John Espie

Author of the Week John Espie speaks candidly in an interview, come and discover this exciting new writer.

Oh, you're that kid! There's lots of us about! What’s the main thing you love and hate about writing?

I love the fact that when I write, I’m in total control of my world… even if “total control” mainly involves me torturing my protagonists. Plus, it is beyond cool to pick up something after a long while, read it, and think, “Wow! Who wrote that???” and then realize that it was me. As far as what I hate about it… there’s just not enough hours in the day to write and do everything else necessary for living. I squeeze it in when I can, and it’s often accompanied with a fair amount of guilt that I’m not spending the time with my wife or kids instead.

Speaking of torture, who is the worst villain you’ve ever written, and why?

I’m writing him now! I have a fascination with sociopaths and love reading psychological case studies to learn what makes them tick. In my novel The String Rider, I have a villainess who I wanted to fully develop as a sociopathic personality, but by the time it was all said and done, the machinations of the plot didn’t allow her enough “screen time” to really get her fleshed out the way I intended. I’m now writing a much larger novel with the purpose of fully developing a straight-up psychopath. It’s great to be pulling off what I’d been hoping to do for a while… but it’s also deeply disturbing. Climb into the skull of a sociopathic personality, and it is really, really dark in there. If not for all the case studies I’ve read, I wouldn’t be able to simply make this character up on my own because my mind just doesn’t operate on that plane, thank God. The end result is that while my book is about a sociopath, it focuses on the victims who I’m far better able to relate with in terms of personality and character.

You're writing my autobiography, JOKE! No, John please don't leave lol. Moving quickly on...what is next on your list to write/publish?

While I’m currently writing the suspense novel that I mentioned above, I’m going to publish a Christmas novella at the end of this year. It’s sort of A Christmas Carol meets The Shining with a healthy dose of Dante’s Inferno mixed into the plot… and it can be enjoyed by both kids and adults, alike. Now, admittedly, The Shining and Inferno don’t sound very Christmas-ish… but, hey, summarize A Christmas Carol and then explain to me how that one ended up being considered a bedtime story!

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