Suspense
Date Published: 11/7/2019
Publisher: BHC Press
REALITY...
IS IN THE MIND OF THE BEHOLDER
BB Danser, the patriarch of the eccentric and zealous Danser family, narrates his life story in View Finder. Set during Hollywood's Golden Age of greed, corruption, and scandal, his memoir is one of madness, passion, murder, and his desperate, lifelong effort to escape the confines of real and modern life.
The son of the famous actress Elizabeth Stark, BB is caught in the middle of his parent's tumultuous relationship and his father's crushing megalomania and jealousies. Desperate to escape, he becomes obsessed with movie cameras and cinematic storytelling, becoming transfixed with the question: Is it better to view or be viewed?
A roller coaster story of hope and vision, BB searches for about himself and his family in a world of industrialized fantasy making.
Interview
What is the hardest part of writing
your books?
Hoping I don’t
run out of espresso. That and staying dedicated to the write while other interruptions
like PR and correspondence and editing my other books need to be taken care of.
It helps to write seven days a week and to put all of that aside for five
hours, staying immersed on the new story. I can then handle the other sides of
an author’s life with care and focus.
What songs are most played on
your Ipod?
Lately
it is a blend of Little Feat and Los Lonely Boys. I like music playing while I
work, but it can’t be a distraction, so I don’t listen to songs where the
lyrics cause a pause. For my needs, I want up-tempo music that quickens the
heart without pulling my attention away.
Do you have critique partners
or beta readers?
Before
a novel goes to my publisher, I work closely with a professional editor. While
my publishers have a fine editing staff, I insist on paying my own to ensure a
clean, grammatically correct draft with all questions of continuity, fact
checking and story pace worked beforehand. I can’t speak highly enough of the
importance of professional editing and in my mind, editors should get equal
billing with the author.
What book are you reading
now?
I
read almost exclusively non-fiction, mostly about crimes and trials during the
1800s. The rare exception is James Ellroy and a few others. I stay far away
from any works of fiction that are in my genres. I find it best to avoid
possible influences that might be harmful to staying with my own voice and
style. I feel much the same about reviews, which I also don’t read. Laurell K.
Hamilton said it best:
“I seldom, if ever, read reviews, so it doesn't impact me. I've found that even good reviews can mess with my muse and me, so I've learned that simply not reading is the only sane way to go. My publisher will occasionally send me reviews to read and I will look at those, but beyond that I see almost none of them. Haters are going to hate, trolls are going to be trolls, there is nothing you can do about them, except not feed them.”
There’s also this:
“The artists who want to be
writers, read the reviews; the artists who want to write, don’t."
~ William Faulkner
How did you start your
writing career?
As
a child and teen, I was a compulsive reader, consuming whatever I could get my
hands on. While finishing the collection of John Cheever stories and with a
head full of the lyrical Richard Brautigan, the idea of writing came to me causally,
but stayed around. Quite honestly, I heard myself say, “I dare you.” Grinning, I
accepted, starting in with a stack of blank index cards, collecting what I call
ingredients. After a few months and with a hundred or so cards capturing
themes, structure, the cast and locations, I started in, still not sure where I
was headed, but curious and jazzed. To this day, I think that diving in without
doing too much planning is vital. While I’m not a fan of company logos, I do
love Nike’s.
“Just
do it.”
Black Veil
By Greg Jolley
Épouvantail Books
Murder and Madness
in the High Sierras
The tragic and gruesome story of the Donner Party is being made
into a movie, a tale of cannibalism and treachery high in the snowbound
mountains. The cast is made up entirely of children. One by one, they are
dying. The series of deaths are haunting the production, each one of the
“accidents” at the hands of Florentino
Urbino. Driven by greed and jealousy, he is killing
off the film’s stars to line his pockets by selling off the gruesome
footage of the accidents.
Six-year-old actress SeaBee Danser in her black veil is his next
target. She is the only one who can see through the black curtain that Florentino Urbino
drapes over his deranged and murderous heart.
Can she survive?
Can he be stopped?
Will any of the children be left standing?
About the Author
Greg Jolley earned a Master of Arts in Writing from the University of San Francisco and lives in the very small town of Ormond Beach, Florida. When not writing, he researches historical crime, primarily those of the 1800s.
Contact Links
Twitter: @gfjolle
Purchase Links
Also in iBooks
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