AFTER RESONANCE with AUTHOR J. SCOTT SHARP

Author Bio:  J. SCOTT SHARP has been writing for much of his considerable life, but only just now, decided to take it seriously at 47.  This makes him a little crazy.  He lives in Arizona with his wife and two dogs, where he splits his time between watching TV on DVD, working,  and writing.  He is the author of short stories, Not Even There, Three Blackbirds, and Cold-Blooded.  The List of Five is his first novella.

1.  How have role-playing games or comic books shaped or inspired your imagination as a kid, and later, the process of story or character-building?

JSS:  I already had an active imagination as a kid, and I loved anything that helped me get that imagination going.  However, role-playing helped me to realize that no one is purely evil and everyone is doing something toward a goal and because of a certain paradigm that has been nourished in them.  This is important in character-building.  Everyone has a reason that they do things. The other thing that role-playing helped me with was that I was severely introverted (and still am).  Role-playing helped me to become less shy.

2.  During the years you wouldn't allow yourself to write, how did the impulse insist on showing up or revealing itself to you? 

JSS:  I have wanted to write since I was 3.  Now I'm 47.  Over the years, I would have a story idea come to me, fully-formed, and think that I should sit down and write it.  Psychologically, I just couldn't because I was afraid that people wouldn't like it.  I am never without story ideas.  They always come to me.  It just took me a long time to decide that I wasn't going to let anyone hijack my life anymore.  I took my life back, and when I did I started doing the one thing that was always in my heart to do.


3.  What was the turning-point where you realized you would no longer stop yourself...you were going to put one of your stories out there...and which story emerged first?  (Why was it the first story chosen to come out)?

JSS:  I read a book that reminded me that my life is mine.  It doesn't belong to anyone else.  I choose to do with it what I want to do, good or bad.  I had held onto a lot of garbage from my childhood and it had kept me from doing what I wanted to do all my life.  I spoke to my wife about my desire to write and she was wholly supportive, and still is.  The first story to come out of that was "Not Even There," a story of a friendship that goes very wrong.

4.  What work of fiction or film have your read or seen, that compelled you to think, "I wish I wrote that one," and what did you admire about that or those works?

JSS:  It happens to me all the time, haha. But I will say that it has only happened to me a couple of times where I could feel a twinge of jealousy like, "I would do anything to write like that."  One was for the book "Dark Places," by Gillian Flynn.  I love characters, and her characters are so vivid, so real, that I was drawn into the story immediately.  The subject matter is very dark and the main character isn't very likable.  That was exactly why I liked it.  She handled both so well!  I still don't understand how she did it.  The other book was "Blackbirds," by Chuck Wendig.  I loved that book for many of the same reasons, but he just grabs you by the throat and won't let you go, from page one.

5.  Name several of your indie peers whose writing or books you admire, and share why you admire each of them or what they do?

JSS:  I totally admire your blog and I eagerly await your novel!  In addition, Rebecca Hamilton, the author of The Forever Girl, is someone I hugely admire.  She has taken a tired genre, and she has revamped it with unique characters and a whole other mythos.  She is also a damn nice person.  As well, I admire the horror work of R.P. Kraul.  He has revitalized the whole horror genre for me.  There are fewer, and fewer horror books being written, with most of them characterized by romantic vampires and other silliness.  Kraul has taken the genre back into the dirt and mire, where it belongs.  His writing makes me uncomfortable, just the way I like it.

6.  What is happening today in your country which maybe, drives you 'a little nuts,' and do you see a solution for the moral, political, or social dilemma?

JSS:  You had to get me started. Lol. I think the thing that is disturbing me most about my country is that we have all become so unable to love each other.  Everyone will read what I am saying differently, but love is an action.  Love is hard to have for people in which you disagree, but that is the love I am talking about.  Love that is hard.  Can you love the Duck Dynasty guy?  Can you love the lady from the PR agency who said all those nasty things about AIDS and being white?  This is just my opinion but it bares thinking about.

7.  Give us a flavor of what you are writing to publish in near future, and an idea of what is challenging you about the current process?

JSS:  I have a couple of irons in the fire.  One is the next part of "The List of Five."  I am also working on a series of books that continue on with the main character from "Not Even There."  Lastly, I am working on an action/mystery as yet unnamed.

8.  Do you have any advice for writers who are attempting to emerge indie-published for their first time?

Please, please, please stay true to yourself.  Write what you want to write.  Write what you would want to read.  Don't jump on the band-wagon and start writing something that is the latest craze.  Don't be a sub-standard Stephanie Meyer.  Don't be a half-ass Stephen King.  Be 100% you.  You have a story in you that is wholly YOU.  Be that person.  Don't be afraid.  Write the book and then worry how it gets published.  Write it first.  If you are always worried about publishing and selling, you will never do anything authentic.

Thank you J. Scott Sharp for sharing your generous thoughts, your passion for writing, and rounding out My Indie Book, 2013.  Now, let's enter the New Year of our Creativity, 2014!

To discover the short stories of author @JScottSharp, check out the following links:

Not Even There,  Three Blackbirds, & Cold-Blooded

To discover J. Scott Sharp's current novella:  The List of Five

J. Scott Sharp author blog:  jscottsharp.blogspot.ca