Ask the Author: Gary F. Bengier
Answered Questions (9)
Gary F. Bengier
I’ve spent parts of the past two decades thinking about how to live a balanced meaningful life. Part of that journey involved finishing a master’s degree in philosophy, with my thesis on philosophy of mind and attempting to understand the nature of human consciousness. This thinking led to the novel, where the philosophical questions underlay a story filled with rich characters, on their own journey of discovery.
Gary F. Bengier
Ideas inspire me. I get inspired by ideas that are worth sharing, and I have a creative urge to share them in a compelling way.
Gary F. Bengier
My novel, Unfettered Journey, launches on September 7th. Set in a richly envisioned future world, Unfettered Journey is the story of an AI scientist who seeks to create robot consciousness and discovers the resilience of the human spirit. He travels to a small college to progress his quest, but instead finds love, a secret plot by unjust forces, and the answers to his fundamental questions—the nature of the conscious mind and free will.
Gary F. Bengier
My general advice is “Sit down in your chair and write.” The particular advice is to create some tracking method—maybe a spreadsheet with dates and hours spent writing—that you fill in at the end of each day, each month, each quarter-year. That which is measured is what gets done. That discipline will help you develop a writing habit. From measurement, you can begin to see progress toward your goal, because it will be obvious how long it will take to finish your novel.
Gary F. Bengier
The greatest feeling is to be awakened by the voice of your characters talking to you. Over time they walk out of the mist, becoming more visible, with more details of their personalities clear, until you know their minds. Sometimes the day after you finish a scene the character awakens you to say, “Nah, I wouldn’t do that.” Then you go back to write it the way they tell you to.
Gary F. Bengier
Hemingway’s advice, to “leave a little at the bottom of the well” is still sound. End one day knowing where you will begin the next. I find that a rough outline of scenes makes the writing flow. The transitions from scene to scene happen more naturally. The next page of your story awaits only for you to write it down.
Gary F. Bengier
I have nothing important to do today, or the day after that. I am satisfied because the world is perfect with inaction.
Gary F. Bengier
I’d travel back to the world of The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane. The American Civil War has fascinated me since childhood. There is the towering figure of Abraham Lincoln. It was a time of great dissention and disunity, driven by fundamental questions about values and the direction forward (perhaps much like our own time). Lincoln found a path through, simultaneously redefining the meaning of the equality written in the founding Declaration of Independence and Constitution. (Lincoln at Gettysburg, by Garry Wills, is an excellent book describing the impact of this speech in this evolution.) I would visit with these fellow Americans from an earlier time, as they made the decisions that shaped the Republic for a new direction. That knowledge would be valuable, as we navigate a difficult century.
Gary F. Bengier
Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime, by Sean Carroll, is on the top of the credenza. Sean is a great physicist writing about deep scientific ideas in an approachable style. We had a memorable dinner in Santa Fe eighteen months ago, as he was finishing writing this book. I’m also partway through No Country for Old Men by my friend, Cormac McCarthy. Cormac is a fine storyteller with riveting, but rough characters. Though we have sometimes discussed our varying views on human nature, with me the optimist.
About Goodreads Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
See Featured Authors Answering Questions
Learn more