Ask the Author: Kevin Sites
Answered Questions (2)
Kevin Sites
I've just completed a draft of my second novel.
It's called Freedom's Deep for a fictional Ohio city founded by abolitionists on the deepest spot of Lake Erie's northeastern shore.
After years abroad as a foreign correspondent, Sebastian Rooke has finally come home. But no one in Freedom’s Deep is particularly happy to see him.
As the new owner and editor, of the town’s storied but long-struggling hometown paper, The Liberator, Rooke has taken on the role of an avenging angel, using his personal column irreverently titled, Better Forgotten? to unearth old secrets, root out rumors, and air dirty laundry that the people of Freedom’s Deep would rather be left alone.
Still, Better Forgotten? has become Freedom’s Deep must-read, a journalistic sturm and drang that has everyone on razor’s edge over both what and whom will be reported on next.
But these truths, tales of greed, ignorance, lust, and cruelty, destroy trust, partnerships, and marriages, open new wounds, and even inspire violent recriminations for grievances thought to have been healed by time long ago.
And just when it seems he’s done everything possible to polarize his hometown, Rooke turns his muckraking skills to a dark rumor going back to the Civil War. One concerning the role of a celebrated town father Josiah Gunn and an escaped enslaved woman he’d been sheltering on a final stop of the underground railroad before her crossing to a new life in Canada.
Rooke’s ongoing determination to force his former friends and neighbors to face the truth of their most shameful moments combined with his latest myth-shattering investigation threatens to rupture the very foundation of the community. Also prompting him to reconsider whether the truth at any cost is always worth pursuing.
Especially if he’s able to answer the one question from the past that can forever change the town and its future: what lies at the bottom of Freedom’s Deep?
I see this as part of a loosely-based trilogy, that I started with The Ocean Above Me on the dilemmas journalists face in reporting the truth.
In Ocean, the protagonist Lukas Landon forsakes the truth and pays the consequences.
In Deep, Sebastian Rooke pursues the truth despite the terrible costs.
The final book in the trilogy concerns a journalist who has fled to an isolated sanctuary in the Pacific Northwest, haunted by a truth from the past that will not be appeased.
As journalists, were taught that seeking and reporting the truth is the prime directive. The very purpose of our profession. But there are complexities and consequences that make the entire exercise less didactic, more dangerous -- and more interesting. Especially in a fictional treatment.
It's called Freedom's Deep for a fictional Ohio city founded by abolitionists on the deepest spot of Lake Erie's northeastern shore.
After years abroad as a foreign correspondent, Sebastian Rooke has finally come home. But no one in Freedom’s Deep is particularly happy to see him.
As the new owner and editor, of the town’s storied but long-struggling hometown paper, The Liberator, Rooke has taken on the role of an avenging angel, using his personal column irreverently titled, Better Forgotten? to unearth old secrets, root out rumors, and air dirty laundry that the people of Freedom’s Deep would rather be left alone.
Still, Better Forgotten? has become Freedom’s Deep must-read, a journalistic sturm and drang that has everyone on razor’s edge over both what and whom will be reported on next.
But these truths, tales of greed, ignorance, lust, and cruelty, destroy trust, partnerships, and marriages, open new wounds, and even inspire violent recriminations for grievances thought to have been healed by time long ago.
And just when it seems he’s done everything possible to polarize his hometown, Rooke turns his muckraking skills to a dark rumor going back to the Civil War. One concerning the role of a celebrated town father Josiah Gunn and an escaped enslaved woman he’d been sheltering on a final stop of the underground railroad before her crossing to a new life in Canada.
Rooke’s ongoing determination to force his former friends and neighbors to face the truth of their most shameful moments combined with his latest myth-shattering investigation threatens to rupture the very foundation of the community. Also prompting him to reconsider whether the truth at any cost is always worth pursuing.
Especially if he’s able to answer the one question from the past that can forever change the town and its future: what lies at the bottom of Freedom’s Deep?
I see this as part of a loosely-based trilogy, that I started with The Ocean Above Me on the dilemmas journalists face in reporting the truth.
In Ocean, the protagonist Lukas Landon forsakes the truth and pays the consequences.
In Deep, Sebastian Rooke pursues the truth despite the terrible costs.
The final book in the trilogy concerns a journalist who has fled to an isolated sanctuary in the Pacific Northwest, haunted by a truth from the past that will not be appeased.
