Conversations With the Dirty Prophet II: Theological Fiction and Publishing

A continuation of my interview with Adrew Bowen, founder of Divine Dirt Quarterly.  To read part one, click here.

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Jello World: So, thinking more about novels now, do you have any thoughts on the mainstream publishing industry? I know a lot of people who are going the self-pub route, or going to smaller indie presses, and even some who've started their own publishing houses. And since you've seen fit to start up something like DDQ, I thought you might have an opinion on what is (or isn't) currently being published.

Dirty Prophet: A lot. That's it; there's a ton of material being produced despite the image of so much rejection. And now with the relative low cost of printing and small-scale production, artists can in effect tell the companies to screw themselves. This democratization is a two-edged sword. At once, it's great that more and more art can be shared due to this freedom, but the negatives are that the ratio of artist to consumer is tilting to a point of inflation. It's in vogue to diss the big houses and authors who rake in five to seven figures per title, but put yourself in their shoes: would you say no? Artists have a hard time supporting themselves as it is, but now a non-paying market is the norm. The next few years will be interesting.

Jello World: I wouldn't say no! haha. I think it will be interesting to see what happens over the next few years, whether digital will make print books obsolete (I doubt it) and stuff like that. I know you've had a submission out with an agent for a while now. Do you plan to continue pursuing the traditional publishing route, or would you consider self-publishing or e-publishing?

Dirty Prophet: Oh no, "the submission". It's been with this particular agent for almost eight months. So I suppose that yeah, I'm shooting for traditional, at least at first. Like I told the agent, writing is a career move for me. Sure, I'm an artist and want to express myself and all that jazz, but when it comes down to it, I know that this is what I'm built for and what better result than to do what brings me joy and be able to support my family?

Jello World: Amen! I have nothing but respect for anyone who chooses to do it themselves. I just don't have the discipline and motivation to be my own marketing machine. Plus, at least for now, I think the pros of traditional publishing still outweigh the benefits of self publishing.

Dirty Prophet: This is an aspect artist folks tend to forget about publishing: it is a business and what you produce is a product. I'm not entirely reticent to the idea of going solo, it's just a business choice: publisher = less risk. Artists have to be able to see themselves as business people if a career (and therefore income) is to rise to fruition. Should I get a contract, I'll have no problem going from writer to pimp of my work quicker than Clark Kent to Superman in a phone booth.

Jello World: haha! So you'd kill your darlings, so to speak, at the request of a publisher or editor to make your product more marketable?

Dirty Prophet: No, to make it better. I have no shame and very little ego. There have been several pieces of my short fiction that were modified and edited due to an editor's suggestion. This doesn't mean I'm a whore to the industry, but I recognize that there are people out there whose job it is to analyze work, recognize weaknesses, and make corrections. Being a writer is just a link in the creative chain and if my ego weakens that chain, show's over.

Jello World: But there are limits to what you'll do? I know a lot of writers feel that there are editors out there who will want to re-work your book until it hardly resembles what you set out to create.

Dirty Prophet: There are limits. This novel I've written literally defines me as an artist. I'll move and mold a lot, but I won't relinquish my identity or artistic soul to make a buck for myself or anyone else.

Jello World: Good for you!  So do you think your "brand" will be theological fiction, or do you see yourself ever branching out into other areas?

Dirty Prophet: I actually think theological fiction has a ton of real estate. There are really just two areas here: Inspirational, where the literature is biased toward a particular mindset, and more literary work that sinks away into general fiction. The market has a tough time sorting the latter out. It's even more difficult to find this material (non-inspirational) in stores because they are buried in the "Literature" section. I'd love to see an emergence of this genre as it's own distinctive niche, like mystery or romance. This would make room for great sub-genres that, before, would have been unthinkable amalgams such as theo-erotica, theo-historical fiction, even theo-graphic novels...all of which center around this concept of theological expression and exploration.

