Please welcome author Justin Bog who is promoting his new book, Sandcastles and Other Stories. Be sure to check out the YouTube trailer at the end of his post!
Welcome Justin!
Justin
Bog's 10 Secrets Of Sandcastle and Other Stories
First
of all, before I begin to speak about Sandcastle and Other Stories, my
new book of literary and psychological tales, I want to thank Kari and From The
TBR Pile Blog for hosting a stop on my Virtual Book Tour. Every place I have
visited so far has been interesting and keep my curious engines running
smoothly.
If
you read my A Writer's Life Blog (www.justinbog.com),
where I collect recommendations in pop culture, bits of unpublished writing,
both novel sections and tales for future collections, you may know that I love
Top Ten Lists. Best books for Summer is a List I love to put together; the Top
10 Favorite Albums that help me create List is an ongoing thread, best films,
best writers . . . and got me thinking of a theme for this Guest Post. I don't
speak about writing much, the process. I just sit down and write. Love to
listen to music while I write, and . . . (first secret)
Secret
#1) I don't worry about any "rules" of writing. I do recommend
writers learn the rules of writing, and make up their own -- if at all possible
in this day and age. No rule is carved in stone. Follow your muse.
Secret
#2) My muse leads me to very dark places at times, and I tend to send her to
Tahiti when she's finished, if only so that she can soak up the sun; she loves
to snorkel in Bora Bora.
Some
people love first person over third person -- or the least used point of view,
the lonely second person -- or the exact opposite. You learn about someone's
tastes this way, but nothing is wrong; it's only a preference.
Secret
#3) In Sandcastle and Other Stories I wanted to mix up the first and
third person POV, have some of the more verbose characters narrate. In the
first story, the old gardener in The Virtue of Minding Your Own Business
has a weary voice, and I loved his language, and listening to what he had to
say about what happened in his life and what drove him.
Secret
#5) Big secret: My mother gave me the idea for the story Mothers of Twins.
She had three pregnancies, and wound up with five kids. I have an older sister,
a fraternal twin brother, and my younger sister and brother are twins. I did
not base any of the characters in this story on anyone in real life, except
there were identical twin girls who lived in the same dorm my freshman year at
the University of Michigan -- but they did share a dorm room, unlike the twins
in my story.
Secret
#6) I lived in several of the places the short stories were set. I did not live
in Maine, but I visited, and thought about an old gardener working for a
wealthy family on an island for The Virtue of Minding Your Own Business.
My father grew up on the Jersey shore, a Seaside Heights bad boy of the late
forties and fifties -- I can picture him on that reality show today, which only
makes me laugh -- and he took us five Bog kids to the shore to visit our
grandmother throughout childhood; I set Sandcastle there. The book's
cover art, this Jersey shore, is a detail from one of my dad's Boardwalk Series
paintings (see more Dad & Mom Bog art here: www.bogdanovitch.com). I did live in
Michigan, lower and northern, and Mothers of Twins and parts of Typecast
are set there. I have been on only one cruise, but I never lived in Atlanta
like the gentleman from When the Ship Sinks. I grew up in Granville,
Ohio, the setting for Cats In Trees and On the Back Staircase,
and both these stories use my family home as a location. I have lived in both
southern and northern California, the settings for Typecast and Poseidon
Eyes. Under the Third Story Window is set in a neighborhood
that is hanging on in a running-down part of Chicago. The final story, Train
Crash, I imagine taking place in a train station down the road a bit from
Chicago, a town I visited several times in my life.
7)
The seventh secret? In the original order of the stories, before hitting the
publishing button at Amazon, I had On the Back Staircase as the second
story and Sandcastle as the second to last tale. I switched them to what
you'll find in the book after reading the collection for the fiftieth time
because I didn't want the three stories that mention twins to be the first
three; at one time I did, and, besides, Sandcastle needed to hit
the reader sooner.
Secret
#8) Despite the suspense or shocking tales within Sandcastle and Other
Stories, I wanted to also share a sense of humor, a turn of phrase that would
make someone laugh when a character said or did something. My sense of humor
runs to the dry. Please let me know if you found anything funny about the
tales, the characters, or their situations.
Secret
#9) I love secrets. I don't keep secrets. One of those annoying traits really
because no one likes to be around someone who won't keep a secret. When someone
says to me, "Don't tell anyone else this, but . . ."
I
reply, "Nope, don't tell me. Because time will pass and I'll forget what
you told me is your secret, and I'll be talking to someone else and then there
goes your secret, and you'll be mad at me for revealing something you thought
you told me in confidence and we won't be friends anymore."
"Oh."
And then the friend will usually tell me anyway. I won't hurt anyone's feelings
with a hard truth. Usually, it's not my place to do so. The characters in Sandcastle
and Other Stories have secrets that drive them, motivate their actions
every waking moment. Some of these secrets are huge, while some are smaller,
but no less intimate or emotional when discovered.
Secret
#10) The final secret about Sandcastle and Other Stories is that it was
not going to be my first published book. I was ready to put out my novel, Wake
Me Up, last year. Life got in the way. I hadn't built up an author platform
for self-publishing. No one knew me in the social media world. So, I decided to
take the stories I published to my blog, revise them heavily, and make them the
introduction to my writing. I'm very happy I did, and I love hearing how the
stories hit people, make them feel something. Thank you very much for reading,
and I encourage you to contact me after you read Sandcastle and Other
Stories to let me know what you think.
All
the best to you, and thank you for reading,
Justin
YouTube trailer: http://youtu.be/Q1cqLVKHc4k
YouTube trailer: http://youtu.be/Q1cqLVKHc4k
Author info:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Sandcastle-and-Other-Stories-ebook/dp/B0081NXXO8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341623850&sr=8-1&keywords=sandcastle+and+other+stories
Twitter @JustinBog link: https://twitter.com/JustinBog
Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/JustinBog1
7 comments:
What a wonderfully revealing interview, Justin. I love hearing your rules about 'no rules.' That's so freeing as a writer. I read a post at least every day: do this, not that. I'm with you -- follow your muse, fix stuff later (if necessary).
Kudos for your insights!
Rachel, you are so great to follow this book tour of mine. I love your insight into the writing process. It's different for every single writer, and should be, but we can all gather later (drinks?) and talk about what strikes us well. Thank you very very much.
Hi Justin. I loved hearing some extra snippets about your life. You do very good interviews and are a super interesting author. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Justin - great interview. I love a good secret and it's so interesting to hear about the background to your stories. Thanks for sharing:)
Wonderful to see you Dionne and Jane! And thank you for stopping by and leaving your comments. Secrets turn good characters into great fiction. That reveal moment is the moment I look for. Best to you and your writing lives -- always. Justin
Thanks for another great interview. Love hearing about the personal background behind the fiction especially.
You are terrific Brandy for following me on my book tour. thank you very much. I can't wait for your own.
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