Interview with ZJ Galos

Published 2015-09-19.
What's the story behind your latest book?
The story is about a Martial Arts Club, where the protagonist is a champion Tai Chi fighter and he also owns the club. The antagonist, a member in the same club plots to destroy the hero's reputation and take over the successful Martial Arts Club. The Tai Chi Champion suffers from the heinous attacks on his life and endures sacrifices to save his club and recover from his wounds. Two love of two women will have a decisive impact on his life: the loss of his girlfriend and the success of a surgeon, who heals his face marred by an accident caused by tampering on his car. Living in a menage-a-trois is paradise on earth, until the surgeon is kidnapped. In a final fight the hero seems to have the upper hand on the antagonist, who has suddenly a gun held against him and the kidnapped woman he is about to free. But there is another woman, abused by the antagonist waiting in the shadows. Will she turn the dice in favour of the protagonist and his girlfriend?
What motivated you to become an indie author?
I have started writing journals and short stories, having joined a writing workshop in South Africa. My writer friend from Kansas introduced me to smashwords. It became a new way of a writing life.
How has Smashwords contributed to your success?
Thanks to Mark and his team I have learned to transfer my manuscripts into eBook formatting and their website welcomed me without charging me upfront with the burden of high publishing costs like many other publishers ask for. Besides the future of publishing is the eBook and the future of writing has been taken onto an exciting and wonderful journey that benefits everybody, everywhere.
What is the greatest joy of writing for you?
Writing has become for me a way of life, since the passing of a dearest friend, who introduced me to deeper understanding of poetry. She furthered my literary efforts and kept me focused on my progress through many years. We have detected our love for the written word in correspondence, in poetry and in daily exercises that bring expressions of human emotions to the fore. That is my greatest joy of writing about: the dialogue of innerness.
What do your fans mean to you?
I wish to have a steady growing number of fans who enjoy reading my writings. It is important to bring joy to others and to express one's own life and experiences to share with them. Of course I love to write fiction with a mix of faction and lyrical prose interwoven and I hope it has good entertainment value. Fans are like sponsors, who buy a work of art, whereby encouraging the artist to create more works of art. So is writing, one book liked is encouragement to write another book.
What are you working on next?
I am working on a sequel for my fiction series about my protagonist, Zsolt, an artist turned PI. The book is the third in the series of the "Tango Man'.
Who are your favorite authors?
Oh there are many. However. besides the classical authors we read at college, Hemingway, Bateille, Truman Capote, Henry Miller, Albert Camus, Luis Borges, Milan Kundera, John Updike, Amos Oz, JM Coetzee, Istvan Kertesz, and many more.
What inspires you to get out of bed each day?
Writing a poem and conceive a drawing with first thoughts, leading me to my next chapter of a novel.
When you're not writing, how do you spend your time?
I observe people, listen to their talk in my favourite coffee places and eateries. I draw concepts for my book covers. I take some snapshots of unusual objects I see around me.
How do you discover the ebooks you read?
There are many on smashwords to choose and sample. It's a treasure chest.
Do you remember the first story you ever wrote?
The first story for a competition in a writing workshops of 'Writers Write' was "Educating Pizzy", a memoir of growing up.
What is your writing process?
From my journal writing often a prompt emerges. From a competition a given theme. If I have to adhere to a time frame, like in NaNoMo, the writing month, I plan my chapters to a basic plot I come up with. During writing the names of my characters emerge and gain a life on their own. I can see them in front of me as I describe them and they will take action through dialogue. If I have no pressing time frame, I write away, until some pattern emerges and the ideas will form out of these actions, just like a painter starts drawing and painting a canvas.
Do you remember the first story you ever read, and the impact it had on you?
The first stories I read were related to Greek mythological figures, like Hercules. I saw many statues of him in Vienna, fashionable in the baroque era, as a figurative column holding up balconies above palace entrances.
The stories inspired my mind and led me to read on more with modern adventures.
How do you approach cover design?
I have my own selections of drawings and paintings I am using.