Jello World: Sign me up for theo-erotica! I'm totally there. I think it would be great to see that kind of development, practically creating a new genre. Side rant: I really do hate how bookstores have that "Literature" section, because what it usually means is "we didn't know where else to put it" and just because you like one book in that section doesn't mean you'll be at all interested in the one sitting right next to it!!! *end rant*

Dirty Prophet: It's really like the Wild West of literally expansion. You realize this dream, this idea, that there's all this room to spread and build and then it suddenly hits you how enormous of an undertaking it would be.

Jello World: I have a friend who writes terrific Steampunk, bordering on erotica sometimes, and that genre is just starting to take hold too. I think she's on the leading edge of something that will be really great, and I think you are too. There are so many possibilities and so many stories to tell. The agent who snatches you up will be very lucky!

Dirty Prophet: Thanks! What's great about this genre is that it requires no baggage to contribute. To write Christian Inspirational, you kinda need to be a member, but with theo-lit, you could be an outright atheist and still have something to contribute. When you see theology and spirituality as something free to explore, it takes the barbs out it and suddenly we're all members of one diverse congregation.

Jello World: So true! And even under that heavy tag of "literary fiction" you have to have a certain something that not every writer has (or wants to). So you're envisioning more of a mainstream genre. Like you said, something more recognizable, like romance or mystery. Do you see DDQ almost as a first step in building the genre and getting the word out there?

Dirty Prophet: There are other zines out there. Image is a big one. A good friend of mine, Edward Simon started 31st Bird Review a few months before DDQ, Ashe Journal is another. There are others, but as I said, the horizon is wide open and there's certainly room for niches to develop and grow.

Jello World: Cool, I'll have to check out some of those too.

Dirty Prophet: Tell them I said hi.

Jello World: Will do! Wow... So this has been quite a productive chat! I think I've asked all the questions I had and have gotten lots of great material. Is there anything you wanted to share or tell readers that I haven't touched on?

Dirty Prophet: The standard I live by is this: We are all but neighbors, borrowing sugar (ideas, concepts, etc.) from one another to create our own pastries. Once we grasp this, that our humanity isn't stagnant, but a continual narrative where we share and make anew, the day gets brighter and the thunder of our lives becomes music instead of something mysterious to be feared.

Jello World: Prophet, indeed.

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Andrew's fiction has appeared in Metazen, Full of Crow, Nanoism, Pulp Metal Magzine, and Prick of the Spindle, just to name a few. He is the founder/editor of Divine Dirt Quarterly, and he blogs at The Dirty Prophet. If that's not enough, he also wrestles with God and they share beer afterward.

Conversations With The Dirty Prophet: Theology in Fiction and Divine Dirt Quarterly

Recently I had the pleasure of sitting down for a chat with none other than the Dirty Prophet, aka Andrew Bowen, founder and editor-in-chief of Divine Dirt Quarterly.  After nearly three hours, some excellent mindreading on Andrew's part, and some bad spelling and grammar on both sides (to be expected from an instant messenger chat), I bring you Conversations With the Dirty Prophet!  I've broken it up into two parts for easy reading.  Today's installation talks about theology in general and in fiction, and Andrew's experience starting DDQ.  I think I even managed to fix all the spelling mistakes. :-)

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Jello World: Okay so, to get started, can you just tell me a little bit about yourself, besides the awesome writing stuff?


Dirty Prophet: Well sure. I'm from eastern North Carolina. Grew up an Army brat and was generally a social outcast through most of school. Then I went to college, got drunk and/or high a lot, was kicked out of college, got my girlfriend/bestfriend pregnant and then married. And so here I am.

Jello World: Did you ever go back to college?

Dirty Prophet: Going back now. Ironically, I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up until the last days of my college career. I started writing my first novel the summer before what was supposed to be my junior year. From there I wrote a few more and it wasn't until I started working on my latest one in 2008 that I realized religion and fiction were what I was to spend my life in ecstasy and agony over.

