
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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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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AMAZON
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