HOW TO CATCH LIES

FANTASY (AND FANTASTIC) WRITER LAURA D. PALMER RECENTLY INTERVIEWED ME FOR HER BLOG, THE L. PALMER CHRONICLES ~ WRITER, ADVENTURER, AND BELIVER IN MAGIC...
 

HOW TO CATCH LIES

INTERVIEWER: LAURA PALMER

 

In a brief break from the wonders of grad school, I bring you an interview with my own mentor, Paul Bishop, retired LAPD detective and hard-working author.

 

I met Paul a few years ago when some mutual friends invited me to join the writing group he runs once a month. While he’s as tough as his portrait shows, he’s got a generous heart. Through Paul’s mentorship and the encouragement of the writing group, I discovered my best voice as a writer, and gained the courage to present my novel, The True Bride and the Shoemaker to the public.

 

So, without further ado, here’s the chance to get to know Paul Bishop and his latest novel, Lie Catchers.

 

When did you decide to become a writer?

 

When I was in elementary school, instead of just using each of my homework vocabulary words in a separate, unconnected sentence, I would put all of them into  a complete story – much to the delight of my teachers and the ridicule of my less creative peers.

 

Then, somewhere in my late teens, I remember reading a novel and thinking I could write something better. I sat down, rolled a sheet of paper into my typewriter and then sat staring at the blank page. I quickly realized writing might not be as easy as I’d thought. However, I stuck with it and started writing all kinds of derivative crap as I slowly learned my craft.

 

I became a pro in my mid-twenties when I actually started getting paid for writing freelance magazine articles. I then sold a couple of short stories to one of the last of the pulps (Mike Shayne’s Mystery Magazine), and, a year later, my first novel.

 

You spend a lot of time mentoring novice writers. What traits and/or skills do you find helps novice writers grow the most?

 

As you know, in our writers group, we spend a lot of time reading each other’s work aloud. When somebody else reads your work aloud all of the flaws you didn’t hear in your head when you read it yourself become cringingly obvious.

 

I think it is important for a mentor not to try and turn out clones of his own writing style or genre. As a result, a mentor has to have a wide knowledge of genres outside his own in order to understand what a novice is trying to achieve.

 

It is also necessary to understand every novice is at a different stage in their development as a writer. Some are clearly a hair’s breadth away from publication and need just a polish and some confidence to move forward. Others can be so new, they don’t even know what they are doing wrong. It’s easy to mentor the former, but the latter are the ones who need the most guidance, patience, and encouragement. There is a homily about the hardest person to love is the one who needs your love the most. The same can be said of being a mentor…the most difficult writer to work with is the one who needs your help the most. The question is, how will they respond to your help?

 

FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW CLICK HERE


ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER: Laura Palmer has spent many years traveling fictional worlds and building tales of grand, epic adventures. When she was in the midst of a grand battle between two ogres and a stegosaurus, she stumbled upon the world of Pippington. Dreams of wizard duels and clashing armies gave way to motorcars bumping down old city lanes and fairy godmothers disguised as high-society gossips. Here, she found a new literary home.
In between exploring the hidden lives and magic of Pippington, she lives among the mountains of Utah and attends graduate school at Brigham Young University. She developed her imagination and adventure skills through growing up in Girl Scouts, working for ten years at resident summer camps, teaching high school English, attending and working at the University of California Santa Barbara, and reading great books of fantasy and magic. The True Bride and the Shoemaker is just the beginning of many tales to come.
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