Jello World: So a slightly random question, where did the nickname "The Dirty Prophet" come from?

Dirty Prophet: Haha well I have a great interest in prophets and the historic/metaphorical spiritual aspects of dirt, so I just made them my own. Prophets are folks who express a need for change or challenge those around them to think. I'd like to think that my work does that. As for dirt, it's a unifying element. We came from dirt, so to speak, in both scientific and theological traditions. We dig in dirt to find things: our past, our technologies, worms for fishing...Dirt keeps us human, connected, and real. That's how I want to be: human, connected, and real.

Jello World: Interesting! I like that.

Dirty Prophet: Not as cool as Slim Shady or Dark Knight, but it'll do.

Jello World: haha I think it's pretty cool. It's fitting.  Back to religion and fiction... as you know, I write erotica. It's not always a conscious choice, but rather something I fall into naturally. Even in my most mainstream stuff, the characters will probably hop into bed at least once. Do you find religion is something you just gravitate toward, or are you always making a conscious effort to write about it?

Dirty Prophet: Religion in general and writing with it in particular is something I merged into. My pre-theological material usually dealt with social issues like the teacher-student (minor) relationship or internet dating. I discovered my passion in religion while researching for my last novel. Suddenly a Pandora's box of subject matter and character types opened and my world hasn't been the same since. I think about this stuff 24-7. It annoys my wife sometimes.

Jello World: Funny you should say... my first novel ever dealt with a teacher-student relationship! Great minds think alike, I suppose.

Dirty Prophet: This is true!

Jello World: So does your wife have to continually change the topic to something besides theology?

Dirty Prophet: She understands my passion and so rolls with it. Because my spiritual background began with Christianity and she has just recently adopted that faith, we often discuss what she is learning. But for her watching me read about religion or write, I guess it's like watching a kid with Legos or a video game.

Jello World: Yes, the awe and excitement of it all, right?

Dirty Prophet: Religion (cosmology too) for me is like numbers to a mathematician or musical notes to a composer. The myths, the stories, the rituals and histories just make sense to me. Funny, it's my security blanket in a world where religion is a cause for death and strife. I see no duality, just the beautiful, trippy, human color of imagination and faith.

Jello World: You're reading my mind today, because my next question was going to be what is it about theology and religion that captivates you enough to want to challenge it, write about it, and to share it with your readers? Are you searching for you own truth when you write, or have you already found that?

Dirty Prophet: Interestingly enough, a search is how this mess started. When researching for my novel's protagonist (he's a prophet), I came across information on all sorts of traditions. It was inviting to settle with one, but just then, I'd fall in love with another. I was becoming spiritually promiscuous. My truth is that I have no damn clue. I've adopted a position of a nomad, roaming from faith to faith (and sometimes none) and finding solace within each oasis so long as there is water and shade. Then, I pack my bags and move on. I intentionally make my fiction ambiguous to reflect this.

Jello World: "Spiritually promiscuous" I love that! So you're not necessarily trying to lead your readers to any one conclusion about god or theology?

Dirty Prophet: No. That would be dishonest. If we subscribe to the idea of a perfect "other" or God, while admitting ourselves to be imperfect, then how the hell would any of us, being imperfect, be able to dictate absolute truth? I think faith, spirituality is a journey, something to dig for. It's curiosity, a kid digging in the dirt. No, I write to pose questions and challenge folks to think.

Jello World: So would you say that you personally don't subscribe to the idea of that "perfect" god? Or just that you don't feel qualified to say who or what god is or isn't?

Dirty Prophet: The latter. The Greek idea of God (Islamic as well) is unanthropomorphic. I'm in that category as well, though not definitively. I'm committed to my ignorance, so to speak, to the point where I'm open to new (and old) ideas. Always in awe, always surprised, and never in a comfort zone.

