An Interview With a Fellow Author

Editor’s Note: This week I’m interviewing a another character who doesn’t exist yet. In this character may never see the light of day. She is the protagonist in a story that I’ve tentatively titled Timothy Fish’s Science Fiction Christian Historical Romance Novel, for obvious reasons. We’ll call her Ann for now, but that may change. I sat down with Ann at Ellen’s Café and this is what we talked about.

Timothy Fish:

Okay, Ann, while we’re waiting for our order, tell us about what you’ve been doing to get published.

Ann:

Just what I’ve been doing recently or…

Timothy Fish:

No, let’s go back to before. Tell us about the family business.

Ann:

Oh, you mean that most of the family works in the publishing industry? I can do that. My father was a literary agent before he died and my brother followed in his footsteps. There’s a couple of editors in the family and of course you know Melinda, she’s had several bestselling books. And I’ve got a cousin who’s the president of a major Christian publishing company.

Timothy Fish:

So, you must have had it made when you finished your book. I don’t guess you had to write query letters and all of that.

Ann:

You might think that, but that’s not the way it worked. Would you believe my brother rejected my manuscript? My own brother! Actually, it was his fiancée, but I found out he didn’t like it either. Do you think that’s right? He’s my brother. He isn’t supposed to do things like that.

Timothy Fish:

Do the two of you not get along very well?

Ann:

We get along great, usually. But that didn’t keep him from saying my writing is terrible.

Timothy Fish:

Did he really say that?

Ann:

No, not in so many words, but I could tell what he was thinking.

Timothy Fish:

So, what did you do?

Ann:

I showed it to Harold.

Timothy Fish:

You mean Harold Snowden, the president of the publishing company. But he didn’t like it either.

Ann:

No, but he asked me to go see him at his office. I thought he wanted to talk about publishing it or at least tell me how I could improve it, but all he did was give me some business cards with the names of some editors on them.

Timothy Fish:

As I understand it, he did more than that. Didn’t he offer to pay their fee?

Ann:

Yeah, but that wasn’t what I wanted. When Melinda wrote her first book, she didn’t have as much trouble.

Timothy Fish:

That bothers you.

Ann:

You bet it bothers me. The whole family looks at Melinda as this great author and when I say I want to be an author, they just smile politely and tell me it’ll make a nice hobby.

Timothy Fish:

I’ve read her work and it’s pretty good.

Ann:

Don’t you start too.

Timothy Fish:

Okay, moving on, you had a nice stack of business cards and then what happened?

Ann:

Well, I picked for. Or I should say that one picked me. There was this golden business card that Harold showed me, but he didn’t intend to give me. I was sure I saw him put it away with the others, but when I got home, there it was. I didn’t really look for an editor at first, I just stuck those cards away, but that golden business card kept showing up in the oddest places. It would be on my table or on the counter or on my pillow at night and each time I would put it back with the others. Somehow, it didn’t want to stay there.

Timothy Fish:

You talk about it like it was a live.

Ann:

It seemed that way.

Timothy Fish:

But then you went to check out the business shown on the front.

Ann:

Yeah, it had an address for a storefront in an old strip mall. About the only other thing there was an Asian restaurant and a church. The rest of the strip mall was taken up by this company. The doors and windows were covered with shades, except for one door below a sign that said “We bring your novels to life.”

Timothy Fish:

After your experience with the card, were you afraid to go inside?

Ann:

Not really. There were all kinds of cars parked out front. I walked in the front door and they had this waiting room and it was filled with other authors. There was this old man behind a counter who looked like Rip Van Winkle, the rest were customers. They were waiting for them to do the change over from Fantasy to Science Fiction.

Timothy Fish:

After that, the waiting room cleared out didn’t it? The writers went to work on their novels and it was just you and the old man? Someone showed you around. What did you see?

Ann:

A lady dressed in a uniform took me down this hall with 1970’s style wood paneling. At the end of the hall, we stepped through a door at the end. As soon as we did, we were on this huge space station orbiting Earth. It startled me so much that I stumbled and if she hadn’t caught me I would have…well, I don’t know what would have happened.

Timothy Fish:

Okay, it looks like our food is here and that’s about all we have time for. Thanks for the interview.

Ann:

My pleasure. I’d love to do it again sometime.