Interview with Just an old man who writes
Published 2014-11-20.
What do you read for pleasure?
When I was a boy I read science fiction, now I read social fiction, mostly. Really what someone reads is a direct function of what they think, of who they are, of who they want to be. And I'm old, what am I doing reading social fiction?, well, we're all social creatures. Reading, and this is universal, is fun. Not should be fun, IS fun. If that's not true something is wrong.
I also read the Bible. We're a country that, value-wise, is falling apart, We've changed and the problems we read about (say online at the news portals,) portray our decline.
I don't think I can reverse this. I've tried, I used to counsel people, mostly young people. Again, I don't think I helped anyone, maybe one, maybe two, ask me in two years. If I actually did help it'll probably be evident then. Of course I also, this is the truth, the first person I counseled I hurt. Not intentionally.
Counseling might seem easy, it's not. I asked my client for a few weeks, and strengthened my skill-set, especially in the areas needed. Did I effect change? Yes, but again, ask me about her in two, maybe three years.
Describe your desk
I do computer science research, I don't have a desk. I have computers, these days laptops.
Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?
I grew up in Florida, (south Florida, around Miami,) the only child of a single Mom.
I wrote about a relationship I had with an older woman, a nurse. I was 25, she was (I think,) nearing 40, maybe 38. I'm not sure how or why but the nurses at a Miami nursing school (apparently, I'm not certain,) passed me around. I would come back to Miami from college and, well, it's in one of my books. Although it's R-rated (at least,) and I am not sure what I want to do with it.
One thing, who someone dates is very different, sometimes, most of the time, from who they want to marry. I dated one kind of woman, but I married a 25 year old virgin and 35, nearly 36 years later I'm still married to her. Happily too.
That nurse?, a year or so later I began to get it. She had loved me. really loved me. And I had just used her. I had moved, I lived far away but I returned and met with her to tell her I had been a jerk and was deeply sorry.
I'm old now. Years ago though, I saw some incredible ceilings, showed them to my wife, too.
So what has this to do with writing?, nothing.
When did you first start writing?
I remember, I remember very exactly. I was flying back to Miami from St. Croix, where the Navy had a pier, I had been an officer on the Aluminaut, (a private sub, owned and operated by Reynolds Aluminum,) and was flying back to register for college. The flight had stops, one in Puerto Rico. I got off the plane and took a room in the only neighborhood I could afford, spending a week trying to write. I also tried to meet the locals but they were very afraid of me. I was only there to write but they acted like I was there for their daughters, probably right...
What's the story behind your latest book?
I wrote one book about two nurses I used to date. Ah, something I learned, no one, at least no artist, views his work as pornography. As I wrote it seemed perfectly valid and kosher. It is however very graphic. One of those women loved me and too late I realized I loved her too. Only about a million years too late.
She was older than me. I may have been 25 but I was merely a callow youth. People confuse sex and love, I did. At least I married well. I've been married to someone for 35 years and we still love each other. She's disabled now but she has credit with me, enough for centuries and centuries...
About my latest book. I counsel people, and chanced to meet a young woman who just might, some day, be on the run in Iran. I've written this to provide her with some basic guidance.
And how do I know such stuff?, well here you just have to trust me...
What motivated you to become an indie author?
I didn't realize I was.
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