Interview with Justin Bog! Celebrating the Release of Sandcastle and other Short Stories

Steve and I are very excited introduce to Justin Bog to you today. Justin is on his whirlwind book tour with VBT Cafe to promote his new release Sandcastles and Other Short Stories. He is also featuring a giveaway; details below. But before we begin here's a bit about Justin.

Justin Bog, first and foremost, grew up a voracious reader, movie fanatic, and music audiophile. Justin always carried a stack of library books and collected way too many comic books from his local Ohio small-town drugstore. More than one teacher scolded Justin to put his "suspect" reading materials away and join the class. Justin began to make up stories of his own, using an old typewriter he found in the attic.

“Growing up in the 70s, Stephen King was about to publish his first novel and John Updike had only published the first of his Rabbit books. Along with so many cinema buffs, I witnessed the huge change in the way movies were distributed — from artistic, Director-driven films backed by huge studios to the dawn of the Blockbuster and popcorn summer films, like Jaws, Rocky, and Star Wars. I was drawn to the music of these decades as well,” says Bog.

So it comes as no surprise that Justin pursued an English Degree at the University of Michigan, followed by Film and Music Appreciation classes -- finally graduating from Bowling Green State University with an MFA in Fiction Writing. After teaching creative writing, Justin began apprenticing in a number of bookstores and editing fiction for a midwestern journal. Justin ended up on the management team at Chapter One Bookstore in the Sun Valley resort area for a decade, offering book recommendations to its local celebrities, skiing fanatics, and tourists. Currently residing in the San Juan Islands just north of Seattle, Justin has the opportunity to focus on his own novels and short stories, while contributing commentary and reviews of Pop Culture. Justin continues to engage his lifelong passion for writing in combination with his curious mindset as the Senior Contributor and Editor at In Classic Style.

Brenda & Steve: Justin, welcome to our blog! We’re so excited you could join us for a chat. When did you first decide to submit your work to be published? Tell us what or who encouraged you to take this big step.

Justin: A very heartfelt thank you Brenda & Stevefor hosting a stop on my Sandcastle and Other Stories book tour -- means the world to me. I hope you and your readers love the tales as much as I enjoyed writing them. I created a blog in January of 2011, and posted a few stories there. No one read them. I was a new blogger, and didn't know anything about trying to get the word out. I wasn't on Twitter and I never shared anything on Facebook. That changed in July of 2011 when I joined Twitter and began posting more and more tales. I also write pop culture recommendations for In Classic Style, the travel, culture, and entertainment eMagazine, so my Twitter Following started to grow each month. I learned more and more about social media. 

Along the way, the writer, Richard Bach (yes, of Jonathan Livingston Seagull fame) began to read the stories from my blog. He began to comment to me by email, and encouraged me to revise. The emails are wonderful and I view Richard as a writing mentor. He allowed me the use of his words on a few of the stories to be placed at the beginning of Sandcastle and Other Stories, and this thrilled me to no end. He told me to risk it and put my writing out for others to read - huge encouragement - so I did.

Brenda & Steve: Wow to have Richard Bach as a mentor. I loved that book. *wonders if Stephen King might come across our pen Louise James' blog. We can only hope...right?* Please tell us a little about your new release Sandcastle and Other Stories without giving too much of a spoiler away.

Justin: The ten tales that make up this first collection are linked by themes of darkness, abandonment, people down on their luck or people who come in contact with others who have ulterior motives or are hiding dark secrets. I love it when a character reveals his or her secret, can't hold it in any longer, acts out in conflicting ways. Some of the stories do shock, but the shock comes naturally, and all of the stories deal with interior conflicts that bubble over into their outer worlds.

Brenda & Steve: Do you plan all your characters out before you start a story or do they develop as you write?

Justin: I let the character lead me to a destination. Melanie, the lead character in Poseidon Eyes, is a happy child minding her business one day, when she meets a force who changes her very existence. In a short story, sometimes the tale is a scene, short, to the point, things happen, a backstory is revealed, just enough information to give the character motive; in other stories, a longer period of time is developed, months or even years pass, and the characters either stay the same or change, like in real life.

