Ask the Author: Bill Mesce Jr.
Answered Questions (11)
Bill Mesce Jr.
I can do it in one:
Something showed up on your MRI I don't like and I want to do more tests.
Something showed up on your MRI I don't like and I want to do more tests.
Bill Mesce Jr.
Wow, that's tough. Most of what I read tends to be contemporary and real-world grounded. I'm going to cheat a bit, though, and say that Harry Potter's Hogwarts, as they assembled it for the films, does look like a place I'd like to visit (I understand that real places at Oxford were used for some scenes in the movies). I once wrote an article for a now defunct movie site, part of a series of people talking about favorite settings. Mine was the small Scottish coastal town in a movie from the 1980s, LOCAL HERO. I was broken-hearted to find out the town didn't really exist, and the filmmakers had cobbled it together from shooting in different towns.
Bill Mesce Jr.
I usually don't plan my reading. There's a definite catch as catch can quality to what I read. During the semester (I'm an adjunct instructor) I get very little time for casual reading, but I do pick up books that interest me. Come summer, I look at that pile, close my eyes and pull something out.
Bill Mesce Jr.
It has to do with my father. He died when I was 14, and because he seemed to be always working (there were times when he had two jobs plus spot work on weekends), we didn't get time to share much. I was always curious about his service in WW II (he was in from 1942 to the end of the war in Europe). We know he had scars, my mother told me he was still having nightmares when they married in 1953, but we've never been able to find out anything about his service, and military records provide little detail on his time in North Africa and Europe. We've made guesses based on where he was and when, but don't really know anything. As I've gotten older, what he went through in those three years haunts me more and more.
Bill Mesce Jr.
Interesting question for me because I don't recall reading many things which prominently feature a couple. If pushed to pick, however, I'd have to go with Hammett's Nick and Nora Charles because they're a lot of fun. It's the kind of droll, giddy, yet loving relationship I think we'd all like to have. But, for the life of me, I can't think of anything contemporary that pushes those buttons for me but then so much contemporary work gets by me. Thanks for the question.
Bill Mesce Jr.
Very nice of you to say, thank you. Very flattered to hear it. At the risk of being disgustingly self-promoting, that essay is included a book called "No Rule That Isn't a Dare" which included a number of interviews with published authors on how they pulled off certain strategies in specific books of theirs. You might find it of interest. The key, of course -- and this was the theme of "Show, Don't Tell" -- is that there are no rules, that all these rules are really arbitrary. Good luck with your writing and, again, thanks for the compliment.
Bill Mesce Jr.
Bantam and I had always viewed the novels from different perspectives. I thought of them as war dramas, while Bantam considered them legal thrillers. The first two novels -- THE ADVOCATE and OFFICER OF THE COURT -- had enough of both that it was never a problem, but Bantam and I had a major disagreement over the creative concept of the third novel, including that I wanted it to be the series finale, and Bantam wanted the series to continue on. In the end, to make the book conform to Bantam's needs, the manuscript was cut by 50-60% and the ending rewritten to allow for further sequels. For the most part, the bulk of THE DEFENDER consists of a trimmed version of the original manuscript's second act framed by vastly cut down versions of the first and third acts.
Although there would be no further entries in the series, this wasn't a matter of who was right and who was wrong. As evidenced by the reviews for THE DEFENDER, this truncated version works quite nicely; it just wasn't the story I wanted to tell.
When Endeavour Press approached me about reprinting the series, I agreed on the proviso that I could replace THE DEFENDER with something which restored most of the edited material. This is A COLD AND DISTANT PLACE.
I don't honestly know if COLD/DISTANT will work for people who haven't read the first two novels, and I can only hope that those who did think well of this final installment. That remains to be seen. For myself, however, my satisfaction comes from finally giving the series a true finale, completing, for the first time, the arc of one man's journey through the war.
Although there would be no further entries in the series, this wasn't a matter of who was right and who was wrong. As evidenced by the reviews for THE DEFENDER, this truncated version works quite nicely; it just wasn't the story I wanted to tell.
When Endeavour Press approached me about reprinting the series, I agreed on the proviso that I could replace THE DEFENDER with something which restored most of the edited material. This is A COLD AND DISTANT PLACE.
I don't honestly know if COLD/DISTANT will work for people who haven't read the first two novels, and I can only hope that those who did think well of this final installment. That remains to be seen. For myself, however, my satisfaction comes from finally giving the series a true finale, completing, for the first time, the arc of one man's journey through the war.
Bill Mesce Jr.
I don't know where I read this, but I've come to agree with the idea that there's no such thing as writer's block. It means that a piece isn't ready, either because it hasn't quite jelled for the writer, or the writer hasn't solved some problem with getting the story down on paper. Over time, I've found that to be my own experience; that when I've hit a wall, it's because I'm stumped, not because I'm blocked. I think what often gets construed by novice writers as writer's block is setting to work on a piece prematurely; you're blocked because you really don't have a handle on the whole story. I usually don't sit down to start a piece unless I have a fairly good idea of kinda/sorta what the whole thing should be like. A lot of discovery goes on during the writing, and as the piece progresses it may evolve into something different from the concept I began with, but I do feel when I start that I have a fair idea of the beginning, middle, and end, and what I'm trying to accomplish. This may mean I keep a story in my head sometimes for years waiting for it to come together, but it's also why when I begin, I can bull my way to a finish, at least for a first draft. Not everybody works this way. I do know writers who sometimes only have the ghost of a concept and discover the story and the characters as they write. No two writers are the same; everybody finds their own path. What works for me could drive someone else up the wall.
Bill Mesce Jr.
Take up accounting or veterinary medicine. It can be an incredibly frustrating experience. When I was an undergrad, my writing teacher -- a published author and produced screenwriter -- advised us, "Don't do this because you want to be rich and famous, because most of you won't make any money and most of you won't become famous. That only leaves doing it because you want to do it."
Bill Mesce Jr.
Not trying to be glib, but beats hell out of me.
Bill Mesce Jr.
Most of my ideas kick around for frighteningly long times, whether they're fiction or non-fiction. INSIDE THE RISE OF HBO, which came out over the summer, began as a brief history of cable which I did as part of an MA program I was in during the 1990s. Over the years, the book kept transforming, expanding and changing focus as I tried to get it published. I had pitched it to McFarland around the time I was working on a book about film for them: OVERKILL: THE RISE AND FALL OF THRILLER CINEMA, but could never find the time to work on it. McFarland was only interested in the book if HBO was at the center. At some point a few years ago I finally hit a stretch where I had nothing to work on and voila.
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