make an easy road kill menu for dinner. Check my emails. Read
something interesting. Do some research. Journal my findings. Go to bed.
Paul: Do you have a favorite character in each of
your series, aside from the lead? If so, which one and why?
William: My book has so many different settings due to
its multitude of short stories and story poems with so many characters that it
would be like picking from your children one you loved more than the other. With
that said, I do often refer to the poem, The Fisherman and the Weaver because
it poetically teaches the act of human compassion and brotherly love and being
active to make another person’s life better. You can actually hear this poem
recited in my book trailer that is found on my author’s web page.
Paul: In all the years you’ve been publishing your
work, what is the biggest mistake you made that you could share so others can
avoid making it?
William: When the publisher says they will perform the
task of editing your book, that does not mean that they will literally edit it
for mistakes, but that they will edit it to paginate within their publishing
software. I strongly recommend that those writers who need editing services
shop for it with an outside source and not use their publisher for this. Have
your manuscript error free and ready for transposing before you contact anyone
in the book publishing business.
Paul: How do you find the
time to write?
William: Sacrifice! You can’t
achieve a thing pursuing entertainment. You’ll have to turn the TV off and turn
your word processor on. Time writing should never conflict with time spent with
family, friends and visitors. Always have time for people and make your own
personal jollies and hobbies be laid at time’s altar, but not people for they
are precious and your priorities should reflect that. If you are writing and
your kids want to play…go play; the computer can wait. There is no rule that
says you have to write or that you have to pump out a book every six months. Treat
writing as a hobby and your family as the most important aspect of your life,
then no one will resent you and your writings will be anointed with the love
you displayed towards the people you are responsible for. You write to bless
people, so bless them first by being a physical blessing to them through your devotion
of attention and service which they deserve and need.
Paul: What is one thing
you hope I do not tell the readers?
William: That I walk on water. That I’m some kind of disconnected
academic who’s never wore his back out working himself in the ground to earn
his stripes. I’m an everyday working Joe like most of my readers and I’m proud
of it. I understand what being raised in poverty is like. I understand what
being out of work is like. I know what it is to struggle to make ends meet and
to budget your finances down to the last penny. I’ve been there with you
performing some of the most frightening and dangerous jobs imaginable, in every
season. I’m nothing special and I wasn’t born with money or opportunity or even
a brilliant mind on my side, I’ve had to work hard for everything I don’t have
and when I write, I write with the full anticipation of going to work the next
day.
Paul: If you are self-published, what led to you
going your own way?
William: I
decided to go with self-publishing after I had tried it the other way first. I’m
a perfectionist and I wasn’t personally pleased with the quality of work
publishers had done in the past (like the editing comment I made). Being
frustrated with the real thing, I decided that the only way I was going to get
the job done right, was to do it myself.
Paul: Do you plot your stories or do you just get
an idea and run with it?
William: Most
of the time, all the information comes to me all at once, because I am moved to
write, I don’t force it. So, a story could brew in my mind for years as
fragments and then all of a sudden connect and come out whole and complete
based off of something I witness or hear. I then scrutinize it and edit it to
make sure it sounds correct. This process can be very tedious and timely as
well. I remember one poem that I wrote that came out just perfect and in
perfect order. Nothing needed to be rearranged to harmonize the events, yet; it
still took me a year of studying every word to make sure I was pleased with the
logic of it. My latest book took me twenty fives years to write because of how
slow I am with scrutinizing myself.
Paul: Do you do a lot of editing or do you find
that as time goes on your writing is more fully-formed?
William: Editing
is a necessary evil which few like to do, but professionalism forces us to
admit it still must be done. I edit my work and then when I’m ready to publish
it, I’ll hire a third party to go over it. Once that is done, I’ll go over it a
few more times because not only am I looking for correct spelling and
punctuation, but how the words flow. The only way you get the blade sharp is to
keep going over it until you feel you can spare no more loss of metal to have a
razor edge of perfection. Editing must be done by the writer because it is your
story or research and you must be the one who is pleased by it, first. If you
lean fully on someone else to edit your material, you risk them inserting
themselves in it and divorcing you from your own ideas. And how authentic would
your writings be if you had no concern over your own processes, words and final
outcome? To be genuine with my writings,
I must stay personally connected to it and in charge of and responsible for its
quality and message. Writing is a legacy and mustn’t be treated frivolously. To
edit, you must lose your pride and admit when something doesn’t work well and
then be resolved to remove it. Like when the blade is sharpened, the ax head
gets smaller, but the cut truer. Likewise, the job of the writer is to reach
the reader with words that does a proficient job of cutting across their
imaginations so that reading is fun, not confusing and inspiring.
Paul: Do you have to do much research for your
stories?
William: That
depends solely upon the story and its settings. Because of the many books and
videos available to us all, most authors have a great deal of exposure to
someone else’s research. Like a treasure trove of information, lots of research
falls into our laps quite innocently just because we are exposed to the many
intellectual endeavors of others. However, when I adapted a 6 page short story, (The Good-Hearted Burglar)
into a 129 paged feature length spec script, I had to do a great deal of
research so that the story that was now quite exhaustive would seem real. I researched the customs, sir names, slang,
coinage, vehicles in use at that time, and so on and so forth. Nothing was left
for second guessing and the story and its characters appeared to be literally
taken out of the news headlines of the day. Some people cannot tell my fiction
short stories from real life as was the case one day when a lady contacted me
wanting to know if the short story, Miracle Lake truly happened.
