Guest Post: Christopher Koehler
Please welcome Christopher Koehler to my site. He’s here to promote his recent release Settling the Score, Book 4 in the CalPac Crew series. The book can be read as part of the series, but also reads well as a stand-alone. Today we have an interview with Christopher. Read on to get to know Christopher a bit better.
Interview
Hi, Rob, thanks for having me today.
Did you always want to be a writer?
In a way, yes, I think I did. My parents tell stories of me filling notebooks with the kind of loopy squiggles that the pre-literate think is cursive script. In high school I filled the margins of my notebooks with ideas and notes. In college I finally got serious about carrying a notebook for just for writing ideas. Katherine Kurtz, author of the Deryni novels, relates that the idea for Deryni Rising came from a dream, and that’s what inspired me to take my daydreams seriously.
So I waded through grad school, still writing down ideas as they struck me and developing the most promising ones, even as I researched and wrote a dissertation in the history of science (evolution and genetics) that struck me as increasingly surreal. I hit the point when I realized that academic writing sucked all the joy out of writing, and that was the most damning thing I could say. I finished because my husband promised to kill me if I didn’t, but even by then I knew writing was what I needed to do, not academia. I still spent ten years as an adjunct instructor even as I struggled to unlearn the academic high style and learn to write in a way that was actually interesting to more than ten people in the world.
How did you get started writing m/m romance?
It’s funny, I never set out to write romances, and when I was much younger—say, high school or so—I had the worst attitude toward the romance genre. I suppose I thought it was devoid of challenging content, and who knows, maybe back then, it was. Somehow I doubt it was as bad as I thought.
Then I read one of those hair-raising statistics about the average American reading less than one book per year. I think there’s a graphic going around Facebook these days with similarly dire information. Anyway, the point was that even among the college-educated, the average person doesn’t read.
Then it occurred to me that someone reading even the pulpiest of pulpy romances, if that persona read one per week, at the end of a year has read fifty-two books. Fifty-two vs. none, and of course these days as a writer of m/m romances I know just how nuanced and challenging a romance novel can be. I know that sounds like a pat answer, but I’ve read any number of brilliant romance novels.
As for m/m, once a I read a story that feature two male protagonists, I was hooked. I mean, c’mon. It was the closest I’d ever come to any story that reflected my life.
What were your early influences either in this genre or any other?
In fantasy and science fiction, the aforementioned Katherine Kurtz, as well as David Eddings. If you know his work, you can probably find traces of him, particularly in my humor. I’m a huge fan of Gail Carriger’s work.
In m/m romances, the first novels I read were Urban and LaRoux’s Caught Running and J.L. Langley’s The Tin Star. Another early influence was ZA Maxfield’s Crossing Borders, and to this day ZAM’s not only a major influence but also one of my closest friends, not just in writing but in life.
What is the hardest part about writing for you? The benefits?
The hardest part about writing for me these days is breaking away from the tried and true. When I first started the CalPac Crew books, I second-guessed myself in terms of what I tried structurally and the places I went with the plot. I was terrified when I submitted it and second-guessed myself the entire way. Five books later (four CalPac and First Impressions, an unrelated stand-alone) and it’s time to challenge myself with new approaches to m/m and in new genres. I’m scaring myself again and that’s a good thing.
The benefit? I’m doing what I love and I get paid for it. The reader feedback makes my day, if not my week, and some readers have become friends. I actually make a point of visiting one whenever I see my inlaws because she lives nearby. How cool is that?
Do you find you put a lot of yourself into your characters or is fiction just fiction?
Oooh, good question. The simple answer is no. My characters are fictitious. A more nuanced answer is, every one of my characters has a part of me in him or her, and yes, that includes Herculine Jameson and Lady Fellatia Manblower.
Tell us a little about your story. Did you something specific inspire you to write it?
Settling the Score tells the story of the cox’n of the CalPac Crew. For those who’re unfamiliar with the sport of rowing, the cox’n is the short person sitting the back of the boat who’s the only one who can see where the boat’s going. In the world of California Pacific College (CalPac), that person is Stuart Cochrane. He’s been patient through three books while everyone else has found a HEA. It’s his turn, which in part explains the title.
