My Interview with C.F. Waller

Welcome sci-fi author C. F. Waller. It´s a pleasure to have you here.

C.F.: I´m always up to interviews, etc.

Me: And I´m glad you join me in this adventure. This is my third interview and I´m having so much fun elaborating the questions for each and every author and/or artist who comes to join me in this venture.

C.F.: Here you go.

Me: Looking through your profile I see that you've got plenty of awards. How does that sound in your ear, to have that feeling of satisfaction, and to be laureate with so many accomplishments? I am so jealous of you now.

C.F.: No one was more surprised than myself when I won last year. The contest entries were made more for the experience than any expectation of winning. When both books won it was surreal. I think the feeling is just validation. My friends tell me they like the work, but until someone outside of your circle validates that opinion, it isn’t real.

Me: It looks like a dream coming true. I was quaterfinalist once on Amazon Breakthrough Novel Competition. I´ve got a review from one of the jury there, but I did not win an award for it; so I couldn´t validate that experience until I saw how hard that is to get there.

C.F.: By the way, I always wondered how Authors got the nerve to put “Award Winning Author” in front of their name. Now I know.

Me: It was after suffering a near-death experience that you decided to write a novel. Tell me more about it.

C.F.: Spent a month in Egypt back in 2007 and on the way back over the Atlantic the plane hit “wind shear” and took three parabolic drops. People were bouncing off the ceiling and having drink carts dropped on them. An absolutely terrifying experience. I took out an exit sign on one of my bounces off the ceiling and brought it home after. It hangs over my bathroom mirror as a reminder to value and enjoy every day.

Me: And do you still travel by plane or that nearly crash caused you to avoid airlines completely?

C.F.: After the incident I flew quite a bit assuming the odds it would happen again was slim. I fly only when necessary now. I have a lot of anxiety about it.

Me: How do you research? Do you travel to places, or are you a "library rat"? By the way, being a sci-fi author myself, I do both. Isn't that the best excuse to go visit libraries around the world?

C.F.: I spend weeks just surfing topics and watching documentaries on possible subjects. As a rule, there’s a month of full time research invested in each novel. I’m a little agoraphobic and don’t leave the house much, thus no libraries.

Me: As a hurricane shutter engineer and living in the east coast have you ever had to face a real hurricane? And I am not talking about a storm, but THE perfect tempest ever?

C.F.: In 2004 before Hurricane Charley arrived I hopped a flight back to Michigan two weeks before it hit. There have been some storms, but never anything dangerous. I must not be too fearful as I live right on the water now.

Me: I enjoy palindrome and the title of your book with the number 656 caught my eye. How did you come up with the idea initially?

C.F.: Palindrome was the file name on WORD FILE in the first draft. There were five or six drafts and the number (656) was just the file numbers. In that treatment for the book all the towns and some people’s names were palindromes (ie: ANNA, HANNAH or EVE) that fit into a plot line puzzle. For the most part none of that puzzle made it into the final cut. When it was later picked up by my publisher and re-edited I recommended a name change, but they liked Palindrome. Go Figure?

Me: I love the covers of your books. Can you please tell how was the creative process to decide which cover you would use?

C.F.: It’s a steep learning curve. For all the time I spend writing a book, the reality is a good cover can be the difference between selling and not. I just try to get the best art I can find and go from there. A good cover or book trailer can be a huge benefit. I recommend all authors do Book Trailers if only for the experience.

Me: I know this question will be hard for any writer to answer, but I have to ask you anyway: Which book do you feel the fondest of? Not necessarily the best ever written, but one that took you some time to overcome the fact that you have finished it and then felt a kind of near-death experience from it.

C.F.: I am always in love with the last thing published. With only five, going on six, published books each one is an evolutionary step. Anything written more than a year ago I wince when reading it.

My favorite is SOUTH FACE. The research was so involved that it sticks with me.

(cover art by Lisa Moran)

Me: The cover is impressive! It does remind me a bit the cover that I chose for my time travel historical novel The Pierrot Love. It also has a skull in a metamorphic style that leads to a couple (Pierrot and Columbine) from an optical illusion entitled L'amour de Pierrot made on 1905. That pic and pick caused some aversion on people and I´m afraid that I scared some of my readers out with that. But I kept it for that´s the essence of life. That we will all die in the end, and that´s the only certainty that we have. And that takes a leap of faith to what´s next. It´s a free fall.

