Q: In one sentence, tell me something that describes you as a person?
A: I would say I am a math geek who loves to read!
Q: How many books have you written? How many of those are published?
A: The Girl At The Bar is my debut book and the only published one. I am currently working on my second novel set during the last days of World War II. The book title is still under wraps because I don’t want to give the story setting away just yet. There was an interesting time period during the Second World War that I chose as the backdrop.
Hitler died, having committed suicide, on April 30th, 1945 but the war in Europe did not end with his death. Germany continued fighting the Allies and surrendered only a week later on May 7th, 1945. During these days between his death and eventual German surrender, an unimaginable series of events took place that remains unexplained and shrouded in mystery to this very day. My second novel revolves around one of those events during that period of uncertainty, with my imagination filling in the blanks that history has left unanswered forever.
I first read about it a few years ago and I always wondered to myself, “What exactly happened there? Why did they the retreating Germans that? Who was really responsible? What were they thinking?”
I searched and searched and searched and never found any satisfactory answers. That was when I said to myself, “Hmm, that’s interesting. The magnitude of what happened then was immense and here we are over 70 years later and we still don’t know much about it.” That’s when I decided to write my second book around these bizarre events.
Q: Tell me about how you come up with your titles for your stories. Do you create the title before or after you write the book, and does it ever change from the initial title?
A: I chose the title THE GIRL AT THE BAR after writing maybe the first couple of lines of the book. The first chapter is about this strange guy meeting this stunning woman at the bar and I chose the simplest title I could think of. As I continued writing the book, I felt this was a pretty apt title and I liked the simplicity behind it. It’s such an easy concept to understand. Everyone at some point has met a person of the opposite sex at a bar that they remember fondly. I felt like the title had that ring to it.
Q: Out of all your characters in all of your books, who/what (sometimes a setting can also be an important “character”) do you think is the most interesting and why?
A: That would be Ragnar Johnson, someone who is based in some respects on me. Ragnar is a brilliant math whiz but slightly socially awkward. He is very intelligent and thinks out of the box. He does not have the best luck in the world despite how smart he is. He makes wrong choices, gets into all sorts of trouble but still thinks off his feet, trying to make the best of circumstances that are handed to him.
Some of the choices Ragnar makes in the book are in several respects how I would react to circumstances, so I would pretty much do what he does in the book. It’s eerie how I subconsciously created him and several chapters later I realized he was me! Hmm…
Q: Without quoting your back cover synopsis, tell me about the last book you published.
A: Rebecca Chase is a brilliant cancer researcher in The Girl At The Bar. She is an extremely attractive and smart person who everyone likes. She is someone who can get whatever she wants in life just based on her looks. However, she wants to use her intelligence for a higher purpose in life, namely to find a true cure for cancer. She believes that intelligence is a gift that must be used responsibly and not wasted. After a one night stand, she mysteriously disappears. The book is a psychological thriller, a race against time to find Rebecca.
Q: Tell me something about yourself that is separate from writing.
A: I’ve been in New York City for over a decade now and I love every moment of it. That said, I travel to across the country for work and enjoy the different places, food and people everywhere I go.
Q: Who is your favorite Author?
A: I enjoyed reading Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged) and Daniel Yergin (The Prize). Their work is sweeping in vision with a whole bunch of interesting characters and intriguing story lines that are grand. In the case of The Prize, those are real people and real history. I enjoy reading stories with multiple characters and complex intertwined story lines. Simple two or three character stories don’t appeal to me much.
Q: What is the last book that you read? (Not counting anything you wrote)
A: I immensely enjoyed Andy Weir’s The Martian. When I found out that Andy was a first time writer but wrote about what he knew best, I was really inspired to follow in his footsteps and write about topics that I knew quite a bit about – cutting edge research for cancer.
Q: When writing, do you have a system or something you plan, or do you just write?
A: I started my first book as a pantser but soon realized that I wrote better as a plotter. I love reading about and hence also writing about multiple characters with multiple story lines. You have to plot out the interwoven story lines and how the characters collide with each other as the plot unwinds. I sketch out roughly the sequence of events spanning 4-5 chapters during the week in a note pad. I then spend the weekend transcribing my ideas and outline into a real story during the weekend. I don’t target any specific number of pages but do keep an eye on the word count. One of my most productive weekends was a 10,000 word count weekend.
Q: Why do you write?
A: I enjoy weaving together interesting facts, life experiences and research on topics, each of which can be disparate, into a seamless story. I also enjoy interacting with readers, learning what they like, what they dislike and hearing from them.
Q: Do you read your own work a lot? If so, what does it do for you?
A: When I am working on the book, I do tend to re-read a lot of chapters to make sure the book is flowing well. However, once the book is complete, I don’t really read the whole book again, maybe parts of it.
Q: What is your favorite type of music? Is there one genre (or song, band etc...) that brings out your creativeness more than others?
A: I like to listen to rock music. Besides the usual staple of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Def Leppard and Guns N Roses, I like The Veils, Home Ties, Kings At Heart and Light Your Anchor. The Veils has an incredible discography. Finn Andrews is highly underrated and probably one of the best song writers of his generation.
THE GIRL AT THE BAR starts off with Ragnar returning from an indie rock show. That was based on a performance by The Veils at the Bowery Ballroom that I went for. That was my little tribute to the band.
Q: As an author, I find that the hardest thing to write (for me) is the synopsis that will be on the back cover or book’s description. When you write, what is the hardest line to write, the first line, the last line or the synopsis for the book?
A: The hardest part is getting different character voices and styles. There is a constant fear about getting it right. One of the characters in the book is an introvert transgender billionaire. Now that’s a tough one. I understand what being an introvert means, but what about the other two – being transgender or being fabulously wealthy? I try to draw on my interactions and real-life experiences, but yeah, it is difficult and the constant fear of getting it wrong pushes me to be more careful about writing characters of the opposite sex.
Q: Any final thoughts that you want to give to your fans or even future authors?
A: I do hope The Girl At The Bar does well with readers and I do hope someday someone decides to make a movie out of the book. Not for the money. I have a story to tell and I would love to see that story being told in different mediums. I know I’m thinking three steps ahead and expecting too much, but that’s what being an author is all about – imagining what could be.
Also, I would love to hear from readers, whether you liked the book or not. My email address is thegirlatthebar@gmail.com. I am very responsive and nothing would please me more than to hear from my readers and fans.