This holiday season, I’ve decided to promote some of
my writer friends and ask some of the questions that folks ask me. Today’s
guest/victim is:
David B. Coe
Aka… D.B. Jackson
First, a little
something about David.
David
B. Coe, who also writes as D.B. Jackson, wrote his first novel at the age of
six. It was called “Jim the Talking Fish,” and it was not really as good as the
title makes it sound. David illustrated the story, which did nothing to improve
its quality.
And
yet, as poor as this first effort might have been, it did mark the beginning of
a lifetime passion for dreaming up stories and writing them down so that he
might inflict them on others share them with others. Along the way David has
dabbled in other professions — he was a political consultant for several years,
and he earned a Ph.D. in U.S. history, flirting with the notion of an academic
career before wisely thinking better of it.
He
began writing full time in 1994, with the love and support of The World’s Best
Spouse, and published his first novel in 1997. He is now the award-winning
author of more than fifteen novels and a dozen short stories.
His
newest project, a contemporary urban fantasy called the Case Files of Justis
Fearsson, is to be published by Baen Books. The first book, SPELL BLIND, will
be released on January 6, 2015. HIS FATHER’S EYES, the second volume, will be
published in the summer of 2015, and a third novel is already in the works.
Writing
as D.B. Jackson, he is the author of the Thieftaker Chronicles, a series set in
pre-Revolutionary Boston that combines elements of urban fantasy, mystery, and
historical fiction. THIEFTAKER, THIEVES’ QUARRY, and A PLUNDER OF SOULS, have
already been released, and the fourth volume, DEAD MAN’S REACH will appear in
July 2015.
David’s
early books include the LonTobyn Chronicle, a trilogy that received the
Crawford Fantasy Award as the best work by a new author in fantasy, as well as
the critically acclaimed Winds of the Forelands quintet and Blood of the
Southlands trilogy. He has also written the novelization of director Ridley
Scott’s movie, ROBIN HOOD, starring Russell Crowe. David’s books have been translated into a
dozen languages.
David
received his undergraduate degree from Brown University and his Master’s and
Ph.D. in U.S. history from Stanford University.
He co-founded and regularly contributes to the Magical Words group blog
(http://magicalwords.net), a site devoted to discussions of the craft and
business of writing fantasy, and is co-author of HOW TO WRITE MAGICAL WORDS: A
WRITER’S COMPANION.
He
is still married to The World’s Best Spouse. They have two daughters and live
in a small college town on the Cumberland Plateau.
At what age did you start writing
or know that you wanted to write?
I wrote my first
books when I was six years old. Seriously. I learned to read and then
immediately started writing stories. My first was called “Jim, the Talking
Fish.” It wasn’t very good. I illustrated it myself, and that made it worse.
But that was the first. All through elementary school, writing stories was my
favorite thing to do. So I knew from early on that I’d wind up a writer.
Where do your ideas come from?
I steal them from
other people. That’s normal, right?
My story ideas
come from all over the place. Things I read, places I go, music I hear --
literally anything can spark a story idea. Robert Frost said that “An idea is a
feat of association,” and I find that’s true for me as well. It’s not so much
the single notion that inspires me, but instead the juxtaposition of different
thoughts brought together in an unexpected way. We imagine things that aren’t
immediately obvious, we ask ourselves “What if . . . ?” and we’re off to the
races.
Do you base your characters on
people you know or know of? Family or celebrities?
Actually, no. I
tend to do this as little as possible, and here’s why: I’ve found that when I
do use real life people as models for characters, it keeps those characters
from developing naturally. I allow that person I know to inform my writing too
much and so when that character starts to do the unexpected, starts to take on
some agency for his/her actions, I resist, thinking “Well, but so-and-so
wouldn’t do that . . .” On the other hand, when I create characters entirely
from my imagination, without basing them on actual people, they grow more
organically and I give them the freedom they need to become active components
of my story.
Do you plot out your stories or
just make it up as you go?
It’s interesting
you should ask me this right now. Usually, I’m a pretty dedicated plotter. My
epic fantasies have a lot of plot threads that I need to coordinate with some
care. My historical fantasies (the Thieftaker Chronicles, written under the
D.B. Jackson pseudonym) blend fictional mysteries with real world historical
time lines. My new urban fantasy series (The Case Files of Justis Fearsson,
written under my own name) also have mystery elements and demand a good deal of
planning. So all the work I’ve done to date has been stuff that I’v needed to
plot.
But, I’m currently
writing a new epic fantasy, and I had very little sense of where the story was
going. So I finally just decided to wing it. To write without an outline. Like
a crazy person. At this point -- I’m 70,000 words in -- I like the story as
it’s developed, and I’m having a blast discovering my narrative as I go along.
Who knows? This could be a new trend for me.
Do you listen to music while you
write and if so, what do you listen too?
I do. I know that
some people can’t listen to anything at all -- they find any sort of music
terribly distracting. And I know other people who can listen to anything at
all, even music with lyrics, and it doesn’t bother them one bit. I fall
somewhere in the middle. I love listening to music, but only certain kinds. It
has to be instrumental. Lyrics mess me up. And I write best when the music has
a strong improvisational element -- Classical music tends to constrain my
creativity. So I listen to a lot of jazz (Miles Davis, Roy Hargrove, Pat
Metheny, Larry Carlton, Nicholas Payton) and instrumental bluegrass (Béla
Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Chris Thile, Tony Rice, Alison Brown, David Grisman).