As journalists, were taught that seeking and reporting the truth is the prime directive. The very purpose of our profession. But there are complexities and consequences that make the entire exercise less didactic, more dangerous -- and more interesting. Especially in a fictional treatment.
Kevin Sites
Everyone I know that writes for a living is compelled to write. They do not feel complete unless they are writing.
It's not a vocation but an avocation. You write regardless of whether you're getting paid for it or not.
However, I've done it both ways, and getting paid is better.
So maybe the more useful question to address is this:
What is your advice for writers who want to get published and read?
For me, it can be summed up in a word: persistence.
I was 45 before my first non-fiction book was published by Harper Perennial.
I was 60 before Harper bought my debut novel, The Ocean Above Me.
While I've been writing my entire life as a journalist, becoming a published author was certainly the 'long game' for me. It literally took a lifetime.
You have to be willing to keep writing even when no one seems to notice. Or worse, when people advise you to stop trying and do something else. For someone not infected with the need, stopping can be quite a relief. A chance to pursue something else.
For someone who has to write it's just another naysayer trying to divert you from your purpose.
If you feel writing is the only path to a fulfilled life for you, write as much as you can. Every day is best. Even just a little 200, 300, or 500 words. Get better, learn your craft. Read about the craft. Read the works of others. Keep notes, quotes, and anything that helps you to improve.
Write, write, write. Read, read, read. Eventually, you may get to where you want to be. Or maybe not. But even then, there is no such thing as a wasted moment in a life spent in contemplation and attempting to reach others with your words, thoughts, and secrets. A sublime and noble passion, free of regret.
It's not a vocation but an avocation. You write regardless of whether you're getting paid for it or not.
However, I've done it both ways, and getting paid is better.
So maybe the more useful question to address is this:
What is your advice for writers who want to get published and read?
For me, it can be summed up in a word: persistence.
I was 45 before my first non-fiction book was published by Harper Perennial.
I was 60 before Harper bought my debut novel, The Ocean Above Me.
While I've been writing my entire life as a journalist, becoming a published author was certainly the 'long game' for me. It literally took a lifetime.
You have to be willing to keep writing even when no one seems to notice. Or worse, when people advise you to stop trying and do something else. For someone not infected with the need, stopping can be quite a relief. A chance to pursue something else.
For someone who has to write it's just another naysayer trying to divert you from your purpose.
If you feel writing is the only path to a fulfilled life for you, write as much as you can. Every day is best. Even just a little 200, 300, or 500 words. Get better, learn your craft. Read about the craft. Read the works of others. Keep notes, quotes, and anything that helps you to improve.
Write, write, write. Read, read, read. Eventually, you may get to where you want to be. Or maybe not. But even then, there is no such thing as a wasted moment in a life spent in contemplation and attempting to reach others with your words, thoughts, and secrets. A sublime and noble passion, free of regret.
Kevin Sites
I hate to give the term "writer's block," as much power as it implies. Everyone gets stuck at certain points during the writing process. But a block tends to signify a nearly impossible impasse. I don't want to create psychological impediments to me doing my job, so I simply choose not to accept them. Part of that mindset comes from my decades of working as a journalist. Deadlines don't acknowledge or accept writer's block. You must deliver the story or find another career.
This is enormously helpful in writing fiction as well.
But in addition to that ABA (always be advancing) mindset, you should have some ready tools to help you push past the obstacles to getting the work done. Here are mine:
1. Permission to write a really shitty first draft.
I am rarely able to summon anything close to lyrical in the first go-round. It's more about getting the concepts on screen, erecting a supporting structure to see if it works, and then having the reassurance that the page is no longer blank. You're now rewriting rather than writing. That's always less intimidating.
2. Physical Exercise.
If you're having trouble getting momentum in front of the screen, get it off the screen. Go for a run, do some situps, pushups--it doesn't matter as long as you're moving. It shakes things up and gives you a small sense of satisfaction that you're actually doing something other than hating yourself for staring at a blinking cursor.
3. Draw, Paint, Create.
I keep an idea notebook on my desk that I use to visualize concepts I'm having difficulty in writing. Sometimes sketching out images (no talent required, I'm a mediocre artist) helps to break through the brain barrier to expression through words.
