This interview with David Niall Wilson was first published in March
2006. To find out more about the author, you can
visit our
David Niall Wilson page.
Where were you born and raised?
I was born and raised in Southern Illinois. Most of my childhood,
from about age 3 on, was spent in Charleston Illinois, a small farm town that
is also the location of Eastern Illinois University, where my mother worked.
What was it that first got you into writing and when did
you start writing?
I have been writing, off and on, all my life. I
didn’t start getting serious until I signed up for the Writer’s Digest “Writing
to Sell Fiction” course. My instructor was the late
J. N. Williamson, author of more than forty horror novels. He helped me
to focus my abilities, and at the same time provided me with the contacts that
led, eventually, to short story and novel sales.
Which writers have influenced you the most?
Stephen King and Peter Straub hold top spots. I’ve
also been influenced in part by fantasy authors like J. R. R. Tolkien and
Stephen R. Donaldson. I’ve read and learned form every sort of fiction
imaginable, from Ayn Rand to Hemingway to the Hardy Boys series.
Where do you stand on the nature v. nurture debate? Were
you born a writer, or were there factors in your environment that enabled you
to become a writer?
I think you can learn to write technically well, but that
was never the case with me. I’ve always been able to do it, to some
extent. In many cases I learned after the fact
why things I did were correct, but I did them having picked up the rules,
styles, and tricks in my reading and filtering them through my imagination.
Truly gifted writers very seldom learn the ability, or pick it up from
their environment. The environment can improve that ability, or give them
technical skills they didn’t come by naturally, but the actual writing itself –
the flow from mind to paper – is a natural occurrence in only a very small
number of people.
There are a lot of courses teaching creative writing
nowadays, but do you think that good writing can be taught?
There is no limit to the importance of proper grammar,
spelling, and punctuation. It is imperative, no matter how good your
instincts and inner muse may be, that you learn the
rules of expressing yourself in written English. You can’t teach someone
to write things that are important, or extremely creative, but you CAN teach
them how to present those things properly. Education is important to
writing, just as proper training in any endeavor enhances performance.
You wouldn’t jump out of an airplane without lessons, and you shouldn’t
treat writing any less seriously.
Have you entered writing competitions? If so, have you won
any prizes?
I’m pretty much opposed to contests because most of them
charge entry fees, and I would rather spend my time and energy in getting
published through more standard means, and paid for my work on its merit.
When I was in High School I won a poetry contest put on by the Illinois
League of Women Writers, or something like that. I took second, but the
poem that took first was one I sold to my best friend.
He kept the prize.
Do you have any short stories or poems published online?
(If so, please provide the URLs):
"The Bearer of Bad Shoes":
http://www.macabreink.com/images/Journal/BadShoes.htm
"Mephistopheles Doufis & The Final Flight of Hawk the Lugee"
http://www.macabreink.com/newshoe.htm
There are excerpts of several of my novels available on line as well
- mouse over the book covers on the following link. Some of them
are linked to excerpts, including "Deep Blue", "The Mote In
Andrea’s Eye", "Sins of the Flash", "Dark Ages:
Lasombra", "Relic of the Dawn", and "The Temptation of
Blood".
http://www.macabreink.com/novels.htm
What kind of things do you write?
I write a wide variety of things. I have a very
active journal/blog – http://deep-bluze.livejournal.com
- I write a column for
www.chizine.com – and a monthly
essay at www.storytellersunplugged.com.
I have written horror novels, a Star Trek novel, fantasy, mystery
and humor. I have over 130 short stories sold and thirteen novels, so
far. I have an upcoming short story collection and have won the Bram
Stoker Award for poetry.
What, for you, is the best piece of prose that you have
ever written?
I think this is an almost impossible question.
Currently, my favorite piece of prose waffles between the novel “Deep
Blue,” and the
novelette “The Milk of Paradise,” which is currently on the
preliminary ballot for the Bram Stoker Award in long fiction. What I
consider to be my best is a constantly changing thing, and I hope that it
always remains so. If not, then I’d have to think the best of me was in
the past, and there would be little left to live and dream for.
What are you working on now?
Currently I’m finishing up the historical thriller “The Orffyreus
Wheel”, which is being serialized by Amazon.com in their new “Amazon Shorts”
program. This novel is about a man, Johann Bessler, who may have created
a perpetual motion device in the 1700s, but took the secret to his grave.
In my novel, that secret was passed down through the ages, and
since it provides a free source of limitless energy, there are, of course,
companies and powers opposed.
I’m also working on several short stories, and the
pseudo-biographical book “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Woodstock,”
which is the story of the 1960s psychedelic group “Mind Garage” (www.mindgarage.com) – who are getting back
together soon for a reunion.
What is your writing day like?
This varies, as well. It depends on how much I’m
involved in what I’m writing, and whether I have a deadline. I try to
write my journal/blog entry in the morning over coffee. Then in the
evening, after work, I write between 2,000 and 5,000 words a day whenever
possible. I write fairly quickly, and like to finish a chapter if I start
it. I have participated the last two years in the Nanowrimo challenge,
50,000 words in the month of November. Both years I completed a
full-length novel, the first of which, “The Mote in Andrea’s Eye,” is due out
in June of 2006 from Gale/Five Star in hardcover.
Where would you like to be in 10 years time?
Comfortably supporting myself writing a couple of novels
and some short stories a year. I’d like to have seen my first bestseller
by then, and possibly to have done more with film. My first independent
film, "Godhead", will be available sometime this year. Info is
at www.godheadthemovie.com.
What’s the most exciting thing about writing for you?
Writing is just part of who I am. I don’t know that
it’s exciting to write – it’s something I have to do. Like breathing.
There is excitement inseeing the reactions your words generate in others,
and in seeing the book for the first time, or watching a movie and knowing the
words were yours. I judge my success as an author against readers’
reactions, and sometimes these are too few and far between.
What’s the most frustrating thing about writing for you?
The waiting period between completion of a project and
finding it a home is always the worst for me. Also the time just after
publication when you don’t have any idea how readers and critics will react to
a book. This period is interminable, and can be hard to take sometimes.
In other words, the act of writing is not frustrating to me, but the
business of writing is. It’s why I have an agent.
What’s the best piece of feedback that you’ve had from your
audience?
It’s odd. I get so little feedback at times that
this is an easy question to answer. When my daughter, and then my son,
read my novel “The Mote In Andrea’s Eye,” and said it was “awesome,” that was
probably the magic moment. I also enjoyed very much finding that a young
lady in California used a story of mine to base a Masters English paper on and
got an A. Any feedback is good to me – it fuels the fires and removes
that itching, nagging doubt that tries to say you are wasting your time.
Do you write for a particular audience, or is your first
priority to satisfy your own creativity?
I have done both. I write the way I write to satisfy
my creativity, but the venues I have chosen have – in many cases – been slanted
toward particular readerships. I believe that for
me to connect with readers of any type, I have to write in a manner that is
true to my own voice. Anything else comes across as forced, or
mechanical, and that won’t fly for long in a world filled with creative voices.
Do you have a homepage? If so, what’s the URL?
Yes: www.macabreink.com
– which I share with the lovely and talented author/editor Patricia Lee
Macomber – and my journal which I linked above.