Which of your stories/books/works
do you consider the best?
That’s a really
hard question. On the one hand, like most authors, I consider my most recent
books my best. I’m incredibly proud of all the Thieftaker novels (Tor Books)
and I love the Fearsson novels I’m writing now for Baen. The books of both
series are lean and compelling and include some of the best character work and
sharpest prose I’ve ever written. But I also really love my Winds of the
Forelands books, a five-book epic fantasy I wrote for Tor about a decade ago.
That’s one of the reasons I’m going back to epic fantasy now. I miss the
complexity and sweep of those stories.
How much do you write each
day/week?
I tend to work
slowly when I start a novel -- writing the first page can take me an entire
day; the first chapter can be a week or two in the making. But once I get some
momentum built up, I average about 2,500 words a day, 12,500 words per week. (I
try not to work too much on weekends, unless I’m behind on a deadline.) For
those not familiar with word counts, that’s ten manuscript pages a day, or
fifty per week. I didn’t used to write at that pace, but I’ve built up to it
over the years.
What is your latest
project/release?
My next original
release (as opposed to a paperback reissue) is SHADOW’S BLADE, the third book
in The Case Files of Justis Fearsson (Baen Books). It comes out in May 2016.
This is a contemporary urban fantasy set in Phoenix. My lead character is a
private detective, an ex-cop, and a weremyste. Every month, on the full moon,
his magic gets stronger and he temporarily loses his mind. These moon phasings
are slowly driving him insane, as they did his father. The first two books in
the series are SPELL BLIND and HIS FATHER’S EYES, and both are available from
all booksellers.
If you could live the life of one
of your characters, who would it be?
Have you read my
books? Do you know what kind of shit I dump on my characters page after page,
story after story? I would never, ever, ever want to be any of them.
Do you prefer writing short stories
or novels? And why?
When I started
out, I wrote only novels. I didn’t really understand how to approach short
stories. I thought I could only “write to a certain length,” which came out to,
like, 200,000 words. My first short story sale was actually a background piece
for my Winds of the Forelands series. Everything I did was geared toward the
novels.
But that changed
several years ago. I forced myself to write shorter pieces because -- and I
honestly believe this -- writing short stories is harder and demands more skill
than writing novels. As soon as I started writing the shorter pieces, forcing
myself to tell complete, satisfying stories in 6,000 words, all of my writing
improved. That leanness I mentioned earlier, which I see in my latest work, is,
I believe, an outgrowth of my increasing commitment to writing short fiction as
well as novel length stuff. I’ve learned to do more with less, and that is all
to the good. So, at this point I really have no preference; I love writing in
both forms.
Is Writer’s Block ever a problem
for you? If so, how do you deal with it.
Okay, so here is
my Writer’s Block Rant. I don’t believe in Writer’s Block. I don’t think it
exists, and I think it’s a really foolish concept. Harsh, I know, but bear with
me. The problem with the very idea of Writer’s Block is that it pre-supposes
writing should be easy. It assumes that writing should always flow smoothly,
that finding the correct word ought to be as easy as typing it, that stories
never get stuck or turn onto narrative cul-de-sacs. It assumes our characters
always behave rationally and answer to our every creative whim, and our
settings simply present themselves to us, fully formed and easily described.
All of which, of course, is horse crap. Writing is hard. Writing tears at our
souls. Writing torments us. Writing is fits and starts, it’s days spent staring
at a blank screen getting nothing done. That’s as much a part of the creative
process as those rare golden days when everything DOES flow like mountain
water. And so what people call Writer’s Block, I call writing. End of Rant.
What 3 things do you feel every aspiring
writer should know?
Well, they should
begin by memorizing my rant on Writer’s Block . . .
Seriously, they
should understand that writing is hard work, that it doesn’t necessarily pay
well, and that career paths are rarely linear or uninterrupted ascents to fame
and fortune. This is a difficult, at times soul-crushing business. Aspiring
writers should know, first and foremost, that they’re writing for the right
reason: because they love the story, the characters, the creative process. If
they’re doing it because they think it’s easy money, or just something they can
do in a half-assed way, they need to think again.
Second, they
should know that writing to the market is a bad idea. The market is a moving
target. There is absolutely no guarantee that what’s popular when you start a
novel will still be popular when that novel is completed and edited and ready
for release. The aspiring writer should write the story s/he loves, the story
that’s burning a hole in her/his chest trying to get free. If s/he loves what
s/he writes, that passion will come through in the prose and storytelling. In
other words, write the best story possible, and the market side of things will
take care of itself.
Third, there is no
such thing as a perfect novel. Everything that has ever been published has some
flaw in it. If a writer edits and polishes and works and works and works trying
to make that novel utterly flawless, s/he will spend an entire lifetime on that
one project and will never send it out for publication. Which isn’t much of a
career. Make the book as good as it can be, and then submit it. Publishers
understand that books rarely cross their desks as perfect finished novels.
That’s what editors are for. Write it, have people read it, revise and polish,
and then send it out and get to work on the next thing. That’s how one builds a
career.
Thanks David. To find more about him, click below:
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