Kindle Scout discussion

Stacey Cochran: Welcome, Joseph Souza.

Joseph Souza: Thanks for having me here, Stacey! I love being on your wall!

Stacey Cochran: So tell us a little about Unpaved Surfaces. What is the story about?

Joseph Souza: You know, I've always loved crime and mystery novels. But I always left wondering once they were done. Like what happened to the family and their reactions to the tragedy. We never quite got much after the crime was solved. Its the same with revenge. I always wanted Charles Bronson to prolong the torture of the bad guys. So Unpaved Surfaces is a family dealing with the loss of their young child after a year, with no resolution in sight.

Stacey Cochran: How difficult was it to write?

Joseph Souza: Well, you have children, Stacey. I think I wrote from the gut about what my own reactions would be and in that sense it helped me try and capture the grief I would feel in a similar circumstance. The problem is that life goes on. You still need to eat, pay the bills, take care of your other children. I kept thinking: How in the world would I ever be able to do that if such a terrible thing as a missing child happened. In that sense it helped the writing process, but it was also emotionally difficult as well.

Stacey Cochran: What did you learn about how we process grief and how we *should* process grief?

Joseph Souza: This is why I told this story from multiple family view points. The Battles all suffer from tremendous guilt and pain, but they all handle in different ways, Keith being the most affected of course. Claire, his wife, pours all of her efforts in a town referendum to build sidewalks along the water. Shippen, the teenager, trains himself to be a monk and than a boxer, after being bullied at school. Beanie builds a bird sanctuary in her yard. And Gundersson, the pretentious self-help writer, drinks himself silly, unable to follow-up to his mega-best seller Momentary Joy. Everyone handles grief differently.

Stacey Cochran: How does Maine shape your view of the world around us? Your values? Literary and otherwise.

Joseph Souza: Maine's a great place to live. But I've lived on the west coast and other places, and I think people are essentially the same: hardworking, honest and desire a decent living. Here in Maine, the literary community is as vibrant as the scenery and food. I've belonged to a fantastic writers' group that has met for ten years. In Portland we have a tight knit community of writers, kind of like us Kindle Scouters. Of course I haven't been invited to Stephen King's house for blood sausage yet, but maybe someday. I did, however, get one of my horror novels compared to his a book review in The Portland Press Herald, so that was a great compliment. But I love living here in Maine! My son gets to play hockey on frozen ponds!

Stacey Cochran: At one point you worked in the Organized Crime division of the DEA. What is one misunderstanding people who haven't had that rich of an experience should understand about the criminal justice system and organized crime?

Joseph Souza: There's sometimes a fine line between the agents working undercover and the criminals they're working. I worked on the waterfront of South Boston during the years Whitey Bulger ruled that neighborhood. On the docks during college and not in any law enforcement capacity. The small time criminals I saw and dealt with were so colorful that it sparked my imagination, and got me into that work. In the DEA I had to gather lists of threats to agents by the Colombian Cartel and I can honestly say the threats were terrifying. An agent was killed during the time I was there, and they made a TV movie about his death. But probably the worst organized crime case I worked on was in an office. I was ready to go to law school and working as a paralegal, extensively on the case that became the best selling book and movie A Civil Action. We were defending WR GRACE, and the bastards dumped barrels of trichloroethylene into ditches behind the plant. Dozens of kids ended up with leukemia and dying, and here I was sitting in a deposition and listening as these parents got grilled about what they fed the kids. AS if feeding them bacon for breakfast was going to cause all these kids to come down with cancer. Now I'm a capitalist, but that was the worst organized crime I've ever experienced, and because of that I bailed out law school and became a writer-and gave up millions. LOL! Oh, yeah, in the movie A Civil Action John Travolta plays me. LOL! No, Brad Pitt!

Stacey Cochran: Wow! So is fiction writing then a way to process and understand the world around us for you, your experiences, etc.? Is it a way to make meaning from the irrational, the painful?

Joseph Souza: Life is utter chaos. Everything tends to chaos. I don't know who the hell said that but its true. Writing is great for us control freaks. The key is channeling it through your individual prism and bringing out the vibrant colors of order, beauty and soul. Adding tension and understanding pace. Because life is not like that. Ever! I want to live my life in a European film but life is too messy. Amelie! Yeah. Love that movie. Writing allows us to be Gods. And monsters too. Any damn think we want!

Stacey Cochran: What is the Al Blanchard Award?

Joseph Souza: I was a finalist. Crime short story award given at Crimebake, the largest New England crime conference. For a short story I wrote. Dennis Lehane gave the award, but I couldn't make it that day. But did I mention I did meet Julia Child? Seeing as my novel has many food references it would be 'criminal' not to get that out there.

Joseph Souza: Talk about food legends! Julia and Julia. That sweet angelic voice!

