About Glenn Maynard:
My writing career took off when I took off, which was after I got married. We quit our jobs, sold our cars, bought a used RV and traveled through the 48 continental states for an entire year. I needed something to write about, and boy did I get it. I was a travel correspondent for two local newspapers and published twenty articles along the way. I published my first book, which detailed the people and places along the way, entitled “Strapped Into An American Dream.” In 2014, I published my second book, a paranormal romance fiction book entitled, Desert Son. The sequel, Wayward Soul, is due to be released January 7, 2016, and I am currently writing my third book of the trilogy.
What inspires you to write?
I was inspired to write my first book after taking a year off and traveling the country in an RV. I knew if I did something so mind-blowing that I could write a memoir. The idea for my fiction series came from reading the book, “Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, by Ian Stevenson. This book was about the spontaneous recall of previous lives by children. I was so fascinated by these children in third world countries recalling lives of people who had died, and who had lived an unreachable distance from these kids. Researchers would then follow the kid’s claims and travel to talk to the surviving members of the deceased’s family. The claims of the children exactly portrayed the deceased, sometimes including the language they spoke, and with information that nobody other than the deceased would know.
Tell us about your writing process.
My writing process is quite interesting because it seems to change with each book I’ve written. My first book was the travel memoir. Every morning on my journey i’d step outside the RV and sit in a lawn chair or on a rock or wherever, writing about yesterday’s experiences. I filled 10 yellow legal pads, both sides of each page, which evolved into my book, Strapped Into An American Dream. My first fiction book, Desert Son, was an outline format. I created an outline, then I took a stack of index cards and wrote one scene on each card. I had a pile of single-scene cards, and I would write the scene, flip the card, and write the next scene, until there were no more cards. My sequel, Wayward Soul, was strictly an outline, and nothing more. My third of the trilogy I am writing now by the SEAT OF MY PANTS! This is my most interesting method thus far because I don’t know where the hell it’s going to take me and I like that…sort of like when I was traveling around the country before the time of GPS.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
I think if I talked to my characters, there’d be a bed awaiting me at the asylum. Do I listen to the characters? I guess I do in the sense that they take me to the places I eventually write about. This is more so the case with my latest book in which I am writing without an outline and seeing where it takes me. I don’t even know how it will end, so I guess my characters will tell me.
What advice would you give other writers?
I was completely mistaken to think that all I had to do was write books and the publisher would take care of the rest. Unless you are one of the heavy-hitting, best-selling authors, be prepared to market your book on your own. The small publishers will assist by producing the book and making it available at numerous online venues, but it’s the author’s job to bring the masses there. For example, here I am doing an interview so that I will find new readers. I will lead them to my website, and there will be information about me and my books, and there will be a purchase link. If you click on that link, then I have brought you there.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
I never once thought about self-publishing my books. Getting my first book published was a very long road for me, but I believed in my story and persevered until I finally got a small publisher interested. Strategic Book Publishing sent me a contract offer for my travel book and I was thrilled beyond belief. This was the start. I selected Black Rose Writing for my fiction books because the terms of the contract were more favorable. Both publishers I found by using Google: Small publishers accepting manuscripts.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
The publishing world is moving to the ebook, but I have always been a fan of the paperback/hard cover. There’s nothing like holding a book in your hands, and that’s as true for the reader as it is for the writer. I have yet to read an ebook, I don’t believe i’ll ever get there, but I think it’s a great option if that’s your thing. Ebooks are hard to sign, too.
What do you use?: Professional Cover Designer
What genres do you write?: Non-Fiction Travel, Paranormal Romance.
What formats are your books in?: Both eBook and Print
Website(s)
Glenn Maynard Home Page Link
Link To Glenn Maynard Page On Amazon
Link to Author Page on other site
Your Social Media Links
Goodreads
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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.