I think once people close the lid on their spirituality, they effectively limit outlets in which the divine might speak to them, because if you believe in a creative God, what size box would he/she/it be able to fit into?

Jello World: Don't you think that most organized religions are effectively closed in that way? They define the is or is not, the can and the cannot. They prescribe religious experience instead of letting it happen. Or am I just swayed by the institutionalized form of religion and not really seeing what each faith, at its core, has to say?

Dirty Prophet: Depends on the faith. Christianity happens to be exclusively based due to a doctrine of Christ's divinity. This seems strange because he was so inclusive in his ministry. Eastern faiths like Hinduism and Buddhism are very open due to one having literally thousands of modes of worship and the other not requiring a God, respectively. The first tenet of Sikhism is that "There is only One, and he is God." This is to say that we are all an aspect of the divine, so every path is basically valid. There is also the human element. Borders mean safety. Unfortunately, religion becomes a victim of this mindset.

Jello World: Yes, the human mind likes things to be compartmentalized, to make sense, to fit some kind of pattern. That's where stereotypes and things like that come from, too. The categories themselves aren't the problem, it's when we fail to realize that not everything fits into one neat category (and that it's OKAY for things to be that way!) that we start killing each other over something like who believes in the "right" god.

Dirty Prophet: Kafka once said that "Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy." In this way, we can think of each religious movement as a revolution to the "bureaucracy" of the old way. For Christianity, is was a revolution against the cumbersome Law. Islam resolved to return everything to monotheism and unite Arabia. Sikhism set out to destroy the caste system that crept in Hinduism. But each of these has fallen prey to its own purposes of change. Thermodynamics is a bitch.

Jello World: That's so true. My senior year in college I had a class that dealt with spirituality and religion and it really helped me dig and flesh out what it is that I believe (for the moment, anyway) and I pretty much came to that same conclusion. I don't think there's really any religion that has remained unchanged through the many years since they began, and it's because of the human element. I like to think that god, or what I like to call the sacred, never changes. Ever. The only thing that changes is our way of experiencing it and our ability to communicate those experiences.

Dirty Prophet: Exactly. We are finite beings trying to understand and articulate something infinite. We haven’t even mapped the entire ocean floor. So we have a ways to go. This is why I started Divine Dirt Quarterly. Because I believe the "human gospel" as I've coined it, is still being written by humanity. If we were created in the image of a creative spirit, then we can't help but be expression. The results can be amazing, and it's a crime against humanity to put a lid on such a thing.

Jello World: two points for you! your mind reading abilities really are stellar, because I was definitely going to ask about the inspiration for DDQ! I could totally sit here all day and chat about theology with you! But I suppose I should probably bring it back to the writing part a bit. Tell me a little about the process of starting something like that. Was it a difficult undertaking?

Dirty Prophet: The concept was as easy and natural as breathing. What was difficult was the technical aspects of building a site (I'm horrible with tech stuff) and getting folks involved. Religion is a taboo subject, especially in literary circles where most folks are abhorrent to anything religiously based (and in many cases, I can't blame them!).

Jello World: When I was looking for a home for my story On a Trans-Atlantic Flight, I searched Duotrope using Religious as one of the theme filters. And let me tell you, everything I found was about praising god, writing about the positive influence of god, living a godly life, etc. There really wasn't anything specifically for writing that was more seeking in nature, challenging traditional beliefs, or describing the untraditional ways people experience god and the like. And then, of course, I found DDQ! So I think you're really filling a void.

Dirty Prophet: Oh yeah. It's sad. Granted, I don't think there's anything wrong with those other markets, but as you said, they aren't conducive to material that sees theology as expression as opposed to a confirmation of faith. My own writing has a hard time finding a market, so DDQ is an effort to remedy that issue for others.

Jello World: Oh for sure, I have no problem with those other markets either. Except that that'd never publish something like our stuff haha. So how did you get hooked up with Yvette and Kat to be your editors? Were you already familiar with them from other literary circles, or was it a happy accident kind of thing?

