Next month I’ll be interviewing poet Mary Mackey and that opportunity got me thinking about all the other talented people I know.  I decided I should do interviews more often, and called up Susan Schreyer, author of the Thea Campbell Mystery series, suckered her into meeting me for coffee, and plopped some questions down.

You’re on your fourth book in the Thea Campbell series.  How do you keep your interest in the characters fresh?

I think that’s something the characters do. Really! They’re not quite done having adventures yet, and they haven’t entirely worked out the conflicts between them. When they stop sneaking into my mind and telling me about the fun they’re having, then it will be time to move on.

 Outlining the novel works for you over ‘organic’ writing.  Why do you think this is? 

I yearn to be an organized person. My mind needs the discipline of external lists and guidelines in order to move forward. Without them, I’m like a ping-pong ball — bouncing around from one uncompleted project to another, wandering from point to point and going off on tangents that have nothing to do with anything. If I can set up the structure I need to guide me through a story, I won’t spend a lot of time after the fact going back and cutting chunks out, or wasting time. That said, I don’t spend the time planning and outlining that a lot of people do, but I find if I can plan the major plot points, spend time getting to know the new characters who will appear — especially all the antagonists (not just the major “bad guy”) — the story writes itself without me staring off into space and wondering what it was I was trying to do. Planning — for me — is quite a time-saver. When I get stuck, it’s generally because I neglected to plan. Do the characters still take control of the story? Absolutely. That’s one of the things I love about writing. Even when outlining, the story and characters are often full of surprises.

 What is it about writing that keeps you coming back to story-telling?

The story-world is very alluring, full of what-ifs and possibilities. You fall in love with characters and want to find out what will happen to them. It’s also a way to share my view of our crazy world and the amazing people I meet. Stories and characters are around us every day in overwhelming quantities — and not just as news items. They’re in the grocery store, at the office, in the next phone call … and we’re related to them, too J

 People talk about the ‘writer’s path’.  What do you think that refers to and where do you think you are on that path?

You know, I’m not really sure of the answer to this — what it is as a general concept, anyway. My path is one I have carved out for myself and I think each of us have to, whether we bring our stories to a “paying public” or keep them for ourselves. My path includes improving my skills — or “craft” as we like to call it — and sharing my story with readers.

Marketing novels falls on the author these days, unlike in the past when some help could be expected from publishers, book stores, etc.  Do you find this eating into your time for creating, and how do you balance and/or prioritize what you are going to spend your time on?

Ach, marketing! This side of being a published author is the total antithesis of most writers’ personalities — makes us squirm, sweat and generally avoid doing it. Yes, it totally eats into my creative time. I keep thinking that if I were better at it, I could be much more efficient at it. The unfortunate aspect of marketing and promotion is that what works for one person (read “sells books”) doesn’t work for everyone. It’s ephemeral, which makes it hard to learn, time-consuming to execute, and frustrating. There are two things I’ve nailed down as totally necessary to successful book marketing; persistence and contacts. My solution is to spend only a specific amount of time each day on it. It’d be great to be able to pay someone to take the job over, but by the time I could afford to do that, I wouldn’t need it. Therefore, if I want people to read my books, I not only have to keep writing, but I have to find time to tell them the books are available to be read.

 You have chosen to not use a pseudonym.  What were your reasons for that?  Do you worry about an invasion of privacy?

I don’t have a good reason to use a pseudonym. I considered it for a while before Death By A Dark Horse came out, but didn’t (obviously). In this age of internet connectivity, I think all of us have to be concerned and take precautions against privacy invasion, and I don’t believe just changing your name is going to be enough to protect against that. A more thoughtful vigilance is necessary. On the other hand, I understand it’s very “freeing” to be able to step into another persona. I might try it sometime … but  J you’ll never know!

Ah, but I know where you live! Thanks for the interview Susan. I’m looking forward to the next Thea installment.

Mary Mackey, author of the poem When I Was a Child, very graciously agreed to be interviewed.  After struggling to come up with questions that she had not been asked thousands of times, I finally retreated to my writer’s group and another group of friends, who supplied me with questions they would like to ask.  The questions and Mary’s answers follow.  I’d like to thank Mary here publicly for being so gracious.

