November 2017 Group Read Author Interview: J. J. Mainor (Part 1)

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Thank you, J. J., for taking the time to participate in our interview and help people get to know you better.

Members: If you have any follow-up questions for J. J., please feel free to post them.

Tell us about your writing.

Why do you write?
I think writing is part of a need for creativity. I'm not much of an artist and I have no eye for design, but language is something we all have a grasp of. Beyond that, I think it was a bit of an escape for a childhood I wasn't entirely happy with. I was never really one to fit in, even at home, so TV was always an escape, and in my head, I always thought I could create fictional stories like that...it was a way to imagine scenarios I wanted to be a part of or characters who felt out of place like me. It also was an outlet for a lot of the frustrations you feel growing up.

When did you decide to become a writer?
In junior high, we read a book by someone who was rather young. Honestly I didn't enjoy the book and can't even remember it or the author, but it struck me at a young age that you didn't have to be some old person to write. Of course at that age, interests wander. I would start works and never finish them, and probably didn't have the maturity to craft some grand piece of work. By high school, I was taking opportunities to slip fiction into class work wherever I could. One year in French class, we had to write a weekly journal entirely in French. Where everyone else wrote the kinds of entries you would expect from a journal, I wrote short stories instead.

What are your ambitions for your writing career?
I think years ago, I thought I would be the next Shakespeare, creating a legacy that would outlast our civilization and enshrine my name among the greatest of all times. It's funny how lofty our dreams are. Today, I'm more realistic. I would like to make money like anyone else, but I also measure success in other ways. A lot of authors are disappointed in the negative reviews they receive, but where I write with contentious issues in the background, I appreciate the negative reviews when they're from people fired up over those issues. I don't set out to anger people, but rather to get people thinking and talking, and a few did just that.

What books have you written?
I adopted a pulp style - fast and furious, so my catalog is extensive right now. Of course there are disadvantages to that where stories can be a little rough, but for a relative newcomer, the exposure of having your name constantly in the "New Release" lists has been better than all the facebook and Twitter ads could have been.

What genre(s) are your books in?
I write primarily science fiction. I do have a few horror stories, and there is one stage play I wrote back in college available through Smashwords, but I've fallen into a groove where I'm exclusively a science fiction writer these days.

Are there any correlations between the books you write and your life experiences?
Correlations? Oh god, yes. I do write military stories when an idea catches my fancy. Usually the "military" is an analogy to my experiences in the retail world. One theme that pops up frequently is incompetence at the top. Usually generals and admirals, but sometimes ship captains. Dione's War for example featured some unbelievably incompetent captains (you would have to actually work with people this incompetent to believe it could be real), but it's not a straightforward presentation where you can say someone is incompetent. In that story, Commanders promoted to Captain aren't incompetent individuals, but rather they adopt that incompetence because it's the only way to survive at the top. Another theme that ties into this is that the incompetent individual usually survives, and may even turn their humiliation into a victory, painting themselves as the hero - this one you'll see in USS Krakowski.

Do you adhere to an outline or go wherever your imagination takes you?
I'm totally a seat-of-the-pants writer. Sure, when I start a story, I have some idea in my head where the story goes, but how it goes there is fluid since ideas can pop into your head, sometimes after you've gotten through a draft.

How do you withstand critiques of your masterpiece?
Criticism! Take it with a grain of salt. It hurts. It hurts deeply, but I try to remember I write what I like, and strangely, I tend to like things most people don't (back to the comment about how I don't feel like I fit in). I won't name authors or books because I don't want to be like that, but generally speaking, I have read a few sci-fi stories from authors at the top of the charts with hundreds of 4 and 5 star reviews that I thought were so-so; in many cases the portrayal of women was so standardly sexist that it sort of turned me off - sometimes it was disgusting, other times it was tolerable, but unoriginal. There have been other stories from unknown authors who have been 1-starred to death, who can't even place on the bottom of the lists, and will probably never get their names out there if they give away their books for free that I thoroughly enjoyed. I do enjoy works from non-American authors who take nothing but criticism because their English isn't perfect, or (in the case of British/Australian/New Zealand authors) aren't writing in Americanized English. You have to remember, our society is a mirror of our political state these days, where few people want to give praise, most just want to tear everyone down; at the end of the day, I try to remember I write for those that actually enjoyed the movie Battleship for what it was rather than those that hated it for what it wasn't.