Dirty Prophet: I actually met up with Kat Dixon on Agent Query (same with editor Cynthia Reeser and writer Stefin Bradbury). It was early in my writing career and so I tried to make friends wherever I could. She seemed cool and was committed to poetry, so I invited her along. With Yvette, I met her on Fictionaut. From the start she was very candid with her commentary on my fiction and supportive of the marginal genre that is theological fiction. We've been like peas in a pod ever since.
Jello World: Agent Query and Fictionaut are both great sites! It's great to be able to network with other writers, editors, etc.

Dirty Prophet: Internet-land is a great place. I've meet some awesome and talented people in the writing world. The company I keep couldn't be better.

Jello World: It really is! Being able to chat with you, or be FB friends with the editor of an erotica anthology, or meet tons of interesting published and unpublished writers and share their successes (and rejections because, well, they happen lol) is so amazing!

Dirty Prophet: Indeed it is. Who knows, perhaps Wikipedia, when our descendants look back on us, will be interpreted as the new Oracle at Delphi. The way History repeats itself and humanity's patterns are just too cool. Concepts like this are what get me up in the morning.

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Stay tuned for the conclusion of my conversation with the Dirty Prophet on Wednesday, when we discuss the publishing industry and the blossoming genre of theological fiction.

Andrew's fiction has appeared in Metazen, Full of Crow, Nanoism, Pulp Metal Magzine, and Prick of the Spindle, just to name a few.  He is the founder/editor of Divine Dirt Quarterly, and he blogs at The Dirty Prophet.  If that's not enough, he also wrestles with God and they share beer afterward.

Author Interview: T. L. Gould, Part One

It's finally here!  The long-awaited interview with self-published author T. L. Gould.  So without further ado....

Name: Terry L. Gould
Location: U.S.
Book: How Can You Mend This Purple Heart?

JLL: Tell us a little bit about Terry Gould - the regular guy, not the author.

TLG: The regular guy. Not much to talk about here. My childhood has had a tremendous influence on me throughout my adult life. We lived in very poor rural towns across and up and down Missouri, but through our childhood imaginations, we were oblivious to our “poverty.” During some periods the only food on the table was potatoes from the garden and oatmeal in every conceivable soup. We actually ate oatmeal for dinner quite a few times. This has given me such an incredible appreciation for all the people and places I have experienced throughout life. I despise greed and hoarding.

The police showed up at our house one evening and my dad was arrested and taken to jail when I was four years old. That had a tremendous impact on me for a long time. Still does. I carried around a total of distrust for authority, both because my dad left us and because the police took him away. I’m still untrusting and suspicious of the motives and agendas behind a lot of “power figures.”

I spent almost twenty-five years working for Fortune 500 companies in a variety of marketing and advertising positions. It was a great experience, with lots of travel to places I never dreamed of seeing, but it also changed me in ways that I regret. Without even knowing it, I became “corporatized.” You know, the stiff, button-down white collar, MBA know it all. It’s taken me nearly six years to rid myself of the rigid, “blue suit” personality with its dog-eat-dog commandments. I never really conformed to the corporate politics that stifle real creativity and thinking. Guess that’s why I changed jobs and companies every three or four years.

I’ve been in and out of the hospital so many times, due to accidents and surgeries, I should be presented with an honorary medical degree.

I love sports. Still playing ice hockey (two of the hospital visits) and play golf when I can. Not real good at either one.

Family: Married thirty years to the most intelligent, caring and supportive woman anyone could imagine. Spend lots of time with our daughter and her two children, ages one and five. Kids are so innocent and open-minded. I try to learn from them every day.

Last but not least, I believe if you’re going to tell your story, then tell it like it was. Don’t sugar coat it or wrap it with inhibitions or shyness. If you were a dope smoking, pill popping, anti-war peacenik, then say it and be proud of it. Don’t change who you were just fit who you wish you would have been. In the long run, it doesn’t feel good.