Describe your desk
My desk is a loan from my landlord. One day he brought me a table from his restaurant, as my wife and I moved into a three roomed apartment, wherby the kitchen and the bath constitute a room each here in Austria. However, as small as the place might be, I have become attached to my working space in the generous kitchenette. It became my domain, as I close the door and nobody will disturb me day, or night. Here with a view across a courtyard and to the fliage of green trees of the Viennese Woods, my inspiration has never failed me. I can paint and write.
Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?
I grew up in a small village in eastern Austria and close to the borders of Hungary. Grandpa had built a one-storey house and behind it stretched the endless meadows of the undulated hills toward dense woods. The village had a castle, once built as bollwork against the invading turkish armies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A river flows through that village that had become since the 1980's a provincila city. My first memoirs are relating back to the days after the Second World War had been finished.
When did you first start writing?
I have written poetry with the age of fifteen, having fallen in love with a beautiful girl next door. During ma secondary school I continued with my writing, inspired through movies and the emerging beat gerneration. Later at university I would collect short stories from my friends and during travelling through Europe Later during my stay in Johannesburg, South Africa, I would join a writers group, coached by Amanda Patterson and having been encouraged by my Greek girlfriend, who was a poet in her own right.
What are your five favorite books, and why?
1. The Three Musketiers, by Alexandre Dumas. It is great adventure and bravery by the sworn three, fighting for their king.
2. Greek Mythologie of Heroes. As it is the klassical source, which I had been given as an eight year old to read and the amazing tales about Hercules never left me since.
3. The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy. For me a wonderful romantic novel.
4. Ulysses by James Joice. A fascinating new way of modern storytelling overlayed with reflections and condensing past, present and future.
5. Sexus, Nexus, Plexus by Henry Miller. The Classik erotic trilogy.
What do you read for pleasure?
What friends let me have und what I find at secondhand bookshops: from Stefan Zweig, Arthur Schnitzler and Imre Kertesz to Kundera and Handke. For the philosophical approach I read Albert Camus.
What is your e-reading device of choice?
I use presently my Laptop.
What book marketing techniques have been most effective for you?
Personal marketing amongst friends and associates for reasons of budget.
What are you writing at present?
I have finalised "Zora's Mistake", a novel about a couple, emigrating to South Africa and returning back to their starting point in Europe. A fascinating insight into a Love-Hate relationship, against the bacjground of the trip of a lifetime. Secondly, I am finishing as well a novel, called "The Mill below Owl Castle." A tale of a boy growing up in a small country town together with his girlfriend. Together thex experience their awaking hearts und experiencing first love.
How did you start writing?
Encouraged by a friend, I joined a writers workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2000.
How did the 'Writers Write-Workshop' inspire you?
At first I had to cope with reading aloud my page long exercises given to us by our facilitators, mostly writers themselves.
When did you write your first Novel?
The idea to my first novel happened during a workshop session. During a brainstorming event, my writing partner, a pretty woman, teamed up with me and we created the working title. We started to outline the story and of course this changed during subsequent meetings. But it created the spark to carry on writing. And we each created our novels from then on individually.
Which genres did you select to write in?
At first I wrote a journal, as i went along and what I experienced around me. Then during subsequent workshops and competitions I had been inspired and encouraged enough to spread out into memoirs, adventure stories and thrillers, poetry and fantasy novels.
Hpw did you go about publishing?
I have contacted publishers, mainly in England, as South Africa did not publish genres I wrote in.
Have you been successful with an overseas publisher?
I have been encouraged to carry on writing, but my novels and Lyrics had been declined.
Did this discourage you?
Of course I have been disappointed, but believed that eventually my talents in creating my specific characters in my novels, will be liked by readers. Of course my friends and associates seemed to like my books, but would they be objective with their critique?
So I carried on finding a publishing outlet and finally smashwords.com offered me a home, without stripping me of my hard-earned money upfront..
And you were successful there?
Yes, after I learned the way E-books are to be styled,and uploaded, I have started to let interested folk read my writings. Indeed, my books created a lot of interest.
Do you forsee any pecuniary success as well?
Yes, in good time I hope, I will attract a growing readership, who will inspire me to write more. This way there will be a good time for everybody, as the books are priced affordable for the general public. I intend to share my love for storytelling with the world.
What are you busy with at present?
At present I am translating my books into German. At the same time I am busy with plotting the next chapters for the thriller series: of the 'Tango Man'.
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