eSpecs Books Focus #7: Michael A. Black
What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer?
I always wanted to be a writer. I wrote my first short story in the sixth grade. I kept badgering the teacher to let me write some fiction, and finally, she agreed. One Friday she told me I could write a story but I had to read it in front of the class on Monday. The realization then hit me as I walked home. I had no idea what to write about. After a searing, soul-searching weekend, I managed to scratch out a story on Sunday. When I got in front of the class to read it, I was nervous as hell. When I finished there was a stunned silence, followed by a couple of giggles. (It wasn’t supposed to be a funny story.) The teacher gave me a “come hither” gesture. I went to her desk and handed her my story. She scrawled D-POOR WORK in bright red ink across the front, thrust it back to me, and said, “Don’t ever do this again.” I look back on this experience as what they call a paradigm shift in my writing life. It foreshadowed everything yet to come. I got my first writing assignment, my first deadline, and my first rejection all in the space of three days.
What inspires you to write?
I love everything about it. A friend of mine once told me that I was “in love with words.” As a youth, whenever I read a book and came across a word I didn’t know, I’d fold down the corner of the page and look it up later. I kept a notebook with all the words and their definitions. When I was visiting my grandfather as a youth, he gave me his Roget’s Thesaurus and told me to keep it. In the inside cover he’d written, “A man’s thoughts are limited by his vocabulary.” He was a navy lifer and had little formal education, but he was self-taught and highly intelligent.
What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?
My works are meant to be entertaining, not didactic. For me it’s all about telling the story in a way that will keep the reader turning the pages, and leave them with a satisfied feeling upon closing the back cover. This is not to say that I don’t occasionally try to imbue certain important truths and principles into my work. In one of my westerns, Gunslinger: Killer’s Brand, for instance, I portray things as they were, warts and all. I have an ex-Buffalo Soldier falsely charge with murder due to his race. I put in a trial sequence that pays homage to and is reminiscent of the one in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. I never beat the reader over the head with a message, though. If you want to do that, I’d advise you to write non-fiction.
If you have any former project to do over to make it better, which one would it be, and what would you do?
I think it’s every writer’s goal to evolve and improve as a writer and stylist, but as far as a “do-over” I’ll take a pass. Don’t look back is my motto. My early work stands on its own and I’m proud of it, but I do think my more recent stuff is much better written.
Read more:
https://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com/2021/08/especs-books-focus-7-michael-black.html