JLL: Has writing always been a hobby or passion, or is it a talent you only recently discovered?

TLG: Writing has been a step-child passion of mine. I wrote essays and short stories in high school that were considered “very good.” A couple of them were actually submitted by teachers for publication in the local paper.

During my twelve weeks in boot camp for the Navy, I made extra spending money writing love letters for guys to send home to their girlfriends or wives.

My writing ability helped me tremendously in getting through college. Term papers and writing assignments came pretty easy. I even made a little money “ghost” writing a few times.

Then it was off to work for twenty some odd years.

So, now I have adopted the stepchild writer in me and made it a full-fledged sibling.

JLL: Who are some of your favorite authors and/or books?

TLG: For whatever reasons, excuses, I don’t read much. I’ve read a lot of business books, but haven’t turned a page on one of those in more than ten years. I now find them boring and full of look-at-me types.

I used to love Mark Twain. The last book I finished was The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman and I’m currently reading Eragon, by Christopher Paolini.

JLL: I ask my Aspiring Authors these questions, so let me give them to you, too. When it comes to your writing….Either/Or:

• Pen and paper, or computer screen? The majority of my writing time is spent at the keyboard. I only write down on paper the “Aha” moments. I’ve tried the legal pad and pencil, but get bored and distracted too easily.
• Plotster (outlines, scene cards, etc.) or Pantster (writing by the seat of your pants)? I am definitely a seat of the pants writer. Outlines, scene cards, character notes…they are all too remindful of my “business days.” In my own humble opinion, that sort of structured process takes a lot of the creativity away.
• Music on, or off? On line Sirius XM is a god send.
• Solitude, or surrounded by people, sounds, things? By nature, I am a total people person. I need human contact. But in order for me to write, solitude is a necessary evil. I get tucked away in a little room with no windows, just the music, and a whole day can go by while I lose myself in two, three or four chapters. Then there are days when the words “hermit” and “recluse” keep repeating themselves on the screen and I know it’s time to get out.
• Cleanest first draft possible, or screw grammar/spelling/punctuation and fix it later?  I’ve tried both. For whatever reason, contrary to my personality, the cleaner the first draft the happier I am. I don’t know how much good writing time I have wasted making all those damn corrections as I go. I tried to participate in the online nanowrimo where you write a fifty thousand word ms in thirty days. The spelling, grammar, punctuation, plot, character, etc. are of no concern. Just sit and write whatever comes out. I made it to 1,500 words. I wish I could just open up and let if fly, but I can’t.
• Slave to the whimsy of your muse, or writing like it’s your job, even when you don’t feel like it?  I am shackled to my new-found passion. I can’t wait to sit down and poke out a sentence, a paragraph, a page. When I do get away from the keyboard, I find people staring back at me in contempt while I make mental notes of their features, movements and mannerisms and how I might use them for a character or scene. And I don’t even realize I’m doing it. It’s fun and scary.

JLL: Why did you decide to write Purple Heart?

TLG: The story behind Purple Heart played its game on me for a long, long time. For some reason that I still cannot explain, I abandoned all connections to the hospital, my out-of-body experience, the war and my wounded friends for more than ten years following my discharge from the Navy. At some point after I met my wife, these quick, uninvited little bursts of memory would percolate through my brain and find their way into words. After telling my wife, brother and close friends about some of the experiences, through lots of laughter and tears, they kept saying “you should write a book.” I now know my retelling of those stories kept the memories alive and vivid. At some point, I realized it was a story that people should know and it was borne out of a long overdue and personal obligation I felt for the Vietnam veterans.

JLL: How long did it take you to write the book?

