Continuing from last week…Welcome to Part 2 of my interview
with author Kevin R. Hill. I mentioned
in Part 1 that I had a feeling Mr. Hill was full of surprises. Little did I know that the title and cover of his book we were discussing
would change between my blog posts! I’d
like to think it’s because I had such wonderful questions for him and he was
inspired. All joking aside, one of the
best parts of being an Indie Author is having the flexibility to make all the
changes you want. Therefore, I’m honored
to announce the title for “Touching
Spirits, The Mayan Case” has been officially changed to “The Mayan Case.” The last part of this interview ran a little
long, but I assure you Mr. Hill is a very entertaining writer.
Let me
explain why I changed the title and cover. It was a difficult decision to make, but
several readers contacted me and in their email they mentioned they nearly
didn’t bother with my book because with the ‘Touching Spirits’ title, they
originally thought it a new age book. That
simply wouldn’t do. I wondered how many
had been put off by the title. So, I had
my designer create a cover that left no doubt as to the type of book. With the new badge and gun, it is clearly an
action/suspense novel.
Kevin, I
enjoyed reading your book, The Mayan
Case. The way you describe main hero
Cody’s reactions to the ghosts were insightful and real. Did you ever have any personal encounters
with the supernatural?
So, you’re
asking if I want to go on record as having a screw loose. I laugh. ‘I think not.’ However,
I don’t laugh at those who believe in
the existence of ghosts, but rather listen with a writer’s ear for good
fiction.
 |
| Kevin R. Hill, Author |
Let me
relate an example of good listening. I
lived in a Mayan village on the Caribbean in the mid-eighties. There was one tin roof market in town. Most of the houses were built of jungle poles
and topped with palm fronds. It was a
slow, magical life. I wore sandals,
shorts and a tank top, all day long. The
bank opened at 9am, or closer to 10am if the clerk who opened the doors stayed
in bed longer than usual to get a quickie.
If you were
at a party and the host ran out of beer at one in the morning, no problem. He just jumped in his car and drove down the
one road to Ramone’s house, and got him out of bed to open the liquor store.
A friend’s mother-in-law ran a small hotel at
one end of town. One of four cabanas
that sat on the beach was haunted by the Alux, or so said the mother-in-law. The Alux are a mythological creature said to
reside in the area, and described as fun-loving, black leprechauns. Although she tried a hundred times to rent the
haunted cabana, customers would always come to the front desk the next morning,
or during the night, if they dared walk up the dark path along the beach, and
ask to change rooms.
She said
they never specified why they wanted to change rooms. Most would mumble something like: ‘It’s just a
feeling I get.’ Vacationers could feel
something in that room.
So, is
there a creature known in Yucatan as Alux, or is it nonsense? While I was there I was commissioned to write
an article for a tourist magazine. The
title was to be, ‘Who were the Ancient Maya.’ So I borrowed a bunch of history books and
began reading about the ancient Maya. At
some point, days into the research, I read mention of a text that describes a
black dwarf with magical powers that helped build the Mayan city of Uxmal. That stopped me cold.
I put two
and two together. I had locals telling
stories about black leprechauns, and now mention of a black dwarf with magical
powers. Was that dwarf an Alux? It didn’t matter whether I believed in their
existence or not. What mattered was it
was great stuff for a book.
Those
stories of the Alux found their way into ‘Touching Spirits, The Mayan Case,’ my
most recent book. I use the Alux to
create suspense and intrigue. So, to
answer your question: Where fiction is concerned I’m willing to say, What if….
What part
of Cody reflects you?
Cody is
dear to my heart. I lived in the house I
describe in the book, with the frog named Ralph in the toilet tank, a feral cat
who hunted lizards in the house while I typed, and spiders larger in diameter
than a golf ball! But with the sound of
the surf drifting through my window, those things didn’t matter. Often I awoke in my hammock singing, carrying
from a dream the melody. It was Writer’s
Paradise! I was paying $40 a month for a
house on the Caribbean, spear fishing daily and eating free lobster. I hope the love I have for my special village,
for my abandoned house, comes alive in my book. Part of me does live in Cody.
Do you hear
from your readers much? What kinds of
things do they have to say?
I found
getting email from readers to be a scary experience. Although my magazine articles are highly
commercial, my fiction has always been a rather private endeavor. But suddenly, after I published ‘Touching
Spirits, The Mayan Case,’ readers were contacting me and I didn’t know what to
do. I had fans! Who were these people? It took time for me to adjust to being read
and liked for my fiction. Some readers
loved the cooking I described, and wanted recipes from Yucatan. Others loved Cody’s pet cats. Most, however, went on about the village, the
quaint little village I lived in and loved.
Of all the
books you’ve written, which is your favorite?
Why?
I guess my
favorite was my first, about a group of people I call travelers, who gather on
a farm in Switzerland to harvest apples. It is dear to me because for many years I was
a traveler and roamed Europe, Africa, and the Middle-East. I harvested apples in Switzerland, hay in
Denmark, and taught English to German businessmen while living in a tent beside
the Rhine.
Travel is
education. It frees the mind of social
constraints imposed by society. We all
know what is expected of us to be good Americans, how to act, what to do. But take any American and plop them down in
Cairo, Egypt, and suddenly their sense of self is shaken. How should they act? They are liberated to try new things, thrilled
by new ideas. Haven’t you felt that
thrill of being in a new place when you go on vacation? It affects a person deeply. Now imagine traveling with only a back pack,
hitch hiking from country to country for years! I experienced that exuberance. That is why the first book, which I am now
rewriting and preparing to publish, is dear to me. I lived it.
If you
could go back in time, what advice would you give to your younger self?
‘Stop being
so serious!’ Life is great, even when
it’s shitty.
Any advice
you would like to give to aspiring writers?
Writing is
craft. Study it. Practice makes perfect; practice and about
forty rewrites. I’d also like to add
something a bit controversial: Writers, study plot and the formula for genre
fiction. Then, decide what you want to
be as a writer. Do you want to add to
the world’s collection of a million mysteries, or another genre novel, or,
heaven forbid, do you want to write art? Do you want to write fiction that people stay
up all night reading, frantically turning pages, racing through action or
suspense or romantic scenes, and forget your name by the end of the week? Or, do you want to try to write that rare book
that readers lovingly brush with fingertips as they pass it on the shelf, or
don’t want to finish because they feel as though reading it is like being with
a good friend? You decide.
If you
choose the latter, remember that above all else, writers are entertainers. If you don’t entertain, no one will read you! So, I repeat, know plot, know the genre
formula, the three act structure, because even if you want to be the modern
Faulkner, you have to capture the reader, and that is done with time-proven
plot structure, and masterful literary devices. Take for example Arthur Conan Doyle, and his
Sherlock Holmes series. Watson, when you
think about him, is there as a literary device. Because Holmes has to tell Watson how he
reaches his conclusions, the reader is informed. Know the tricks. Know the game. Entertain.
Then, take
the reader to that deep dark secret you don’t want anyone to know about. That is not something to hide. It is the writer’s gift. Illuminate it with fiction, unless it will get
you arrested! Good luck.—Kevin R. Hill
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The
questions Mr. Hill asked me can be found on his July 14, 2016 blog post titled:
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