Ask the Author: Paul Doiron
Answered Questions (14)
Paul Doiron
Amazingly, I am about to begin book #14 in the Mike Bowditch series, and no, I don't believe it either.
Paul Doiron
Because I wrote about the natural world, it always helps me to get outside. Not just because I see and hear and smell details I might use in a book. But there is something about being alone in nature that "empties" me. I feel serene and open and that is when inspiration arrives.
Paul Doiron
Persevere. Lots of people have an idea for a novel. Fewer start one. Even fewer finish one. Fewer still edit and revise and get feedback on making their novel better. The more you persevere the better likelihood you will have a book that is potentially salable, but more importantly is good and has something to say.
Paul Doiron
Hearing about the positive effects you have had on people's lives. Things have happened I never could have imagined. Troubled boys refused to read until their teachers gave them THE POACHER'S SON and then they became obsessed with reading. One young man in a correctional facility wrote that my books helped get him through his year inside. Young game wardens have told me that my novels helped shape their career decisions....
Paul Doiron
Great question! I am a Sherlockian and have always had an interest in late Victorian England. The version of that world in which Holmes and Watson live intrigues me. Or "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman" version. What would I do? Try not to get murdered.
Paul Doiron
I attended high school with a serial killer. I didn't know John Joubert well but my personal experience gave me a different perspective on multiple murderers, real and fictional, from what I read in fiction or see on TV. It also turned me off true crime, I have to say. I am not sure I would ever fictionalize Joubert's story but my mind returns to him repeatedly although he was executed for his crimes years ago.
Paul Doiron
Lots of people have said they'd love to see Mike Bowditch team up with C.J. Box's Joe Pickett (I would not be opposed). I think it might be fun to watch the fireworks if Jack Reacher rolled back into Maine and Mike had to accommodate himself, or not, to Reacher's unconventional problem-solving methods.
Paul Doiron
Thank you! You're referring to my writing process, which I often speak about at events. I don't do a lot of planning ahead of time. When I start a book, I know my main characters, the setting, the time of the year, the crime, and who did it (that, especially, is subject to change). Then I tend to write full-speed ahead without stopping to fix things. I like the forward momentum that organic method adds to the story. And I frequently find myself surprised by my subconscious. The end should come naturally from the story, in my opinion. So most of the rewriting and revision comes elsewhere because when I reach the end I trust that whatever destination I've arrived at is the correct one.
Paul Doiron
This answer contains spoilers…
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Paul Doiron
I know that some Maine wardens read the books because I've had them show up at readings to buy books to be signed. And I've also met younger officers who started reading the novels as teenagers—as hard as that is for me to accept! I receive a lot of letters from conservation law officers, some retired, others still working around the country. It means a lot that they find the stories realistic (up to a point).
Paul Doiron
I do! But I lack the garage space to buy one at the moment. Of the various vehicles Mike has owned, my favorite was his 1970s Ford Bronco with the "three on the tree," but alas, that met a bad end in THE BONE ORCHARD. Mike's interest in classic trucks isn't a whim. It's a part of his fascination with history and his general fondness for older, well-built things. In the early books he thinks of himself as having been born 100 years too late, but he has a more modern sensibility than he admits to himself. He'll never love computers, though.
Paul Doiron
I have traveled around Arizona — from the Grand Canada to Mexico — and found it about as different from Maine as I can imagine. And yet I absolutely loved it. If Tony Hillerman hadn't done such a great job of describing that corner of the world, I might have sent Mike Bowditch there on vacation for a book. I still might.
Paul Doiron
I honestly don't know where Mike Bowditch came from. He contains aspects of myself as a young man, and people who know me say that they see similarities I never intended. But Mike is a better man than I was at that age. I have subsequently met some young wardens who remind me of him in certain ways. Some of them have told me how much they relate to the character, which is rewarding.
Paul Doiron
I find that most cases of writer's block are episodes of garden-variety procrastination. Writing can be hard so we balk at doing it. In those instances, nothing beats sitting in the chair and staying put. Not writing has to become more of a punishment than getting the writing done. Other times, I find that I am blocked because I don't know enough about the scene or subject I am writing. I need to do more research or planning, I realize. This is something I picked up as a magazine editor. If I ever had a writer who couldn't move forward with an article, I would tell him or her to go out and do another interview.
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