Brenda & Steve: How much research do you do for your books? Have you found any cool tidbits in your research?

Justin: For the ten tales in Sandcastle and Other Stories I did no research whatsoever. I set the stories in places I had visited and that was enough. The characters are people you could meet on any street, beach, train station, or city block. The challenge was to make everyday people as interesting as the people in real life. For my first novel, Wake Me Up, coming out in the next year, I read books on how depression hits men differently from women, especially in the middle-age years, books on India, and other books on what people do when a chronic illness begins to make itself known. The first chapter of this psychological family drama is a Bonus included at the end of Sandcastle and Other Stories.

Brenda & Steve: What is your writing process? Do you outline, write by the seat of your pants (Pantser) or a combination of both?

Justin: I do not outline. I mark down a character's name, especially when I'm writing a longer piece that has several different characters (for my horror/suspense novel,  The Shut-Ins, I needed a character chart). But I like to keep the story in my head, see where the character takes me. I can finish a short story in a couple days. When I'm writing a novel, I have to keep writing until finished or I'll lose the narrative.

Brenda & Steve: Do you write full time? What did you do before you became a writer or still do?

Justin: I try to write as much as possible. I worked in bookstores, independents (yay), for over twenty years before moving to Washington State. Now, I take on editing jobs. I'm working with a couple authors who need help with their books. I also edit blog content, and write for In Classic Style. It's a lot of solitary work, and I like that a lot.

Brenda & Steve: Do you have a ritual when it comes to writing? Example….get coffee, blanket, paper, pen, laptop and a comfy place.

Justin: In the mornings I have to drink coffee, but the amount of decaf being shifted into the espresso mix is growing. Wake up and work on whatever story is in front of me. I also do a ton of reading, which helps any author learn how to write better.

Brenda & Steve: Describe a typical writing day for you.

Justin: I will wake up first, coffee, breakfast too, and then write for hours until afternoon. I may take the afternoon off to do home chores, but I'll usually use the afternoons to edit or work on other clients' writing, author commitments. Then it's wine o'clock by then and my two dogs, Zippy and Kipling are bounding about ready for dinner. Oh, there are dog walks throughout the writing day and I'm moving up and about at their insistence. Kipling appears when she's bored and paws at my arms to get me to stop writing - an everyday occurrence. It's hard to say no to her. She's only nine months old and very insistent. Here are Zippy, six years old, and Kipling. They are long coat German shepherds, and all over my writing blog www.justinbog.com.

Brenda & Steve: Please give us a sneak peek at your future books. What’s on the horizon?

Justin: I already mentioned Wake Me Up (completed and ready to go), and The Shut-Ins, a psychological contagion/horror novel is finished but really rough (first draft edit going on). I am a hundred pages into a new suspense story titled The Volunteer, about a tennis coach who brings on someone new to help turn his bad news bears team around; also, I was invited to contribute a long story to a new suspense anthology, which will be an original ebook, and has the tentative title, Encounters. This story of mine, The Conversationalist, could've fit right alongside the tales in Sandcastle and Other Stories. It has that aura of unease I like to shoot for. I just found out that a Washington State publisher, Green Darner Press, wants to publish the print (and iBook/nook ebook) versions of Sandcastle and Other Stories by November so that book will be available at bookstores and libraries before the holidays. I am thrilled by this news and I cannot wait to hold a copy in my hands -- one of my author dreams.

Brenda & Steve: What is your favorite genre to read and who is your favorite author?

Justin: My absolute favorite genre is suspense, but that also touches on the horror genre, psychological suspense like The Silence of the Lambs, the work of Rachel Ingalls, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, Harlen Coben, all are current and past favorite authors I love to read. I put Alexandre Dumas and his brilliant book, The Count of Monte Cristo, as a top ten favorite.