William: Coop’s Corner Collection: Inspirational
Stories and Poems was published and officially released in November 2012. It is
currently being exhibited along with other authors belonging to our publishers entourage
at all the major global book fairs. The book contains 15 short stories and 25
story poems. Though entertaining, there is a great deal of wisdom and
inspirational lessons to encourage its readers that they can rise above the
circumstances of life and be noble creatures.
Paul: What inspired you to write this book?
William: As corny as this sounds, someone complemented
me one day after reading one of my short stories. The lady continued on saying
that I should take the next step and get published…so I did. We should never
underestimate the use of sincere and kind words. As a wise teacher will praise
their young and inexperienced students for their efforts and artwork that is obviously
far from being a Blue Boy, but they know that kind words of praise energizes
their students to care about their performance. Is it not but a light task to
say something nice? Indeed, and just one
kind word was all I needed to follow through with this project and get the book
published.
Paul: Do you also write any poetry, non-fiction or
short stories?
William: By
all means, yes. I am one of the lucky writers who isn’t limited to just one
genre, but can actually move between them all. Inside my book you will find
many examples of this. Just to prove this, one short story, The Good-Hearted
Burglar won Top Ten Action Feature in The Movie Deal Screenwriter’s Competition
in Chicago, IL. The first poem in the book, Lisa Moo Moo Marie was adapted into
a song and can be requested for airplay on any country, folk or mix radio
station and is currently playing all over the globe especially through internet
radio and cdbaby.com’s airplay channels. It can also be downloaded from itunes
and most other music retailers. So, in one book we have short stories, poetry,
movie scripts and music which is a total of 4 genres! If you classify some of the short stories or
story poems as parables, then that would be 5 genres.
Paul: Do you have any pieces of work that will
never see the light of day?
William: I
wrote a fiction story that I converted/adapted into a spec script called, “The
Institution”. Either genre you have a fairly spooky thriller story. I wrote it
after my experiences working in the State School dealing with mentally retarded
and mentally disturbed individuals. I was moved by all the brokenness and death
I saw there. It’s one thing to know so much and to have so much hands-on
experience, but to use those experiences based off the misery of others seemed
to straddle the fence between creativeness and exploitation. Although the story
is completely fictional, it still was fertilized by the environment that
impacted my heart when I worked among the most vulnerable of our society.
Paul: Do you enter competitions? Are there any you
could recommend?
William: In
all honesty, I frown on most competitions, because I know that there is a
secret agenda to promote authors and their works that reject and contradict traditional
family values. Most competitions are purposefully and biasly geared towards rewarding
writers for their ideologically progressive, politically correct, global
termed, going green, amoral, dark sided content, while bypassing those who
write with traditional family values. I doubt very seriously if Charles Dickens,
Herman Melville or Lew Wallace could ever win a book competition currently
being offered today. It
Paul: How much marketing do you do for your
published works or for your ‘brand’?
William: A
great deal actually. I don’t read books on marketing though, because I have
already planned my strategies and am committed to it. I’m quite creative and
even more so in your face about it. I did try online web advertising but found
it useless. For example: I found a really good offer for 6 million impression
for one thousand dollars, but only received 1,400 hits on my web page. To me
this was a disaster and I should had known better. My favorite method of
advertising is one-on-one hard copy samples from my book. Page 1 is a Press
Release on some really nice color paper with vegetation on the left side. Page
2 is an autographed sample poem also on color paper. Page 3 is a copy of the
Cowboy Ten Commandments on some nice colored scroll paper. Page 4 contains the
poem in bookmarker form and there are 4 bookmarkers on that page. I do that so
people have the option to share the poem with their friends. They get 4 for the
price of one copy and at the bottom of the poem is the title of the book. Lastly,
pages 5 through 11, contains one sample story from my book. A nice gift to
receive and printed on nice color paper that is worth keeping and some of it
worth framing. In doings so, I’m creating an advertising legacy where the items
are so exquisite that they won’t be tossed in the trash but may very well find
themselves on the wall or in a scrap book.
Paul: What’s your favorite / least favorite aspect
of your writing life? Has anything surprised you?
William: My
favorite aspect of writing is when someone tells me they just read my book and
liked it. The least favorite part of my writing life is not hearing from
readers who I was hoping to inspire. Writing for me is solely based off the
hope that I’m positively impacting other’s lives and convincing them not to give
up hope? Writing is a hand-in-glove
relationship where like a plant needing water to keep from withering, I need
feedback to know that my time was not wasted and that what I did will live on
in the hearts of others.
Paul: What do you do when you’re not writing? Do
you have any hobbies or party tricks?
William: Keep
in mind I’m single and don’t have much family, so I can afford to market my
book. I like going into businesses and giving employees my samples. They are
always glad to get something for free. Recently, I’ve spent my time working on
getting my newly released song (that came from my book) copyrighted, listed with
cdbaby.com and BMI and also making sure it’s a go on web sites. I had to update
my linkedin.com web page with this new information and I track airplay for the
song and respond to my new fans as quickly as possible with a message of thanks
and useful links.
Paul: Thanks, William, that was most enlightening. I wish you every success for the future.
William's Blog: Unknown
William on Twitter: @Unknown
William on Facebook: Unknown
William's latest book: Coop's Corner Collection (Amazon)
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