My Interview with BookView Review
A conversation series where BookView talks to authors
I wished I looked as cool as the ChatGPT - DALL-E generated image - hahahaha.
Welcome to BookView Interview, a conversation series where BookView talks to authors.
Recently, we talked to Will Simpson, about his writing and his recently released novel, YOU’VE GOT TO LOSE TO WIN, a gripping narrative of self-discovery, tracing the transformation of a meek and sheltered young man who delves into the cutthroat underbelly of gambling and hustling. (read the review here).
What does literary success look like to you?
This is an easy answer but not so easy to get to.
Success looks like transitioning from my current role as a fractional COO and executive team coach to a full-time writer. It is a career change.
The measure of success is, well, financial first. I need to make enough to pay my basic bills in the world. I do not need the salary of a tech executive, but I need more than I would make being a Lyft driver J. Past that it would be measured by how much enjoyment I have in my work.
That might sound silly and counter to what a “thinker” like me might answer, but it is what matters to me.
Does your family support your career as a writer?
Yes – 100%.
It is in the dedication of my first book. I asked my wife if I should write a book and she replied “Go, it’s about time”. Her support was immediate and complete.
It is important to me that I have this support. Honestly, I would not be doing this without it. Not only because we make all our decisions together but because without my usual corporate income, all the financial support falls on her shoulders. This could not be something that I “dumped” on her; she had to be “all-in” (had to throw in at least one poker phrase) with me.
Is writer’s block real?
Far be it from me to say that it is not real to some people, it might be.
For me, there is no such thing. Once I start writing, I go until I am tired or have to stop to eat or something like that.
I was at a book signing with Nelson DeMille, and someone asked him this same question. My answer is much like his, which is to say, just write something. Sit your ass in the chair and write. Write anything, but write. If you can sit in a chair for 8 hours and not write anything, then quit. You are not a writer; stop wasting your time. I am paraphrasing, of course.
But that is me. I just go, then I go back and fix what is wrong or gaps and such.
Writer’s block to me would be if the character did not have anything to do and were just “sitting there.” Ok, well, send in a tornado, a rolling blackout, or an armed assailant to spice up the day. Who cares if it works? Just do it.
That all said, there is distraction and procrastination. Other things that cause you not to START writing. If that is the problem, there are cures for that. Either get an accountability partner or set and follow a schedule yourself.
I am a natural wet blanket sort. I have a whiteboard with stickies that I move from “TO DO” to “DOING” to “DONE.” This works for me. Find something that works for you.
How hard is it to establish and maintain a career in fiction writing?
So far – HARD; really hard.
I am not sure how to make money writing stories.
I have feedback from people I trust to tell me how it is. Some are friends, and others are people I have just met in this new-to-me writing world. They tell me they love my characters. They love my story. They want to know what is happening next. And that I have a way to go before I am great.
I screwed up and just really started marketing in the last couple of months, a full six months after the book was published. In hindsight, I should have started when I started writing.
I hope that this is the problem. If so, it will just be a matter of time before I can make enough to eat and start contributing financially to the family.
I know there is not an “easy button,” but I only have so long before I will have to go back to the hellscape that is corporate America, and at my age, getting back in is not even assured.
What’s more important: characters or plot?
For me, it is 100% characters.
I think that is what I learned as I refactored the first half of my book. I do not know the plot when I am really in the zone and telling a good tale, at least not in the early stages. I rely on the characters to tell me what it is. They just wander around trying to make some cash, then BAM, insert some bad shit out of left field and see what they do with it and how to make it into a good thing in the end.
I get the plot from the characters; I do not give it to them.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced as a writer?
I am a shitty writer.
I want this to be distinguished from being a storyteller; if I was shitty at that, then this is over, and I need to pivot to a different career.
But being a poor writer has its challenges. I have to write and re-write at least one or two more times than what my peers tell me they do just to make it readable by others. My punctuation is terrible but pales in comparison to my use of quotation marks. I also fall out of the correct tense a lot.
If I had a dollar for every time someone said, “Who is talking here?” or “Is this a flashback?” I could hire a copy editor to follow behind me in real-time and clean up my mess.
I am getting better, but I have a long way to go. I will admit that I do not enjoy this technical side of being an author, but it is 100% worth it.
