Q: A family farm and as a sideline,
drilling water wells. How did all the computer technology come into play?
A: Quite
naturally actually. I grew up on this farm; it is actually my family's, not
mine. I just help out when I'm home and store my larger toys here. Fate is
cruel but if you live long enough it is fare. I had the worst case of pollen
allergies ever. As a child of 4 or 5 my allergies were so bad I would actually
get water blister on my eye which would nearly swell my eyes shut. My allergies
were why we purchased our first window unit air conditioner. Houses didn't have
air conditioning standard back then.
This farm had horrible sulfur water. It started out
bad and got progressively worse as time went on. You get used to the smell and
taste, but what you don't get used to is the replacement cost. Refrigerators,
freezers, televisions, basically anything with copper or silver simply got
destroyed in a matter of months. Towards the end even the top-of-the-line
freezer didn't make it a year. Average life span was about 6 months.
Adding insult to injury the well we had was either
the 5
th or 7
th well ever drilled on this farm. Family
lore is a bit fuzzy. My father was a child when the sulfur well was drilled. The
drilling company used a cable tool rig. They ran it 24 hours per day. It took a
month, but they finally got a sufficient quantity of water for the livestock
operation the farm had back then. They just happened to have to go 1250 feet
deep to get it.
Suffice it to say that history gave me a keen
interest in the drilling of water wells. Paying a drillingcompany to punch a
dry hole in the ground isn't cheap. When you know ahead of time finding water
is going to be difficult due to the location it becomes cheaper to get the
training and the equipment then invest your time. We now have a much shallower
sulfur free well. It was a journey which spanned 8 or 9 years if memory serves
me correctly.
During
my senior year in high school we got 3 Commodore Super Pet computers. I was in
the first class to learn BASIC on them. We even went to some student
programming contest at ISU (Illinois State University) and took third. No idea
what it was at this point. As a kid with severe allergies attending a school
without air conditioning I thought this was great. You got to work in air
conditioning, got paid a lot of money and were surrounded by women in short
skirts and heels all day. (I was in high school remember?)
After graduating college I worked as an
employee for a few years where I did actually manage to get the air
conditioning but not the other two, so I became a consultant.
Q: The
“geek” books make sense since you have the technological understanding, but
what brought about the interest in writing novels?
A: In
truth, “Infinite Exposure” was written because someone from Citi Bank pissed me
off one day. There is a company which makes T-shirts and stuff for writers. One
I've never purchased but always liked has a warning printed on it. “Be careful
or you will end up in my novel”. Truer words were never spoken or written. I no
longer have any Citi Bank products btw. Last time I checked none of the mutual
funds I own even hold their stock. Around the same time I wrote “Infinite
Exposure” I got rid of all the funds which did.
“John Smith – Last Known Survivor of the Microsoft
Wars” was a bit different. There were a lot of little things which kept
rattling around in my brain. Then we had all of the Mayan 2012 hoopla. As an IT
worker doing business analysis and systems architect work you are trained to
always ask “what if”. In this particular case it started out as a single
question, “What if it's not a light switch but a starting point?”
People
are very narrow minded and short sighted in general. For years you would hear
reports on the news about mud slides in California and they would always say
something like “the mud slide started this morning at...” those reports were
always wrong. The mud slide started many months prior to that when the forest
fire burnt the trees off.
There is a really good “Star Trek TNG”
episode/movie where Captain Pickard is bouncing between 3 different time
periods due in large part to Q. It takes most of the show for the Captain to
figure out that Q is trying to teach him about a paradox. Three different ships
from three different time periods focused a certain type of energy beam on the
exact same point in space. It caused a rip in the barrier between time and
anti-time. Due to the nature of anti-time the event horizon was much larger in
the past, a past which had not had the event. That event horizon was about to
stop the very creation of life on Earth. Not some gigantic disaster which
killed all humans, but a quiet event which simply stopped a puddle of basic
proteins from joining to create the first single celled organism from which
humans would evolve.