But it’s also the story of Philip Sundstrom, the older brother of Brad, the “bad guy” in Rocking the Boat (book #1). Philip’s not as straight as he appeared, and he and Stuart make an unlikely pair. Situations ensue that will either drive them together or pull them apart.
I’m an out rower myself and listed as available to be contacted platonically in the rolls of the Gay and Lesbian Rowing Federation. One day, a collegiate rower contacted me…
Do you have any writing quirks? (ie computer has to be facing a certain way, cup of coffee on the left, certain music playing, etc)
I’m all about the quirks. I write at one specific Starbucks, and only that one (unless I’m traveling). I feel better if the Frappuccino is on the left, but I can tolerate it if it’s on the right. I listen to music, but it’s usually one song on repeat. After a while, I’ll switch songs, but the new one will be on repeat for an indeterminate about of time, too. I’m sure by now a picture of the writer is becoming very clear….
What’s next on your plate? What are you working on?
I’m working on a YA novel that will hopefully serve as a bridge story to a rebooted CalPac Crew series. I’ve told the stories I want to tell with the current cast of characters, with the exception of maybe a holiday story or a wedding story for one of the couples. However, in the process of coming up with a new crew, one of the characters told me in no uncertain terms that he was HIV+.
So how did a college student on the novice team contract HIV? Probably had to in high school. So that’s the story I’m working on. Given the cavalier attitudes of the early 20somethings toward safer sex and HIV itself, it strikes me as timely topic, as well. I came of age in the 80s, so the whole thing baffles me. Yeah, I’m a dinosaur, sue me.
Blurb
Stuart Cochrane and Philip Sundstrom make an unlikely pair. Philip’s brother, Brad, can’t imagine his brother with another man, let alone with the coxswain he razzed throughout his college rowing career. But somehow they settle into a relationship that works as Philip helps Stuart navigate the pressures of deciding between medical school and competing for a spot on the national rowing team. In turn, Stuart helps Philip with his problems at work, where he’s faced with a rebellious board of directors.
Yet soon enough, the pressures take their toll. Stuart comes to resent the easy way Philip spends money, while Philip worries about Stuart’s time commitments. He’ll do anything to come to the rescue, including spending his money to grease the rails for Stuart, but Stuart resents the rich so much it drives a wedge between them.
Then Stuart finds himself facing the greatest crisis of his life. There’s only one person he can turn to—but Philip has his own demons to battle in the form of his board trying to frame him for their own unethical actions. Will Philip be able to aid Stuart while he extricates himself from his board’s trap, or will his divided attention cost them both everything that matters?
Buy links
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=4472&cPath=55_387
Author Bio
Christopher Koehler learned to read late (or so his teachers thought) but never looked back. It was not, however, until he was nearly done with grad school in the history of science that he realized that he needed to spend his life writing and not on the publish-or-perish treadmill. At risk of being thought frivolous, he found that academic writing sucked all the fun out of putting pen to paper.
Christopher is also something of a hothouse flower. Inside of almost unreal conditions he thrives to set the results of his imagination free, and for most of his life he has been lucky enough to be surrounded by people who encouraged both that tendency and the writing. Chief among them is his long-suffering husband of twenty-two years and counting.
When it comes to writing, Christopher follows Anne Lamott’s advice: “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” So while he writes fiction, at times he ruthlessly mines his past for character traits and situations. Reality is far stranger than fiction.
Christopher loves many genres of fiction and nonfiction, but he’s especially fond of romances, because it is in them that human emotions and relations, at least most of the ones fit to be discussed publicly, are laid bare.
Writing is his passion and his life, but when Christopher is not doing that, he’s an at-home dad and oarsman with a slightly disturbing interest in manners and other ways people behave badly.
Visit him at http://christopherkoehler.net/blog or follow him on Twitter @christopherink.
