#SupportIndieAuthors, The Phil edition
B.B. Wynter has been supplanted as the most verbose person I’ve met on the internet….or maybe it’s just a different kind of verbose. Either way, let me introduce Phil today. He’s one of those guys that seems a lot like me (Takes life way to seriously to actually be serious about it.) He’s a decent seeming guy, who offers good advice on the Support Indie Authors group board.
http://smile.amazon.com/Cigerets-Guns…
Murder, sex, buried bank loot and legends of UFOs
Dodd breaks up a convenience store robbery when his car breaks down in Sweet Water Falls, Texas. What’s the thanks he gets? The sheriff won’t let him leave, the car lot can’t find the parts and everybody wants him for something—sales pitch, church membership, and even stud pony.
But most of all, it seems a family named Dodd were shot down robbing the bank in 1949 and the half million they stole remains missing. Everyone thinks Dodd returned to dig up the loot and no one intends to let him leave until he finds it—along with (or so the legends go) a long lost flying saucer.
Blog link
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show…
Biography
Phillip T, Stephens is biographically impaired. The last blogger who tried to garner details of his personal life interviewed him nonstop only to learn that Phillip was kidnapped from a Hari Krishna cult as a baby by a deprogramming expert, who thought the six-month infant would be easy to reindocrinate. The deprogrammer has now devoted his life to Krishna on an Ashram in India.
Stephens, however, left to his own devices in a consumer society rapidly devolved into a video gaming, cartoon consuming moron who went through the deprogrammers life savings by the time he was six-years-old. Forced to sell his body on the streets of Dallas, Texas he quickly discovered Texans men were interested in little boys only to catch Footballs and root for the local professional football team lest they be accused of being queer, while the women just wanted someone to tuck into bed.
As a result he was paid to attend Christian school where he ended up getting called to the principal’s office and being spanked every day. This was the most the blogger was able to get out of Stephens who immediately grew bored and came up with a different story, which was too profane to publish.
1. What do you do to keep your spirits up through a bad review?
I’ve only received one review and it was really good. I didn’t know the reviewer, and connected with them exactly the way I wanted to. On the other hand, I don’t expect people to love my books, and I have a long list of rejections from publishing houses. I can show you the scars from family, teachers, and grad school advisors, so to me it’s part of the game.
As an eductator I’ve gotten peer, supervisor and student reviews all my life. 20 percent love me, 60 percent were well above average, and 20 percent thought I was the worse thing that happened to education. I listened to the bad reviews, selected the reviews I thought might be reasonable and made changes (the same as I did in writing workshops, which is the subject of my latest blog), It didn’t change my evaluations one iota. I learned the negative reviews reflected my style, and my style was what made me successful as a (teacher and free-lance writer).
I think writers should learn to listen to criticism that can improve their writing and realize that when critics respond to their vision and voice, they just have to find their audience.
Ironically, my family reviews are more like fifty-fifty, so I’m better off professionally.
2. What has been your greatest inspiration for writing your story?
In this case it was a joke. In the seventies Texas gas stations had barrels of iced beer right by the gas pumps. I was joking with a friend I was surprised they didn’t sell guns too. I’d had a story about a thirty year old bank heist kicking around in the back of my head and that joke inspired me to write it.
3. Are there any people you feel need a shout out for supporting you?
Only one person ever supported me, and that’s my wife Carol. On the other hand, I socialize her rescue cats so it’s a mutual deal. I don’t mind that they’re pissed off about being abandoned and need to vent their anger and the timid ones need a lap to huddle in while I type. Now that we’re both retired we have more time to spend with them.
4. Has self-publishing taught you any lessons that you feel will help you in life?
Not really. The lesson I learned was that publishers expected me to market my own work for them, and I had no marketing skills, so if I needed to learn marketing skills I might as well learn them to promote my own work.
Sadly, I learned to write far better than I’m learning to market.
and last, What’s your favorite color
Colors change like the day. To appreciate them I have to see what’s on the other side of the door.
Remember, if you’d like to be featured in the #SupportIndieAuthor series, please drop me a line at RileyAmosReviews (@) Gmail (Dot) com. Until next week, keep writing!
And don’t forget to check out my Breath Of the Titans: The False Titanbriger series.
*FREE* Little Black Stormcloud
A Mother’s Love
War of the Chiefs
Filed under: Musings, Riley Amos Reviews, Support Indie Authors Tagged: Authors, Resources, Support, Support Indie Authors
