Guy
L. Pace, born in Great Falls, MT, grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He served
in the US Navy, including combat operations in Vietnam in 1972.
He
was a Navy journalist, and worked primarily in community newspapers as a
reporter, photographer, editor and finally a managing editor. He changed
careers in the mid-80's getting into computer support, training, networking and
systems, and eventually information security. He retired in 2011 after more
than twenty years working in higher education.
He
lives with his wife, Connie, in Spokane, where he gets to spend time with
children and grandchildren and ride his Harley-Davidson.
~*~*~*~
To
celebrate the upcoming release of Carolina
Dawn, book three in the Spirit
Missions Series, Guy granted me an interview.
About Carolina Dawn
Can the Community survive?
Amy
Grossman must decide about Paul Shannon's proposal. Guilt over Joe Banes' death
still eats at her. Then there is Lucy--a competitor for Paul’s affection--to
deal with. She also fills her days with gardening, handling power outages, and
perimeter guard duty.
A
stranger arrives with dire news turning Amy's life new directions. With its
very survival on the line, the community must pull together one more time.
She
knows God has a plan for her, but surely ending up zombie food couldn't be part
of that plan.
You write Christian-based science
fiction and action adventure novels. How did you choose this genre?
I
think it found me. I’m not sure exactly where the story came from. Most of it,
when I started Sudden Mission, came
during the planning stages and it became a story I would have wanted to read as
a teen.
One
reviewer called the books spirit-filled and described some of the conflict as
spiritual warfare. This was a new concept for me. I tried to keep things
biblically sound without getting too preachy, and I think I succeeded there.
I’m no biblical scholar, so I could be wrong.
In
a way, I carved my own niche here, and that may or may not be a good thing.
Mainstream Christian publishers don’t seem interested in this kind of thing.
Check out a corporate Christian book store (LifeWay, for example) and see what
they offer for teen fiction. Thomas Nelson, Multnomah, and other Christian
publishers are there with Christian-based fairy-tale fantasy and adventure
stories, sometimes with animal or cartoon main characters, and they all have
the same quest structure. Somebody always has some special power, too. Very
few, if any, have a real-world setting with regular teens as main characters
who already are believers and don’t require conversion.
My
characters are regular people, already believers, but they get themselves and
their faith tested. So, in a way I limited my options regarding publishing.
When Booktrope’s Vox Dei picked up Sudden
Mission, I was floored. I’d been shopping that book around for a while
looking for a publisher—even an agent—that would be interested in something
different with no luck.
Tell us about your upcoming release Carolina
Dawn.
Carolina Dawn ties up a number of loose ends from Sudden Mission and Nasty Leftovers. But, I changed perspective. I wrote it from the
point of view of Amy Grossman rather than Paul Shannon. In this one, Amy gets
swept up in fighting for the survival of her community—even the rest of
humanity—and she is tested severely on several levels.
This
book touches on the events of the first two books, and I try to expose the post-traumatic
stress that impacts Amy, as well as how she is dealing with jealousy and loss
of a life-long friend.
A
couple of new characters are in Carolina
Dawn, one is the focus of Amy’s jealousy. The other is the soldier who
brings the very bad news to the community. And, then there is—well, I’m not
giving that part away here.
I
think a theme of Carolina Dawn is the
roles of members of a Christian community. No one is perfect, and even the main
character has flaws. But a willingness to follow Jesus Christ, commit to a
community and make sacrifice for that community bring balance, forgiveness, and
builds faith.
What kind of research do you do, and
how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?
Maps.
I love maps. All three books are set in places I’ve been through or lived in or
around at some point. So, I have some knowledge of the settings. But, you
cannot trust memory for details that may be important or that may have changed.
So, I use street view maps and other online resources to get a look at a
location, then fill out the scene.
Sudden Mission was a road trip, and I used
satellite imagery and street view maps extensively to tour through the places
the characters experienced.
Nasty Leftovers took place mostly in Washington, D.C.
So, online resources for government buildings, with a little poetic license,
made up the bulk of the research. I still used the street view maps and
resources as I wrote to keep the scenes alive.
Carolina Dawn was much the same, with the
exception that I spent a lot of time in and around North Carolina in the
1970’s, and more recently. I know it pretty well and drove down most of the
roads mentioned at one time or another.
Nasty Leftovers and Carolina Dawn use military hardware extensively. Since I spent
about ten years as an Army Reserve officer after my time in the Navy, much of
this information was already in my head, but was dated. I had to research
current weapons and equipment to make sure I was including weapons and vehicles
appropriately. And, to be honest, I’m pretty good with explosives.
How long on average does it take you
to write a book?
Well,
all three books were done in first draft during a NaNoWriMo (National Novel
Writing Month). So, for first drafts, thirty days. There is the month or more
ahead of that for preparation, outlining, character development, and research. Nasty Leftovers cooked in my head for
about a year, then exploded onto my computer screen when I sat down to write.
Carolina Dawn took longer. It’s a more complex
story and needed some hard thought. Not to mention I was trying to write from a
female prospective. I had to do some research. So, I read a few YA romance
novels to see how others did it.
After
the first draft, I let things cool down for a while—a month or two. Then I go
back through two or three times. When I think it looks pretty good, I have my
wife give it a read. She was a proofreader at a newspaper we worked at a long
time ago. After that, I start shopping for an editor and proofreader.
Do you hide any secrets in your books
that only a few people will find?
