Life is about the journey, and not the destination, and what a journey my life has been. We are the sum total of our experiences, and not what we eat, in my humble opinion, and when I start talking about my life to people – just before their eyes glaze over – they often say: “You should write a book.” So I have, several in fact. I left school at fifteen in a totally different era to today. I got involved with the music business as a long haired rock guitarist, wrote poems and music and gave it all up for love. I've threatened to write a book for so many years my wife eventually pushed me into it by buying me a new laptop and said: "No more excuses, do it." And so began this amazing journey.
Thrillers and crime genres have always fascinated me, and in particular, the dark world of serial killers, and while my beginnings were in the ‘Make love not war’ sentiment, I love a good, unputdownable, thriller. You know, the kind you just want to read one more chapter of at three in the morning before bed, but you have to be up at six to go to work. Have I succeeded in creating stories that can take people to that place? I hope so.
My first book, Forever Night, was contracted and
published by The Totally Entwined Group's now defunct Evidence Press, and it
was followed by a trilogy of Domin8, The Vigilante Taxi and Burial Ground.
Repo, my fifth, saw me return to two characters from Forever Night as new
private investigators trying to save a man from jail for a murder he did not
commit. The folks at The Wild Rose Press were gracious enough to offer to publish
Thirty Three Days. They have also contracted another Trilogy called Deadly
Glimpses. I hope I have many more books in me, I often say: I
work for a living, but write for a passion.
Did you always want
to be a writer?
The short
answer is yes. In my younger days I wrote poetry and short stories then got
involved in a band as a guitarist so I switched to writing songs. But, in my
soul I always yearned to write books because for as far back as I can remember,
I’ve been deluged with ideas that I felt needed to be told. Once I married and
had children, I gave up music, and spent many years making excuses not to write
that first book. My wife bless her, after I had the inspiration to write my
first book, Forever Night, bought me a laptop and told me no more excuses. Come
to think of it, as Thirty Three Days is book number six, and I spend a lot of
time writing; she’s probably come to regret it.
How did you get
started in your road to publication?
Leonard Cohen
is responsible for my first book. Aline
in on of his songs ‘spoke’ to me. The line was: ‘I live among you, well
disguised.’ Long story short, Forever Night was born, the story of a tortured
soul who fell in love while being an SAS soldier, but then was wounded and
through circumstances became a highly trained Serial Killer. It was almost
Kismet that when it was finished its six re-writes I saw a post from a UK
publisher launching Evidence Press and they were open to submissions. The
timing was perfect, as in life often the right things need to happen at the
right time, so I submitted it, and their senior editor fell in love with the
concept and the story, and told me all the things I needed to do before they
could accept it. I dutifully did what she asked and they contracted it
immediately. They also allocated me an editor to work with on whatever other
projects I had, and with her help I wrote a trilogy of Domin8, The Vigilante
Taxi, and Burial Ground. But then fate stepped in. They were bought out by a
big publishing house who promptly shut down the Evidence line and my bubble had
burst. I am so thrilled to now be with NY publisher The Wild Rose Press, who
are delightful to deal with, always respond to emails, and gave this Australian
a chance.
Tell us about your
new book and where you got the idea for it.
I’m almost
(but not quite) embarrassed to say the basic plot came to me in a dream. One so
vivid I sat up in bed and woke my wife to tell her – and she is not someone who
likes to be woken early. It’s a story of different facets, a love story that
transcends time itself, a tale of genetic modification and the possibility of
modifying a blight so that it cannot be stopped. It’s also about a soccer team,
who never get above third place because they have forgotten to believe in
themselves until Jenny comes along. It’s a story of love trying to find a way
to last forever, when probably it can’t, and it’s about learning what is
important in life.
How did you come up with your characters for this book?
