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John Auber Armstrong

Goodreads Author

Born

in Vancouver, Canada

Genre

Biographies & Memoirs, Literature & Fiction, Horror

Influences

Gore Vidal, Anthony Burgess, Robert A. Heinlein, Philip K. Dick, Frede ...more

Member Since

March 2012

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/johnarmstrong

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I was born and raised in Little Italy on the East Side of Vancouver. In my teens we moved to the small town of White Rock on the US border and I met Art Bergmann, which led to 15 years of playing music for a living and generally acting in a shameful and often legally actionable manner.

I retired from the stage in my early 30s and began writing. For 15 years I was a reporter and columnist for the Vancouver Sun, covering crime, politics, theatre, books, music, and science.

In 2001 I left the paper to write full-time and have published four books since, with six more in varying stages of pre-publication.

Guilty of Everything, a memoir of the Vancouver punk scene, is still in pre-production as a feature film, forever.

In 2017 i published A Series ...more

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Popular Answered Questions

How do you deal with writer’s block?

John Auber Armstrong I don't get it. If I can't think of what to do where I currently am in a book, I edit what I've already done and usually find I carry on writing when …moreI don't get it. If I can't think of what to do where I currently am in a book, I edit what I've already done and usually find I carry on writing when I get to where I left off before. Or I work on something else among the things I've made notes on or ideas I've pout down for Later.

To me, writer's block means most often you've come to fork in the story and don't know which way to go. In which case I always think of Raymond Chandler's advice "Whenever you don't know what happens next, have someone come through the door with a gun."
I generally follow that, metaphorically or, sometimes, literally. Because sometimes someone coming through the door with a gun is Just What's Needed.
(And by following it metaphorically, I mean introduce something unexpected, shake shit up, mess with the plan. Car trouble, illness, Death From Above, red tape, etc. Because the real world messes with our plans all the time.)
In the last book things were going a little too easily for my characters, things moving along in just too trouble-free a fashion, so I looked at where they were and what they were doing and said, "Gee, situation like that, you could break an ankle if you're not careful" and ... no points awarded for guessing correctly.
That busted ankle gummed up their plans and forced them to be more resourceful (and more interesting) and opened the door to what ended up happening next.
Lastly, when trying to figure aforementioned What Happens Next - and the author is in that place long before the reader (he hopes) gets there - I follow Allen Ginsberg's dictum, "First thought, best thought."
No matter what comes into my head first, I do it. My head has been doing a lot more thinking about the book than I have, and I trust it.(less)

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What are you currently working on?

John Auber Armstrong Three novels and a non-fiction humour book about Getting Old called The Back Nine.
As in golf - closer to the end than the beginning and the clubhouse …moreThree novels and a non-fiction humour book about Getting Old called The Back Nine.
As in golf - closer to the end than the beginning and the clubhouse in sight ....(less)

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John Auber Armstrong’s books

Average rating: 4.14 · 86 ratings · 16 reviews · 6 distinct works • Similar authors

	Guilty of Everything by John Auber Armstrong (Goodreads Author), John Armstrong 4.15 avg rating — 41 ratings — published 2001 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Wages 4.07 avg rating — 30 ratings — published 2007 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Series of Dogs 4.33 avg rating — 12 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Circle of St. George really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 3 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Circle of St. George 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Sugar: a boy, a girl, and the the end of the world 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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John Auber Armstrong's Blog

A Series of Dogs

Well, that was a long break.

My apologies to those waiting for a new post these long months but I was busy finishing a novel and getting this new memoir ready for publication.

It's called A Series of Dogs, a recollection of the dogs in my life. Hard to write, because I miss them all and for the most part writing about them also meant reliving their loss as well as their lives (and mine.)

Here's a ver Read more of this blog post »

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Published on December 07, 2016 10:35

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John Armstrong wants to read Monster of a Land: On the Road in Search of Modern America by Lauren Hough (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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John Armstrong made a comment on Roberto Andonie’s review of City Infernal (City Infernal, #1) " I'm in the same boat. I thought the writing was about as average as it gets, honestly a bit lower than that. But I finished it and download some other ...more "
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John Armstrong rated a book it was ok City Infernal (City Infernal, #1) by Edward Lee	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Quotes by John Auber Armstrong (?)

“The Nazis were massed on the coast of France, only 20 miles from England at the shortest crossing of the Channel. Just so you understand how that felt to an Englishman, Rhode Island is about 15 miles from the US coast.”
― John Auber Armstrong, The Circle of St. George

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John’s Quotes

“The truly terrible thing is, everyone has his reasons”
― Jean Renoir

tags: wisdom-quotes-renoir-truth

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“You know a real friend?
Someone you know will look after your cat after you are gone.”
― William S. Burroughs, Last Words: The Final Journals

tags: cats, friends, friendship

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John’s Friend Comments

Comments (showing 1-2) post a comment »

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message 2: by John

May 27, 2012 07:19PM

Jill wrote: "holy crap...youre a sci fi nut! who knew? x"

oh god yeah - since I was about 13 - picked up Space cadet in the school library, and thus began my 50 year mission to scour used bookstores

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message 1: by Jill

May 27, 2012 05:46PM