About Gary Blaine Randolph:
In some ways, I’ve come to writing late in life. In other ways, I’ve written in every job I ever had. When I founded and ran a software company, I wrote software manuals, newsletters, and ad copy. When I was a professor of computer technology, I wrote academic papers and textbooks. As a freelance software developer, I’ve written instruction manuals. I’ve also written blogs, drama sketches, magazine articles, poems, stories for telling, and more.
My focus nowadays is on writing, which I love. When I’m not doing that, I’m often playing guitar and memorizing stories for storytelling gigs. For fun I enjoy cycling, reading mysteries and sci-fi, drinking coffee, and hanging out with friends and grandkids.
What inspires you to write?
My first book in the Galactic Detective Series, A Town Called Potato, was inspired by a random thing my grandson Gabriel said. I couldn't get the phrase out of my mind and eventually built a world around it.
What authors do you read when you aren’t writing?
Terry Pratchett, Caimh McDonnell, JRR Tolkien, Rex Stout, Agatha Christie, Ray Bradbury, Sue Grafton
Tell us about your writing process.
I write from a loose outline to guide the plot. I find that is extremely helpful in mysteries where you have to introduce both clues and red herrings along the way. I also obsessively word-count because otherwise my experience in ad copy and blog writing kicks in, and I make everything too brief. I keep a database of all the characters, worlds, and species in the Galactic Detective Agency universe to keep things consistent across the series.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
I proofread out loud, and I have a voice for most of my characters. Gabriel sounds like me. Zastra sounds like a raspy version of Rosa Diaz on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Buad and Blan sound like boys from Jersey in 1940s movies. Oren has a sonorous voice like Orson Welles.
What advice would you give other writers?
Write, write, write. GK Chesterton said, "Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly." So write even if it isn't good. Then revise, edit, run it through Grammarly or AutoCrit. Read to get ideas on how to improve. The more you write, the better you'll get.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
I went the self-publishing route simply because I didn't want to wait for being rejected by fifty agents and twenty publishing houses. There is a lot of poor quality stuff being self-published, but some of it is quite good. I aspire to be among the best.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
Sometimes I wish I was writing in the 1840s when the market was much smaller. Or the 1940s. There is so much out there that it's difficult to rise above the waterline. Before self-publishing, the gatekeepers were the editors. Now it's a faceless algorithm.
What genres do you write?: Mystery, Sci-fi
What formats are your books in?: eBook, Print, Both eBook and Print
Website(s)
Gary Blaine Randolph Home Page Link
Link To Gary Blaine Randolph Page On Amazon
Your Social Media Links
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All information in this post is presented “as is” supplied by the author. We don’t edit to allow you the reader to hear the author in their own voice.
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