UnBiased Book Reviews: Author Interview

What other jobs have you had in your life?

That’s a funny story. Usually I’m asked what haven’t I done. I haven’t been a doctor, lawyer, policeman, firefighter, air traffic-controller or lion tamer; so not picking a childhood notion didn’t happen. While at University, I worked as kitchen clean-up and assistant at a few local eateries, took training in Ikebana and landed a relatively long term gig with a start-up florist near my home. I worked in delivery for them as well as for a Scandinavian furniture store—very high end—and also moonlighted, literally, as a night auditor for a respectable motel on the interstate at the edge of Austin. My first job out of college with a double major in History and English Lit, with a double minor in Greek (Koine: the dead language) and Roman Culture—I apprenticed to paint cars in a Body Shop. Really no kidding. I went back to college for an Associate degree in Land Planning (Architecture would’ve taken too many years and I already had a family to take care of).

I worked as a draftsman then Associate Land Planner for several years with the same company and was very happy there. Until my parents talked me into relocating to California and heading up a manufacturing venture my crazy Uncle Al had gotten off the ground. I was a Plant Manager for all of six months before no paychecks and hunger drove me to the Bay area and Silicon Valley. I worked as a research gofer for the Research & Development arm of the top hard drive manufacturer of the time. I contracted with a major Aerospace corporation after an interlude of early mornings throwing papers pursuant to being left jobless during hard times for the hard drive company. When the economy went south, again, I and 40,000 other white collar folks found ourselves jobless again. I headed back to Texas.

I picked up contract writing and illustration jobs with the young an newly booming hi-tech companies then flooding into Austin. (Dell computer’s first ‘campus’ was just outside the back door of our building where I went for smoke breaks.) Anyway, those contracts led to permanent positions and before I knew it I was back in the thick of the corporate world once more. One thing led to another and I ended up with a severance from IBM—don’t ask—and a solid nest egg of a retirement account. My wife, second, and I relocated to north Texas. I designed a system of ponds on these fourteen acres, had foundations built overlooking the largest of them, and proceeded to build our house from my own plans. Really. I plumbed, wired, erected the walls, the roof the gardens, everything, with erstwhile help from friends and the occasional contractor for things I couldn’t get permits for myself: Septic fields, transformer installations, etc.

Than I went on a substitute teaching assignment at a little private school in a nearby town—where one of my neighbors was at that time teaching. The few days requested turned into an entire semester and a half… then ten years later I was still there, the only Literature and Composition teacher for a whole high school. I graduated hundreds of great students over the years… and some who weren’t such great students, I just loved them anyway. Then came the overlord once more into my life—the Economy—and I settled down at my laptop and started storytelling. That was about three years ago.

Now I’m sitting here chatting it up with ya’ll. What a great job!

If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?

That’s not actually an easy question to answer directly. I love Tahoe; always have always will. I also really liked living in the San Lorenzo Valley south of the Bay area. Perhaps my favorite residence was the shortest: Orca’s Island in the San Juans above Seattle. My wife and I have stayed on that island more often and longer than almost anywhere else we’ve traveled and visited—always on holiday, not as actual residents. We love the town on East Sound, the State Park, Mt. Constitution, and island hopping on the ferries. I’d love to build a bigger sailboat than the one I built last year and ease right into that life. I’ve thought about permanently relocating there many, many times. Who knows. Perhaps if this writing thing gains even more traction than it has already, we may be checking out real estate on an island after all!

Tell us about your family?

My wife and I have five kids, all from our previous marriages. We now have five grandkids and we spend a bunch of time on the road visiting all of them as we can. Both of us came from small families, so having so many to keep track of now is a labor of joy. All our kids are successful in their chosen fields. We have administrators and arborists, teachers and techies, house moms, ranch hands, contractors and counselors. And our grandchildren are, naturally, brilliant, beautiful, clever, funny and adorable… did I mention brilliant?

How do you write – lap top, pen, paper, in bed, at a desk?

Easy chair with one of those lap-desk-type things that has wheeled feet that slide under the chair. That holds my Macbook. I have copious sheets of paper with scrawled notes everywhere, some still in their pads some loose leaf, but all in a nice orderly pile that I know how to find things and nobody else would dare. I have too many “Notes” in my iPhone and I have in-decipherable post-it notes near my chair on the porch where I relax towards the end of the work day—which is every day that ends in “Y”!

Is there anyone you’d like to acknowledge and thank for their support?

My wife: Deborah Jean Hart Lawson. There just isn’t anyone better for me doing this work than her. (I also have to mention that my mom and dad have read all my books, but they admit freely that it’s just because I’m their son—my stuff isn’t their usual fair by a long shot.)

It is vital to get exposure and target the right readers for your writing, tell us about your marketing campaign?

It’s the marketing of published work that creates the greatest challenges and forces the most attention and creativity an author can muster. There are now an over-abundance of resources and advice out there. I have my titles at Amazon, B & N, the Apple store has several of them, I have author pages at Goodreads, Bookblog, and others. I manage a Facebook page for Voyager Press—which carries all my titles—and I am writing this now, because I am part of Orangeberry Book Tours and they have connections I didn’t. I have contracted with Substance Books for other branding and marketing efforts for the long haul. I have shown titles at the BookExpo America, I’ll be represented at the Beijing International Book Faire, and I hope to keep that ball rolling with other trade shows as well. I haven’t entered any industry Award programs as yet, but I’m not sticking my nose up at them either. I have a relatively small budget to work with and every expenditure has to pay its way eventually.

From the humble roots of an 1864 immigrant from the Guang, his Shoshone wife and their little hardware store in Tahoe City, to a global humanitarian NGO empire in the present day; An Honest Man is the carefully woven tapestry of the struggles and loves, triumphs and trials of the Livingsons.

The Donkey and the Wall, trilogy is the thousand step journey in pursuit of a few simple questions: What if there were ancient lineages of highly conscious individuals
emgergent into the present day? What would their world be like? And more importantly, What would our world be like? Ultimately shedding light on that eternal question: What is reality?

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre - Metaphysical/Fantasy/Action Adventure

Rating – G

More details about the author & the book

Connect with J.L. Lawson on Facebook

Website http://voyagerpress.org/