Are you a feeler or a thinker?
I am a thinker. This is why I believed I was not creative in the writing sense.
I am a wet blanket technology executive and COO type; that has been my career for the last 25 years. I am the guy who says “no” to the fifty great ideas so that only one is focused on. I am not warm and fuzzy.
I have learned in the past year that one does NOT define the other. This was just some silly crap I had stuck in my head. Being a thinker does not mean I lack emotion or feeling; it just means that in a business setting (where most of these personality tests are targeted), I tend to logic things out and override the emotional aspect that is part of everyone’s decision-making process.
Storytelling is not about what the story does to the person telling it; it is about what it gives or does for the person consuming it. It MUST elicit emotion. Readers must care about the characters, or it won’t matter if bad shit happens to them, and they will not care to read about what they are doing next.
One of the things I have recently shifted is the % of fiction to non-fiction I consume. A year ago, that was likely about 70/30 non-fiction. Today that is fully swapped, with at least 70% being fiction. I need to “feel” things about other writers’ characters.
Today, I am still a thinker. I am building a writing business. I am the product, the author. I am selling myself.
When I am in storytelling mode, just like when I was telling a story to some CEO or Board, I am in feeler mode. I strike at the emotion of the situation so that the audience gives a shit about the outcome and the solution.'
Which character was most challenging to create? Why?
Arnold was the hardest character for me. When I started writing this book, I really (I do mean really) had NO idea what I was doing or how to do it. I just started writing a story like I was telling it out loud.
I created most of the characters based on one or more people that I actually knew back when I was in this life.
Arnold was originally based on one person, which became problematic as the story unfolded.
Arnold was initially based on a person I was close to, but in recent years had become estranged from. I was attempting to create a “best friend” type character for Slade, the main character, but on every read-through by my writing coach, she would tell me, “Arnold does not seem to be best friends with Slade. Something is off; you need to make them closer.” Or something like that.
In the end, I just could not do it. That person and I were not close anymore, and we never will be again.
So, I had to remake Arnold and, in many ways, remake Slade as well.
This change turned out to be the most significant piece of my learning journey.
It is not an exaggeration to say that had I not realized this or pulled this thread that made me refactor most of the book’s first half; we would not be talking today.
With this change, I learned to “let go” of the characters and let them live their lives. I became an observer of their lives and then threw some bad shit at them to see what happened.
It was this switch that made me move from “finish this project because I started it” to “DAMN, this shit is awesome; I am having a blast”! I not only started really having fun with this, but I was also writing about twice as fast now. I was just typing out what I saw in my head and what they would say. It was at this moment that I decided there would be more books and that I was going to try and figure out how to feed myself by writing made-up stories.
How crucial is it to have a working title before you begin a project? (answer this if you decide on your title very early in the writing process)
This is important to me, very important. I do not spend a lot of time on the outline or laying out the story in advance. I write out “moments” or “events” as rough chapter outlines, then just hit go.
I need the title to anchor me in a way.
About the 3rd chapter or so, I try to settle in on the title. It will inform the rest of the story and where it ends up. More accurately, what is it all about?
That all said, knowing me, I would not be surprised if I got way down the path of completion on one of these books and then decided to change it again. It all depends on how the story unfolds as I write it.
I have also learned that the title is important to indie writers’ placement on certain online bookseller sites. While I would not sacrifice a good title (what I think of as matching the story) for a good marketing title, I am certainly going to be open to tweaking it to get the best of both.
I have no illusions here. I am a new writer, and if I am going to be able to keep writing to become a great writer, I will have to sell some books.
What’s next for you?
Writing my next novel, the second in the series (more of a serial, actually) of novels that will become “Texas Sharks”.
I have joined a small local writing group (7 people), and we share chapters and ideas as we write and re-write. This will be where I spend most of my time. I will learn from them as I follow and read their work and take the awesome feedback I am getting about mine from these experienced authors.
I am currently learning how to market a book and how to make sales. This will occupy more than a little of my time over the next few months.
I also want to up my game and make this a serious career shift. I want to learn about finding an agent and what it takes to get published by a big firm that will handle the marketing and stuff I do not enjoy as much.