Ask the Author: Kevin Bohacz
Answered Questions (4)
Kevin Bohacz
I write because it is my passion, my essence. If I had to pay people for the privilege of writing I would. So my advice is write without a profit motive. Do not write because you want riches or fame or even a very modest income. The money will come if it comes but focusing on money will take your eye from what really matters which is first and foremost to write a book people will love. Once you have your book you have two options as I see it whether self-published or a publisher buys your book. You can spend as little as possible to promote until it proves that it will pay for itself. To me this is like tossing your book into the winds of chance to be discovered. I have two friends who are famous writers who did just this for their first foray into self-publishing and their excellent books went nowhere! So if you want to build a career you must be ready to spend a lot of time and money promoting your book. This means real advertising with broad reach not book signings. This means endlessly hawking your book. This means truly believing in your book enough so that you take the real risks... I guess it all boils down to determination as the critical ingredient, the spice that makes the meal. You must be dogged and unwavering. If you have a good book and are willing to stop at nothing, you can end up with bestsellers… I did (with a little luck thrown in).
Kevin Bohacz
Besides the obvious fact that I get paid to do something that I would do for free and that writing is my essence, not long ago writing saved my life. A few years ago I was widowed at a young age. My wife, my best friend of 17 years died in my arms while we looked into each other’s eyes. In the time that followed when I was drowning in grief I could hear my wife whispering to me, “Write my love… Write.” And so I wrote with tears blurring my eyes... I wrote so hard that I made my arms sore… I wrote so hard that I began to heal my soul. My writing saved me from grief that was dark enough to crush the life from me. I completed my forth novel Ghost of the Gods in a very short period of time while also simultaneously working on my new novels especially The Bridge.
Kevin Bohacz
All my novels are developed following the same basic ritual. What endlessly fascinates or excites me is where the story itself comes from. The short answer is it comes from my muse. When I am writing it really does not feel like I am creating the material. It feels like I am watching daydreams which come from somewhere other than me and I am merely typing as fast as I can to capture the daydream that is unfolding before my eyes. For all four novels I have written, I first created thousands of pages of meticulously detailed background material. Once I feel the characters have become like friends to me, I sit down and start writing. Invariably in a short time the characters stage a revolt and the story takes on a life of its own veering off in directions I never planned. In the end I typically use about 1% of the meticulously detailed background material. Thousands of years ago the Greeks and Romans thought that all creative people were merely channels for muses. I truly cannot figure out where my stories come from. Out of a process of elimination I have decided they come from some Jungian collective awareness that we might as well call a muse!
Kevin Bohacz
I have two books underway. One is titled Dream Signs and it should be on sale before the end of this year. Dream Signs is about a great mystery hidden in plain sight and a dark conspiracy that lives in the shadows. We’ve all been told, “It’s only a dream go back to sleep” but what if lucid dreams are far more than what we think? The second novel I am working on is The Bridge and it is unlike all the other novels I have written, because it will draw on some events from my life. It will be a highly emotional ride and also unlike all my prior novels it is written in first person past tense instead of third person intimate past tense.
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