Well,
is there really an old abandoned schoolhouse (the goal in Sudden Mission) down Sherman Road outside of Choteau, Montana? I’ve
been down that road. I actually visited there this last September and took a
few pictures. Not gonna tell ya. You’ll have to go there yourself.
As
for the government buildings in Nasty
Leftovers, I took some poetic license with some things. Some things not.
I’ve been in some of those buildings and some I used floor plans available
online to describe what the characters see and do. If you get a chance to take
the underground from the Capitol Building to the Senate Office Building, you’ll
see I got that pretty solid.
As
for Carolina Dawn, there are a couple
of surprises. Nothing hidden, really.
I
do use some odd “pop culture” references once in a while in all the books. They
may be a bit dated, though. I wouldn’t call them secrets.
What is your writing Kryptonite?
Self-doubt.
There
were times, even in Carolina Dawn,
when I had doubts about my ability to bring the story to a conclusion. In other
works, that particular Kryptonite killed them. I’d get started, think I had a
decent plot and story, and convince myself it was no good about half way
through.
We
get these mind worms from our environment or our social network, and they can
be devastating to a writer or any artist. They are one of the most difficult
things to overcome. We need to put self-doubt in a lead-lined box and bury it.
Is there any particular author or
book that influenced you in any way either growing up or as an adult?
Ernest
Hemingway, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and Ray Bradbury.
Papa’s
The Old Man and the Sea, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and short
stories like, The Short Happy Life of
Francis Macomber, were influential and instructive. Asimov’s fiction
(especially the Foundation Series and
the robot novels), science articles, and biography filled my reading list as I
grew up. R. A. H. was one of my favorite authors later, with Starship Troopers, Podkayne of Mars, Double
Star, Stranger in a Strange Land, and many short stories. Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles and Something Wicked This Way Comes are my
favorites.
What is the most difficult part of
your artistic process?
As
with almost every writer I know, getting started is the most difficult. This is
one of the reasons I used NaNoWriMo to write my books. I have a start date and
a deadline. As an old journalist, that deadline is the primary motivator for
me. I set it, I push myself to meet it. What that does is frees me up to just
write. It’s amazing how much that helps the “getting started” part.
What is your favorite childhood book?
When
I was about eight, my mother read Little
Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett to me at night. By fourth grade
I’d read Robinson Crusoe, Robin Hood, Tom
Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and The Pauper, and a number of
others. As I grew older, I read the Horatio
Hornblower Series, Seven Years Before the Mast, C. S.
Forester. I don’t think I read them all. I loved Robin Hood.
If you could tell your younger
writing self anything, what would it be?
Don’t
give up. Don’t let others discourage you. I didn’t get a lot of support or
encouragement for my writing efforts from people close to me when I was young.
Still, I pursued my desire to write. It did take a long time to get to this,
though. I spent almost 20 years in journalism working in small newspapers. Even
when I changed careers in the ‘80s, I continued to write technical documents
and user documents for computer and network systems. It was when I retired from
my tech career that I was free to finally write something I wanted to write. It
might not happen tomorrow. If you don’t give up it will happen.
Was there anything in Carolina
Dawn that wound up getting edited out of the final draft?
I
can’t think of anything specific. During the writing process, some things were
re-written and other ideas just left out. A few names were changed in the first
edits. These things all contributed to the final story, so I think they were
good. In the first two books, there were chunks of the story that didn’t really
propel things along and were edited out. I thank my editor for pushing those
changes then, because both books became stronger as a result.
Since
Carolina Dawn is the third book, I
think I was better prepared and things were well set for the story when I
started. I kept it flowing without adding things that didn’t move the story
along. The more you write, the more effective you become. That’s my story and
I’m sticking to it.
What has been the toughest criticism
given to you as an author? What has been the best compliment?
This
is hard to pick. My mentor in the Navy was Senior Chief Raymond P. Lucasey. I
knew basic news writing when I transferred to his office in 1973, but he worked
with me on being better. He taught me about active voice and not backing into
sentences. His criticisms were hard, but always tempered with positive words
and ideas. The fact that I still remember his name and rank after more than forty-five
years speaks to the impact he had on me.
The
toughest criticism was the review of New
Kid (published in Neo-Opsis Science
Fiction Magazine. Karl Johanson accepted the story in 2014, and it was
published in 2015. A reviewer went through the magazine and reviewed
everything. New Kid did not get a
good review. It was harsh. But, others liked the story and liked the treatment
of bullying.
My
wife, who was not really a reader, loved my stories and books. Of course, she’s
prejudiced but she’s seen my work for thirty or more years.
But
the best compliments are from reviewers on Amazon. The five-star reviews for
both Sudden Mission and Nasty Leftovers come from other authors
and people I respect. They are great.
Follow Guy L. Pace
About BugBear Books
Guy
L. Pace was first signed to a publisher that produced Sudden Mission and Nasty
Leftovers (Vox Dei, an imprint of Booktrope). Unfortunately, the publisher
closed its doors, leaving a number of authors in the lurch. This author decided
to re-launch Sudden Mission, Nasty
Leftovers, and now, Carolina Dawn,
under his own imprint, BugBear Books. The concept is to publish just this
author’s books but maintain the standards of quality readers came to expect
with the first two novels.
BugBear
Books presents Christian themes in teen and young adult fiction, mixed with
action, adventure, and excitement, using characters reflective of real people
dealing with hard realities.
Publishing/Marketing Contact
Guy L. Pace
BugBear Books
2203 E 51st Ln. Spokane, WA 99223
206-240-9961
