An Interview with J.A. Konrath...

Author, J.A. Konrath was kind enough to add Benston Blogs as a stop on his Blog Tour. He stopped by today to answer a few questions for me. For those few people out there who don't know, Konrath is the fabulously talented author of the Jack Daniels series. His first novel, Whiskey Sour (2004), introduced Lt. Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels. Others in the series include Bloody Mary (2005), Rusty Nail (2006), Dirty Martini (2007), Fuzzy Navel (2008), and Cherry Bomb (2009). The books combine hair-raising scares and suspense with laugh out loud comedy. The next book in the series, Cherry Bomb, will be released in July of this year. Now, onto the good stuff:

Did you always want to be a writer? If not, what did you want to be before you became an author?

I wanted to be a model for husky pants. But then, when I was barely a teen, they stopped making husky sizes.

Damn those clothing designers for shattering my dreams.


Your stories are fairly creepy, where do you get your ideas?

I mean, I'm not offended by the term "husky." Now they're called "relaxed fit" jeans. It's the same thing, but there's nothing sexy about being a "relaxed fit jeans" model.

What was your question again? Ideas? Mostly, I watch old reruns of the Outer Limits and steal the concepts, like Alan Moore did with Watchmen.


What writers do you read regularly or even irregularly?

I'm not sure if this is the place to talk about my irregularity.

But there are many authors I love. Blake Crouch, Henry Perez, Jeff Strand, Tasha Alexander, James Rollins, Barry Eisler, Raymond Bensen. Lots of people.

My absolute favorite author is Dr. Seuss. In fact, I tried my hand at writing a few Dr. Seuss-style children's books. Here are the titles:

HOW THE GRINCH STOLE MY WIFE

HORTON HATCHES A TERRORIST PLOT

ON BEYOND DONKEY PUNCH

MARVIN K MOONEY WILL YOU PLEASE DROP DEAD

THE CAT IN THE HAT GETS NEUTERED

GREEN EGGS AND E COLI

THIDWICK THE BIG HEARTED COKE DEALER

MR. BROWN CAN MOO, AND THEY PUT HIM AWAY

THERE'S A WOCKET IN MY POCKET, AND I BLAME CIALIS

BOOMER THE TUMOR

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to sell any of these. I think it may be some sort of rights-issue thing.


Do you write every day? If so, give us an idea of what your typical writing day looks like.

I wake up early and make some eggs.

Then the smoke alarm goes off, because the eggs are burning because I fell asleep again.

Then I spend ten minutes explaining to the firemen that show up how I'll be more careful next time.

I go back to bed, and the next thing I know, it's around noon. Time for lunch. I want to make an egg sandwich, but I'm out of eggs. And bread. And pretty much everything except some sort of fruit that's been in the refrigerator forever and might be a lime.

It's not a lime. It may not even be fruit. So I put it back and think about cooking some pasta but that seems like a lot of work for just lunch, so I go take a nap.

Around three I get up, ready to start my work day, but first I need to eat something. Do pizza places delivery at three? I make a few calls. Nope, no one delivers before five.

I check the fridge. The lime thing is still there, but it looks like it moved from where I saw it last. I'm really hungry, so I decide to give it a try.

It's not a lime, because limes don't have bones.

When I finish eating, I sit down at my computer and write my daily quota, thirty pages.


What are you currently working on besides answering these questions?

Currently working on rewrites for TRAPPED, which is my second Jack Kilborn horror novel. The first one, AFRAID, comes out March 31. My one goal is for everyone in the Western world to buy just one copy. That, and so clothing designers to bring back husky pants.

What are the titles of your books and where can we buy them?

The Jack Daniels books, which I write under the name JA Konrath, are Whiskey Sour, Bloody Mary, Rusty Nail, Dirty Martini, Fuzzy Navel, and Cherry Bomb, which comes out July 7.

If you notice, each of these books is named after a drink. In fact, each title is a two word drink, and the first word ends in the letter Y.

If you string all the first words together, whiskey bloody rusty dirty fuzzy cherry, it sounds like a really fun weekend.

Do you have any appearances scheduled?

On March 23, at 7pm, I'll be doing a signing with Barry Eilser in Milwaukee, at the Mystery One bookstore. I'm doing other stuff too, probably.


What advice would you like to give to other writers or anyone interested in becoming a writer?

Never take "no" for an answer. If an agent or editor rejects you, you should keep calling them and emailing them, over and over and over, until they relent and give you a three million dollar contract.

Also, when you're writing a novel, try to remember to use verbs. Editors like verbs.

Thanks for having me here, Rebecca. After goofing off for most of this blog tour, it's nice to finally be serious for once...


Joe

http://www.JAKonrath.com
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com
http://www.myspace.com/jakonrath


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