Brenda & Steve: Love Thomas Harris and his work. Hannibal Rising scared me to death, the book was awesome and the movie very good. Is there anything else you would like to tell the readers we have not touched on?

Justin: If you're a writer, keep reaching for your own writing dreams. If you're a reader, I hope you enjoy the writing and the strange characters you will meet in my collection of short sharp tales.

Brenda & Steve: Justin, thanks for visiting with us today. Where can the readers learn more about you and find your books on the web? 

Justin: Here's my blog address: www.justinbog.com

Follow me on Twitter @JustinBog 

Facebook Author Page
Goodreads 

Sandcastle and Other Stories is only available at Amazon as an ebook right now. 

Readers, I'd like to gift from Amazon, eBooks to Two lucky commenters!

Here is an excerpt from the short story, When the Ship Sinks:

There were a lot of people on board who leaned over the railings and stared for hours at the churning blue water below, next stop some island named after a Saint. These people didn’t even stir when the social director called for a shuffleboard contest with updated for-randy-singles-only rules – which sounded more like strip shuffleboard. Even the afternoon exercisers on the jogging track seemed sluggish. They looked like mind- controlled zombies. Someone actually closed his eyes and started to fall from the quarterdeck, but was saved by a woman who was, apparently, his wife, even though this cruise was billed as for the unattached only. The man yelled at the woman and turned away. His Hawaiian-print shirt ripped down the sleeve and the woman held in one hand the tattered remains. The woman shouted, “Don’t leave me, Darrin.” I hear you, lady; been there, done that, and here we are.

I strolled up to the Water deck where the outdoor pool was and spied an empty lounge chair next to a large woman wearing polyester pants and a matching sleeveless, diaphanous peach shirt who also had a towel covering her face. I sat down on the chair. The plastic beveled in the middle. The rather tall prone woman lifted a corner of her towel to see who was invading her air space. I looked her in the eyes, and they were pretty, a light green; she pursed her lips and let the towel drop again, probably sizing me up, equally categorizing my physical flaws. I wanted to offer her some sun block. Some people discriminate against the overweight, but I don’t. I call them like I see them; there are nice fat people and there are mean fat people, and I don’t think I’d be best friends with anyone who was mean to me for no reason. Heck, even I could stand to lose a few pounds around the middle, but I know I can’t help my genes or my food intake, the two things that make me look the way I do. That was another thing Chandra couldn’t understand; she even brought it up in court to try to embarrass me: “He eats too many business lunches, comes home, won’t eat what I fix him, and won’t exercise anymore either.” The judge didn’t accept her plea of divorce because of cruel and unusual punishment, but he let her have her way because she said I’d abandoned her. She got the good car, my red 1973 Porsche Carrera, the cabin on Lost Lake, and the resentment-built longing for imaginary children the rest of her days. The lady next to me should be happy I took an interest in her at all.

The sun beat brilliant heat onto the deck and I glanced into the swimming pool and was blinded. No one swam and no one even appeared to be interested. The water was probably at the boiling point.

I needed rest and relaxation. This singles cruise had been my boss’s idea. He said the pressure was getting to me, that he needed his senior partner to be on his toes for the marketing deal with Popular Phosphorescence, a new competitor to GE in the Southern states. Take one of those cruises, we get the employee discount, he said, and then gave me a brochure with the 1-800 number circled. I’ve been on several, he said, and I wanted to know if he’d taken his wife with him, another woman with major issues ever-willing to pick a fight with anyone not quick enough to pay attention to her needs. She liked me though, always stared me right in the eye at the Christmas party, told me she could tell I was one of the few honest men left in Atlanta – would always ask what my wife was up to . . . simple flirting I always resisted, and I played the Jerry Lewis buffoon in her clutching presence, “let me get you another glass of champagne” . . . she made me nervous, her avaricious nature, I found myself searching nervously over her shoulder for her husband to suddenly appear, come over and see her making a play for me and her switching it around on me just to cause drama.

Enjoy the book trailer! 

http://www.virtualbooktourcafe.com/