C.F.: Oddly FREE DIVE (the 3rd book I wrote) is far and away the pick of everyone I know. It’s flawed in so many ways, but readers love it. I had to cut the book some slack after it won a Readers Favorite Award last year. Standing on a stage and getting handed something has a drastic effect on your attitude.

Me: And you must be very proud of your achievements. The validations that you get along the way just prove that your works are worth every award they receive. Much appreciated you having the time well spent chatting with me. Hope to see you in many more adventures.

Author´s info:

Web Page
Fan Page
C.F. Waller Amazon Page

Out Of The Blue

Last year I was invited by the Blog Action Day to write about a very serious issue, water, and the consequences we will have to pay for it if or when there will be no more clean resources on Earth. That's when the story came "Out Of The Blue". I usually don't write in this genre (Sci-Fi) but when I do the pictures come into my mind so clearly as if it is a movie I am seeing, though I rarely know the end. It's an enigma for me. I always think I've got the story straight, that I have it all planned inside my head when, all of a sudden and out of the blue", here it comes an u-turn to change all the concepts and beliefs I had before.

It's a big mystery and surprise for me, really, how things turn out to be in the end, it's not I the author who is writing the story but it's the story that reveals itself for me. They say that Science Fiction is a good way to show the perspective of a reality that could pretty much come to fruition and it adverts or inverts us about things that can eventually happen. And that's so true. What would be of the world if not for the Sci-Fi authors, and I mean since the crazy adventures of Jules Vernes under the sea or out in the space, or even in the Amazon jungle, or the amazing discoveries of Mary Shelley's Doctor Frankenstein. Scientists do prove what the friction between reality and fiction comes from a thin fine line and some had already revealed them to be true. So here I am now contemplating another book that I just got in the mail: "Nice Guy Johnny" by Ed Burns and that's already resting (not for long) in my shelf and on line to be next ready to be read. And what does it have in common with my book? They are both dramedies, a genre on top now, a mixture of drama and comedy but that surprises by the honest approach. It makes you laugh and cry all at the same time, and how much I love to get that reaction from my fictions. I'm soon turning my book into a script and then to a movie. Here's the trailer to those who enjoys things artsy-fartsy:

Why We Write

There are just many, many hidden (ridden and read on) reasons why do writers do the write thing. Isn't that so? Click on Why We Write (with a comment of mine:) and read a piece of Danny Rubin, writer of “Groundhog Day” at whywewriteseries.wordpress.com to view how many successful writers may cope with when they are not allowed to write. (Well, even when they cannot, they write). I remember each and every phrase of a good conversation, and if I do not have a pen and paper, at least I count on my own memory to Words Wide Wrap. I remember having read in some newspaper that if the educational system continued as it was, as people were reading books less and less, the world would be full of idiots who cannot even write their names. I recently read (not in the same news, but still a paper) that there is a Sci-Fi book written by a famous author (that I never read/heard) where only ignorant people would inhabit the planet, for the real intelligent ones wouldn't have children. Thank God neither one of those predictions seem exactly right. At least, the majority of people in this planet can read or write. And with the upcoming of the internet, more and more people are writing and reading. But prior to that all, quality and intention must be at the upfront. If there are poor information, most clearly they will generate poor educated people. If families, as a support system, didn't exist at all, more and more children would be left in their own devices, which in turn would be a shame for humanity. So, what really matters here? Is it just to write, or to write well, or what we write to our children? The same goes with television, cinema, theatre and all the media which make accessible information (including, especially, the internet): Good choices lead to better results. And by having a clear vision to make those choices we must share information, we must write our ideals, our experiences, our lives. I'm not a Imdb name holder, or am I on any internet "move" database nor am I a journalist (I gave up that dream when a man to whom I entered my inscription to the University told me I would add in the already big list of liars in the media) to discuss and make opinions (as I do not have any 'pinions neither am I-care(^l^)ess a peanut to think I can win one). But I recently heard (now at a TV News station) two journalists complaining about "opinionating blogs made by amateurs with no comments added" to their sharing. And I got to the conclusion, with a Confucian confusion in my head saying that Yes/No, we should write to be read, but most importantly with guts to read and hear our own selves (and now is my Socratic stomach speaking). And yes, this is a narcissistic activity, but what is not? Even when we are helping someone else, as much as it seems so altruistic, we are actually helping and thinking of ourselves, for that action comes from solely, only and lonely our own hearts, making it beneficial to our own personal growth, and if we are lucky enough may benefit others in our way to our epiphanies. And that's why I write.