No hard and fast rules though. Just experiment and find what works for you--anything but obsessing over a blinking cursor and a blank screen.
This is enormously helpful in writing fiction as well.
But in addition to that ABA (always be advancing) mindset, you should have some ready tools to help you push past the obstacles to getting the work done. Here are mine:
1. Permission to write a really shitty first draft.
I am rarely able to summon anything close to lyrical in the first go-round. It's more about getting the concepts on screen, erecting a supporting structure to see if it works, and then having the reassurance that the page is no longer blank. You're now rewriting rather than writing. That's always less intimidating.
2. Physical Exercise.
If you're having trouble getting momentum in front of the screen, get it off the screen. Go for a run, do some situps, pushups--it doesn't matter as long as you're moving. It shakes things up and gives you a small sense of satisfaction that you're actually doing something other than hating yourself for staring at a blinking cursor.
3. Draw, Paint, Create.
I keep an idea notebook on my desk that I use to visualize concepts I'm having difficulty in writing. Sometimes sketching out images (no talent required, I'm a mediocre artist) helps to break through the brain barrier to expression through words.
No hard and fast rules though. Just experiment and find what works for you--anything but obsessing over a blinking cursor and a blank screen.
Kevin Sites
The idea for my debut novel, The Ocean Above Me was inspired by several different real-life water rescue events. I'm fascinated by the concept of how a body of water, an ocean, lake, river, or even monsoon rains, can separate us from the rest of humanity.
One event most people recognize is the 2018 rescue of the Wild Boars football team in Thailand. A mesmerizing moment with a fairytale ending in which 12 young boys and their coach were extracted from deep inside a water-filled cave by a team effort of international cave divers and Thai Navy Seals.
Another true-life story that captured my imagination was that of Nigerian Harrison Okene, a cook aboard a tugboat which was capsized and sunk in the Atlantic in 2013. Okene survived for three days inside an air pocket until he was discovered by salvage divers. I wondered what he thought and felt for all that time alone in the dark. Wondered if he re-examined his life and thought about things he might've done differently or things in which he took pride.
This scenario seemed a perfect circumstance for a troubled individual like my protagonist, Lukas Landon. A former war correspondent on a downward career spiral, haunted, not by what he saw, but by his own actions while reporting the war in Iraq. Would he accept being trapped at the bottom of the ocean in a shrimping trawler as poetic justice for his sins? Or would he try to survive and make amends for what he'd done and failed to do?
This paradox became the core concept of the novel and the engine of its narrative arc. Accept your fate or change it.
An interesting post-script to the Okene story is that he emerged from his rescue with an understandably crippling fear of water. He gradually overcame that and recently became certified as a commercial diver.
I think my novel will appeal to anyone who wonders about the nature of their own character. How they might respond knowing the end was near -- with grace, desperation, or something else altogether.
The novel is available for pre-order now but will be available in stores on July 11. 2023, published by Harper.
One event most people recognize is the 2018 rescue of the Wild Boars football team in Thailand. A mesmerizing moment with a fairytale ending in which 12 young boys and their coach were extracted from deep inside a water-filled cave by a team effort of international cave divers and Thai Navy Seals.
Another true-life story that captured my imagination was that of Nigerian Harrison Okene, a cook aboard a tugboat which was capsized and sunk in the Atlantic in 2013. Okene survived for three days inside an air pocket until he was discovered by salvage divers. I wondered what he thought and felt for all that time alone in the dark. Wondered if he re-examined his life and thought about things he might've done differently or things in which he took pride.
This scenario seemed a perfect circumstance for a troubled individual like my protagonist, Lukas Landon. A former war correspondent on a downward career spiral, haunted, not by what he saw, but by his own actions while reporting the war in Iraq. Would he accept being trapped at the bottom of the ocean in a shrimping trawler as poetic justice for his sins? Or would he try to survive and make amends for what he'd done and failed to do?
This paradox became the core concept of the novel and the engine of its narrative arc. Accept your fate or change it.
An interesting post-script to the Okene story is that he emerged from his rescue with an understandably crippling fear of water. He gradually overcame that and recently became certified as a commercial diver.
I think my novel will appeal to anyone who wonders about the nature of their own character. How they might respond knowing the end was near -- with grace, desperation, or something else altogether.
The novel is available for pre-order now but will be available in stores on July 11. 2023, published by Harper.
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