TLG: After retelling the story for more than ten years, I decided it was time to write the book. I started with a table of contents and zig zagged my writing through the chapters with no rhyme nor reason. That was nearly twenty years ago. I was able to focus on the story over the past three years and with the help of a terrific online crit group, ( yeah Jen!) [JLL: :-)] I got the first draft completed last year. In a general sense it took me thirty years to write. In a technical sense, probably three years.

JLL: Sometimes writers are afraid or embarrassed to “come out” to friends and family about deciding to write a book and try for publishing. Sometimes we’re afraid people around us will think we’re nuts, or we think if we tell anyone else about our endeavors, they’ll put more pressure on us to succeed than we do on ourselves (as if that’s possible!) Was any of that true for you?

TLG: I really didn’t feel any outside pressure to do a great job, or “we hope the book is as good as the story” sort of thing. A couple of good friends would chide me with “You’ll never get that damn thing written”, but that was mostly in jest and after a few beers.

I think my own expectations kept me from writing it for a long time. I mean, who am I to think I can write a good story? That sort of self-inflicted mental pressure was something I still can’t shake.

JLL: I know there are personal reasons for your wanting to publish Purple Heart, but I’ve also had the pleasure of reading some of your other writing. Do you have publishing dreams for future stories as well?

TLG: Oh yeah. That would be awesome. I would love to have my YA fantasy and YA mystery works in progress published some day. The writing is so much more fun and light hearted than Purple Heart and I think the two have a much broader market appeal. But, it’s getting the first (perfect) draft completed and I’m haven’t visited the mss in over three months. As you noted in your question, it is a dream.

JLL: As a writer, how will you measure your success? Dollars and cents? Number of copies sold? Number of different books published? Some other internal measure of satisfaction?

TLG: I need to separate this into two parts. I have to go back to the reason I wrote “Purple Heart”—it was not a story I wrote to get published, or sell so many copies or make a certain amount of money. The primary reason was to “just tell the story” so people would know what happened beyond the combat that every one sees in the movies--on which they make their judgments about Vietnam. And, it’s a story I was encouraged to write by family and friends, some of them Vietnam Veterans.

“Purple Heart” is a stand alone accomplishment for me. The day I finished typing out that last sentence was an overwhelming experience. Every emotion wrapped between the covers of that story came rushing over me. I literally sat and stared at the computer screen—crying with joy, sadness, relief and yes, a very powerful sense of accomplishment. When I started “Purple Heart” I never intended to be a “writer”, but after the joy of writing “Purple Heart” I can’t think of anything else I would rather do. So, the measure of success for “Purple Heart” was in the actual completion of the writing. Now, with my association with Veterans Airlift Command, success would be giving as much as I can to that organization through the sales of “Purple Heart”.

[JLL: From the Veterans Airlift Command website: "About the VAC The Veterans Airlift Command provides free air transportation to wounded warriors, veterans and their families for medical and other compassionate purposes through a national network of volunteer aircraft owners and pilots."  Terry has pledged a portion of his sales from Purple Heart to benefit VAC.  Which is yet another reason for you to purchase your own copy of Purple Heart.]

The writing that I am working on now would be measured in far more different terms. I want to learn as much as I can about the craft of writing. I want to constantly improve my ability to put together a really good story. When I started “Purple Heart” I didn’t know a plot from a theme from a premise. I started reading as much as I could on the internet about how to structure, how to outline, proper verb tense and good character development techniques. I purchased a couple of books on writing—the best was Bird by Bird written by Anne Lamont. At some point, I joined a fabulous, wonderful on-line critique group. It was the luckiest day in my life during the writing of “Purple Heart”.

So now, my best measure of success would be the act of getting published—the satisfaction, that recognition by the publishing and reading universe—that would be the greatest measure of success. I don’t know about other writers, but with me, my ego gets extremely high indulgence from very low pay expectations.

CLICK HERE for part two of the interview.
Stay tuned for Part Two of the interview, where Terry shares his insight and advice about self-publishing.