Do you put messages in the books you write and, if yes, what are they?
Messages! Another emphatic yes. If I don't have a message to deliver, I have no book! To use USS Krakowski as the example since that's the book we're discussing, it was just an idea for a few years until I got the seemingly-basic idea for the disgraced hero with a chance for redemption. Though Modeen is an officer, and hence in a leadership role, he is a relatively low-level player on the chain of command. Through him, I put forward this message that those low level players are the ones keeping an "organization" together, but they're the ones scapegoated and sh*t upon when the leadership fails because they're just focused on doing their jobs and not on the internal politics. USS Krakowski also contains a message of global politics in the background set-up that makes this book seem 'Murica, especially when it's noted toward the end how the US ambassador told the rest of the world at the UN to "go to hell." It's not that I'm presenting that sort of US-centric world, but rather theirs is one where international relations crumbled to the point where the US can't get anyone to help them save the world when they go crawling to the international community. It's something that goes back to our invasion of Iraq when we neutered the UN by cutting off their diplomatic efforts and dealt with Saddam on our own. Sure we put together a coalition before heading in, but you might remember allies such as France declined and became the standard butt of jokes back at the time. That's the attitude that leads to the US going it alone in this book, and the message is in how dangerous that kind of a path can be.

You know sales can be a little tough until you make it big time. If I told you now, that you'd sell up to 1,000 books within the next 30 years, would you still write?
Strangely enough, USS Krakowski was my "hit." It peaked at about 4000 overall on Amazon, very briefly cracking the top100 for overall science fiction. 2.5 years after its release and it still picks up occasional sales. I would say lack of success wouldn't have killed my writing altogether, but if this book didn't take off when I started out, I might have backed off and I wouldn't have the catalog I do today.

Put yourself in the place of a reader (not easy, I know). Why would s/he want to read or have to read your book?
Honestly, I couldn't say why readers like this book over others. At the time I put it out, I thought it was worse than the horror I put out before it; yet the horror languished while this one took off on day 1. I feel my writing has matured and the stories have grown a lot stronger since this book, but it's still this one that seems to draw all the attention. I guess that too goes back to the notes about not fitting in and liking things others don't. Then again, we do have the tendency to be harsher critics on our own efforts than others can be, so maybe it's just my own distorted opinion that makes it difficult to understand.

Who are your bestselling competitors in the genre and what can you offer that they can’t?
I'm not sure I want to compare myself to anyone by name. Those authors worked hard to get to where they are, so I'm not going to tear them down by naming names and making a case for why I'm better. Generally speaking though, consumers want to read the same book they've read before. Even Futurama made a joke about this when criticizing TV viewers in an episode called "When Aliens Attack." That's not to blame the readers because we as a people stick to what's comfortable, no matter what it is, whether entertainment, foods, friends, etc. That said, the top 100 lists on Amazon tend to look like collections of similar books. What I try to write are scenarios and characters that fall outside those norms. In military sci-fi for example, the hero is often a brawny macho type (not always, I will gladly admit), but I'll sometimes play with that stereotype, even poking fun at it sometimes. In Dione's War for example when the title character meets her sidekick for the first time, he's shirtless, but emaciated as hell - the exact opposite of the muscle-bound hero. A couple stories describe gyms aboard starships, poking fun at the men who manipulate the gravity to inflate lifts so they can go to the bars back home and impress the ladies with how "strong" they are.

Does writing interfere with reading?
I wouldn't say either interferes with the other. Even when you get swept away with writing, you hit blocks or you just need a bit of a break to keep your mind fresh. Beyond that, keeping the two separate is a way to help compartmentalize your life. For example, I have a time to read and a time to write.

(Continued here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...)