1. Does your muse flow easier after tragedy, comedy, or exultation?  Mary: Tragic events seem to drive me toward poetic inspiration with the most force.  Poetry is often a way that I try to make sense out of the world.

2. Who, or what, most inspires your poetry?  Mary: My poetry is inspired by many things, none of which I can predict in advance.  Nature is a great inspiration.  I do a lot of hiking and canoeing with my husband.  Also, for many years I have been traveling to the tropics.  The jungle never fails to inspire me with its beauty a complexity.  Love also inspires me to write poetry, as does death.  I think the most concise answer to this question is: strong emotions of joy, fear, love, and terror inspire me.

3. Do you write more about what you have already experienced or what you wish to experience?  Mary: I almost always write about what I have already experienced.  Sometimes I change the experience slightly in the interst of writing a better poem.  On some occasions, I write about fictional experiences and people.  For example, in my forthcoming collection Sugar Zone (which will be published by Marsh Hawk Press in Fall 2011), I have created a fictional character named “Solange” who weaves her way mysteriously through many of the poems.  Solange is me/not me: muse, dream, a being who came out of my imagination.

4. Do you work a piece in one sitting or over days?  Mary: I do the first few drafts in one sitting.  Then I spend a long period of time revising.  Sometimes it takes years before I feel that a poem is complete.

5. Do you find specific settings or circumstances that are more conducive to writing poems over fiction?  Mary: I can write poetry anywhere – on a beach, in a coffe house, sitting in a tree.  Fiction demands a more stable environment because I need access to a computer, the Internet, and my research materials as well as long periods of time when I am not interrupted.  In contrast, I usually write my poems on a piece of paper using a pen.  When I am writing poetry I don’t need electricity or wi-fi, just a small window of peace.

6. Do you have a sense when a piece is ended or do you revise the ending?  Mary: I usually write well past the end.  Most of the time, I end up cutting the original ending and writing a series of new ends which I also cut and revise.

7. Do you experience any interaction between novel writing and poetry?  As in one inspires the other, one leads to a desire to write the other, etc.  Mary:  This is a particularly interesting question.  On several occasions, I have written a poem which later turned into a novel.  For example, a number of years ago, I wrote a long poem about a Civil War battlefield (which you can find in my collection Breaking the Fever, Marsh Hawk Press 2006).  This poem, which is entitled Lynchburg, was the seed of my two Civil War novels: The Notorious Mrs. Winston and The Widow’s War.

8. What’s your favorite dessert?  Mary:  Chocolate cake!

9.  What’s your opinion on how the publishing world is changing due to public platforms, hand held readers like Kindle, the direct access an author has to the internet, etc.  On a related note, do you think this is changing the previous perception that self-publishing meant works of a lesser standard?  Mary: Changes in the publishing world are going on so rapidly right now that no one, not even the publishers themselves, can grasp all the implications.  At present, due to the economic downturn and the rise of e-readers and public platforms, publishers and bookstores both are in a difficult situation. It’s probably not an overstatement to say that many of them are fighting for survival.  At present, I think there is still a lot of skepticism about self-published works, primarily because they have not undergone a rigorous selection and editorial process.  This may change in the near future, but I think it’s too soon to tell.  Meanwhile, the primary problem with self-publishing is getting your readers to know that your book is out there.

10. What question about writing would you like to answer but no one ever thinks to ask?  Mary:  Question: “Why do you write?”  Answer: I write because I love language, I love telling stories, and I love giving my readers poems and novels that they will enjoy and which, perhaps, will in some way change their lives.

Mary finished the interview with: ‘If you would like to learn more about my novels and poetry and sample some of my work, you are invited to visit my web page: www.marymackey.com  I can also be found on Facebook.”

Again, I would like to thank Mary for taking the time to answer our questions.  There are many things here that give me food for thought, not the least of which is how wonderful it is that writers make themselves so accessible.  Now I’m off to the library to find some of her novels.