“Babylon 5” had a great story line running its
first few seasons. Two ancient races were tasked with “guiding the younger
races”. Essentially these two were the light and the dark at least during the
early episodes, different shades of gray in later episodes. They both meddled
in different ways, even changed the genetics of some species in their attempts
to “weed the garden”. For someone with a writer's mind, this was not about the
age old struggle between good and evil it appeared to be but about the struggle
which is almost as old. That is the struggle between Manifest Destiny and Free
Will and the high price of such a struggle.
If you are looking for direct influences when it
comes to “John Smith – Last Known Survivor of the Microsoft Wars” at that one
episode of TNG and the first few seasons of Babylon 5 up through the end of the
Shadow Wars.
“What if” the Mayans were right but it was a mud
slide and not the flicking of a switch? “What if” that old Mayan story/legend
where they claimed to be survivors of some great catastrophe was really how
they viewed the start of a new cycle. “What if” alien visitations really happen
but they aren't aliens, just survivors of past cycles trying to herd us along? These
questions were running through my mind. Thankfully Susan Krowley came along to
interview John Smith. I really thought that interview would be a single chapter
long. I didn't even think the story would be a novel. The two of them thought
otherwise.
Q: Will
there be more novels and do you anticipate in changes in genre at some point?
A: There
are going to be more novels and more geek books. I'm working on some of them
now. Once John Smith really takes off I will be looking for some very young and
gifted writer to co-author the second John Smith book to flesh out the world so
they can continue on with the “Earth That Is” series.
Q: In
layman’s terms, what does Logikal Solutions do?
A: It is
an IT consulting company. We provide software development, technical writing,
systems architect and business analysis services to various clients.
Q: How
has the “computer age” changed the farming business?
A: Improvements have come at a very
high price.
Due to the “race to the bottom” when it comes to
software development and technology products in general, a poorly designed
steering/navigation system lawyered up and cost the country a 4G satellite and
ground station wireless system which would have actually provided 4G to the
entire nation in a matter of months instead of the “nationwide” 4G services which
seem to only exist in the N largest cities.
Many
of the tractors built in the mid 70s to early 80s are still serviceable. Granted
some have had new engines put in them, but they were well built and designed to
last. Not so much the case for the 90s forward. This problem is twofold. The
first problem is “chasing the fast buck” and the second is the massive
electronics burden. Engines and transmissions of older tractors, the ones built
when people had to draw by hand, were over engineered by today's standards. In
short, they were built to last. The graphics design programs allow engineers to
design tractors with a planned end of life as short as 5 years. Today's
tractors and combines have quite literally a rats nest of wiring and
electronics inside of them. Rats nest is a good term since a single mouse can
get into them during winter storage and render your
quarter-million-dollar-only-made-the-first-payment-on-it piece of equipment a
pile of scrap metal. The days of a father buying a new tractor and being able
to pass it down to their son/daughter when they handed over the farm ended with
my generation.
The list goes on and on.
Q: Do
you feel that having all this “data” on electronic files is putting countries
more at risk?
(I have no idea where that one came from
because I’m not a very political person, by nature)
A: Putting
YOU at risk. Forget the country. Do you know where your bank has its data
center? THAT is “Infinite Exposure”. You should read it. I based much of it on
what the FBI actually tells bankers during their lectures.
Q: Are
there any other writers in your family?
A: No. My
grandmother on my father's side taught me to write letters at a very early age.
Her sister used to write very long letters telling stories of their youth and I
used to respond. This was with pen on paper. We didn't even have a typewriter
then.
Q: Farming,
Computers and Writing – a very diverse agenda. How do you find the time to
manage all of this?
A: I
stopped playing video games years ago. Consulting has also helped even out the
flow. I use the time between projects to pursue my other interests.
Q: Do
you read a lot? Who is your favorite author?
A: The
short answer would be no. I used to read quite a bit, but the authors I used to
read really honked me off in one way or another. The “Wheel of Time” author
started out great and then churned out volume after volume of what I would call
“oatmeal” even after he was diagnosed with a long term illness. He stretched it
out and someone else had to finish the series. Same with “A Song of Ice and
Fire”. I got to the last hundred or so pages of “A Dance With Dragons” and I
stopped. The writing quality had dramatically diminished. While I may one day
finish this book I have no plans to read more in the series. I have never read
any of the “Harry Potter” books, but I have seen all of the movies. I applaud
J.K. for choosing to close that circle. A primary story arc which doesn't end
is a horrible thing. Perhaps that is why I have all of the “Babylon 5” series
on DVD, even “the lost episodes”. They set out to have a 7 year arc and they
completed it.