Stacey Cochran: Ha! And your novel The Reawakening won the Maine Literary Award for Speculative Fiction. Tell us about that novel and what the experience was like for you winning the award?

Joseph Souza: Quite a night when I won that! Great honor! But you know something, writing honors only mean something to the person winning them. So many great authors out there. Still, I cherished hearing my name called for that one. We're all winners, us writers, just for staying courageous and writing. Because it is a huge, courageous leap of faith to put feelings down on paper-computer screen. Most non-writers don't realize that. Then the next day it wears off and your back at the keyboard, working on the next one, grinding away like a cobbler with shoes piled to the ceiling. Our craft. The years whiling away to be decent at this-it requires discipline. Sit your ass down and do it and even when it hurts, when you're near the end of the race and your legs are burning-you keep writing. Everyday! 1000 words a day and in one year you have 2 novels. Or The Bible!

Stacey Cochran: Still, it must legitimize you at least on some level in your mind. For me, writing these days is so much about overcoming self-doubt. Maybe I'm just troubled that way.

Joseph Souza: Everything helps. We're all troubled that way. But it does lend some legit street red to my original G lifestyle as a writer. Self-doubt? Me? You must be kidding?

Stacey Cochran: LOL

Joseph Souza: I could win the Pulitzer and I'd have self-doubt. I didn't deserve it. I suck. But once I get back to the writing I'm feeling the groove and living Large.

Stacey Cochran: Okay, so the easy question: What is the role of the fiction writer in our society? What purpose does fiction serve in our culture?

Joseph Souza: The writing is the essence. Writing is life, bro! My son always says that. Fiction serves y creative juices and helps define me as a person. As a reader, great fiction condenses the beauty and tragedy of life into a small pill and serves it as a pain killer to the harsh realities of life. I loved John Irving's earlier works and his writing spoke to me as a younger person. Inspired and gave me hope, enriched me. Same with other writers. If fiction can't move us, uplift us in some way, give us some spiritual hope (sorry) than I don't think it's doing its job. Like at the end of Eddie and Sunny I felt optimistic for the family, transferred my own feelings on them despite some hints otherwise. I guess I optimistic that way. But in this day and age, with attention spans waning because to technology, I sometimes fee the nuances get lost in today;s novels and people desire more action.

Stacey Cochran: How did you learn about Kindle Scout and why did you decide to give it a shot?

Joseph Souza: Wow! I can't remember how I learned of it. I think I have ADD. I don't like waiting two years for my novel to get published. Kindle Scout and Amazon has cracked the Caste system of the publishing world and opened it up. Now its not just the province of WASPS and whoever else they choose to be the 'NEXT BIG THING." The writers are making it happen themselves with the hep of KS. A big thing for me was the speed with which they promised to release my novel. Great! I'm not getting any younger, could get hit by a bus tomorrow. So far I've been pleased with the experience, and surprisingly more pleased with the community we've created here and all the fine and talented writers that I've had the pleasure to meet. And the 1500 helped pay off a few bills too, plus a nice meal to boot at one of Portland's great restaurants.

Stacey Cochran: What are you currently working on and where do you see yourself as a writer in one year?

Joseph Souza: The Viking! A crime novel set in Portland involving the stolen manuscript of famous but dead Maine writer that will expose many terrible secrets about him. The literary estate refuses to release his papers to scholars. A drug gang is involved as well as a corrupt assistant chief of police. A punk girl named Yaz has found the phone wiith the author's hidden journal and refuses to part with it. Violence, scholarship, intrigue. Based the novel after reading how James Joyce grandson refused to allow scholars to copy or quote from his grandfather's work. One scholar worked seven years on a Joyce project only to be told by Joyce's grandson that he'd sure her if she used it. She abandoned the project and Joyce jr. continued to be an ass to the scholars who hoped to give literary criticism to his works.

Stacey Cochran: Sounds like a great story! I'd like to thank Joseph Souza for taking time to chat with me today. If anyone else has questions as this post makes its way into the mysterious FB newsfeeds of others, feel free to jump in with a comment, question, or like for Mr. Souza. Thanks so much!

Joseph Souza: When you have a character with black eyes, implanted horns on his scalp and a Celtic cross implanted in his forehead, it's a lot of fun. But we need to find out who The Viking is ala The Usual Suspects. Of course next month I release Lethal Chain, an ebola medical thriller. so we'll see what happens there.

Stacey Cochran: Most excellent. Thanks again. I'll check in throughout the day and maybe give this post a bump or two in the days ahead.

Joseph Souza: Thanks so much, Stacey! You've been a wonderful interviewer and I think you should apply for Lettermen's job. No, Charlie Rose if he ever retires. Best of luck on your novel Eddie & Sunny and to all the other great Kindle Scouters. Peace out!

So much fun to read about you Joseph - great convo as always, Stacey! You guys rock.

Joseph, TY for the insights! Wish you the best of luck with all of your works.