I’ve long been drawn to telling what
I call ‘impossible love stories’ where two people cannot possibly make a
relationship work, despite their feelings, or can love somehow find a way? I
had a dream about Jenny, a lonely sixty eight year old woman who spent her life
attaining three masters’ degrees and then became a university lecturer and
never had the time or inclination to date men. When she gets a chance to send
her consciousness back in time to her thirty-five year old body on a mission to
save the future of mankind for me it was the perfect chance to write my
impossible love story. Because she can only stay in the past for thirty three
days, and she meets the father of her target, a widower who too thought he
would never find love again. They both find the kind of happiness that comes
once in a lifetime, but she must go back to the future, and will have no memory
of him when she does.
Where do you normally get ideas for your plots?
Often it’s just a spark. Sometimes a random thought that I
feel I need to explore. The only way I can do that is to write, and get lost in
my own world. Case in point is Glimpse. I was driving along one day, not
thinking anything specific when I had the most bizarre thought pop into my
head. Do not ask me why or how, but the thought was: ‘I was five years old when
I first saw someone bleed out.’ Now I hasten to add, that never happened in my
real life, but the thought was overpowering, and so when I got home I started
to write who, why and how someone would say that, and so a trilogy was born.
How do you create your characters?
Generally
the plot dictates the people. For me though, the single most important part of
being a writer is to get the characters right. If I can get the reader invest
in them, then, and only then can I make them care what happens. I spend a lot
of time, trying to make sure I get that right. I worked in the music industry,
and have been General Manager of large car dealerships for many years, so have
met a lot of diverse people to draw on for inspiration.
What is special about your hero and heroine?
Jenny is everything she thinks she isn’t. She takes an
enormous leap of faith in the word of a stranger to take a drug and go back in
time to save the world. She things she is unattractive, boring and
uninteresting, yet she is braver than she knows, and get a chance to learn that
what she thought was important in life, wasn’t. Its love and family that count
more than anything, which she discovers when she falls in love for the fist and
only time in her life. I love that about her.
How about a blurb?
Jenny is a lonely
university lecturer who's consciousness has traveled back in time to her
younger body to try to save the future of the world. A young microbiologist is
going to release a genetically modified wheat that will mutate and ultimately
destroy all plant life, leaving nothing but barren windswept dust bowls. In the
past, Jenny finds a love that has been missing from her life; the kind that
comes just once in a lifetime. But Jenny can only stay in that time period for
thirty-three days. Meanwhile, in the future, fearful Jenny will fail, plans are
made to send another back in time--an assassin. How can she choose between
saving the man she loves or saving the future?
What are you working on now (or your next project)
TWRP have contracted
books 1 and 2 of a Trilogy called: Deadly Glimpses. Over three books I tell the
story of four people, two couples, whose lives become entwined. One is Rick, a
cop whose marriage is shaky due to a previous affair. In the build up to Y2K
and the mass hysteria that surrounded the fear of all computers shutting down
at midnight December 31 1999, he is paired with a glamorous criminal
psychologist to assists in tracking down a serial killer called PPP. It’s an
era when female police battled for equality, and psychologists were seen to be
the enemy. Her working with Rick leads to a mutual attraction and they battle
their desires for each other. Book 1 is called Glimpse, Memoir of a Serial Killer,
and see’s Patricia Holmes stabbed during the confrontation with PPP causing her
husband to want her to cease working with the cops. Book 2, Glimpse, The
Beautiful Deaths sees Pat recover and be recalled to the police when 6 teenage
girls’ bodies are found in a cave. Their attraction is reignited as they
investigate a man who is addicted to beauty. Book 3, Glimpse, The Tender
Killer, sees Pat separate from her controlling husband and Rick’s marriage in
tatters as they investigate a killer suffering situation schizophrenia. The
relationship comes to boiling point, an affair inevitable, just as PPP escapes
custody to wreak revenge.
How can readers reach you or find you online?
www.stephen-b-king.com
twitter: @stephenBKing1
Facebook: @stephenbkingauthor
twitter: @stephenBKing1
Facebook: @stephenbkingauthor
Thank you so much, Stephen, for being my guest today. Any questions or comments for Stephen?
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