I know the old adage is “to be a better writer you
have to be an avid reader,” but I just don't buy into it. At some point my
Block Buster subscription became a much better source than reading did. The
3-at-a-time flat monthly fee completely changed my viewing habits and I will
wager it changed most of the country as well. During the days of VHS we had to
pay something like $7 to rent a movie. You needed a second mortgage if you
returned it late. Now for something like $20/month you get 3-at-a-time and
return them when you get done. If you want more movies watch them faster.
When I had to pay $7 each there was no way I was
watching a documentary or an artsy “indie” film. Now I add those DVDs to my
queue without even thinking about it. My view of the world goes way beyond
Hollywood. “John Smith” contains little snippets from all over. Even a bad
movie can have one redeeming scene which sticks with you. One of the most
flattering comments I see about my novels is “this book really makes you stop
and think.”
Q: Any
final words or areas you’d like to elaborate on that I may or may not have
touched-base on today?
A: I
read many comments about “how to write”. While they are well meaning most of
them aren't worth the time it takes to read them. I have read many arguments
between Outline Nazis and other writers. Have seen people try to quantify just
how many books and which books a writer “must” read. I have seen these
discussions paralyze people who would otherwise be writing because they “didn't
want to do it wrong”. I have heard I don't know how many “learned” cough cough
hack hack people instruct newbie writers to “show don't tell”. Don't bother
listening. To me the only oxymoron larger than “military intelligence” and
“happily married” is “creative writing class.”
The moment you open up LibreOffice or
put pen to paper and churn out the first sentence, you are a writer. You may
never get paid, but you are a writer. That is the only requirement for the
title. You are going to do it wrong. Don't believe me? Choose any famous
author you want, then ask someone who doesn't like their work. Take a Stephen
King horror novel and have it reviewed by someone who only likes warm fuzzy
love stories set in New York. I can tell you what that review will be like
before they even start reading the book. If the reviewer doesn't point out
spelling/grammar errors or dramatic gaffes such as a character being called
Fred for the first 6 chapters and Susan for the rest of the book with no
mention of gender changing surgery or other wretched storyline problems, they
probably weren't part of your target market. That said, you are the
least qualified person to edit your own work. A work of fiction needs at least
5 rounds of professional editing from 3 different editors if you plan to sell
it. This is something the majority of the Kindle crowd seem to skip which is
why I don't think Kindle is doing anywhere near as well as some proclaim.
“Tell done well is the show.” So very few people do
tell well people created the “show don't tell” mantra because writers who
hadn't quite honed their skills could do show. If you choose to go down this
path there are some things you need to watch and remember. One of the (I
think?) Mad Max movies ends with a group of kids in some mountain valley all
gathered together for an evening and then you hear the line “Every night we do
the tell to keep the story 'membered well.” If you are going to do a “tell”
make your story 'membered well. Nearly every reviewer for “John Smith” finds
some different part of it which shocks them or sends them off to look something
up. At least those who like the story all seem to comment on it. Even the ones
which empty their colon on it seem to have at least one comment like that.
How do you keep your story “'membered well?” By
scattering the nuggets. The second movie you need to watch to understand this
is “Casino”. There is what many movie goers thought to be a throw-away scene
which tells you everything you need to know. De Niro's character is having
breakfast with someone and his blue berry muffin doesn't have any blue berries.
As soon as the guy next to him unwraps his blue berry muffin it falls apart
because it has so many blue berries. De Niro then informs the head chef he must
ensure every muffin has the same number of blue berries despite the chef
protesting about how long it will take. “Scattering the nuggets” is much like
making blue berry muffins. You need the right amount of blue berries in each
muffin. Too many it falls apart. Too few and it is just a nasty dry muffin.
