About John Leister:
I'm 55 and I live in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. About two years ago, I started talking to God. Since then, my life has changed dramatically. I went from 235 lbs to 170. (On a good day!) I work out routinely: weight-lifting, yoga and tons of walking. I've re-established old friendships and made new ones on Facebook. Most importantly, I've been pursuing my life-long dream of becoming a professional writer of creative fiction with more gusto than ever before. I have twenty-one books on Draft2Digital. The one I'm proudest of is called The Treehouse Avengers. Here's a synopsis: Queens, New York, 1975. Ten-year old comic-bok fan Clint Wagner is abused at home and bullied at school. His not-quite-yet-friend, Billy West, is the leader of a nerdy group called the Treehouse Avengers. Clint will do almost anything to become a Treehouse Avenger. Billy knows this and puts Clint to the test. In Clint's own words, "Boy, does he ever!"
What inspires you to write?
God.
What authors do you read when you aren’t writing?
Robert B. Parker, Brad Thor, C.J. Box, Tom Clancy, Stan Lee, to name a few.
Tell us about your writing process.
Here's a great tip I picked up from writer Brian Micheal Bendis: put your protagonist in a place that (insert pronoun) wants to get out of ASAP. As far as process goes, I dunno, I start with a general idea like "Lee Hacklyn goes to prison." Then I pick up my pen and start writing. There's no such thing as "writer's block." That's no different from saying "I have exercise-block" or "mopping-the-floor" block" or "being-kind-to-others block."
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
Uh, no. This is too esoteric a concept for me. It's a blast when I discover that a minor character early in the story becomes key towards the end.
What advice would you give other writers?
Write.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
I read some stuff I'd written years ago and thought, "If this was written by someone else, I'd like it." Discovering God was the most important factor.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
No thoughts on this right now.
What genres do you write?: Crime, Science-Fiction, Coming-Of-Age
What formats are your books in?: eBook
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.
