J.Conrad Guest's Cobb Legacy

J. Conrad Guest is the author of five novels—January’s Paradigm, One Hot January, January’s Thaw (all based on the character, Joe January, a Philip Marlowe type private investigator circa 1940), Backstop: A Baseball Love Story in Nine Innings, and The Cobb Legacy—and a novella, Chaotic Theory. Backstop was nominated as a Michigan Notable Book in 2010 and was adopted by the Illinois Institute of Technology for their spring 2011 course, “Baseball: America’s Literary Pastime.” His short fiction, memoirs, op-ed pieces and sports articles can be found at a variety of websites; simply google J. Conrad Guest.

J. Conrad Guest finds his muse in a good cigar and a pot of coffee or glass of scotch, depending on the time of day. They’ve become part of his ritual, his creative process.

Welcome back, Conrad.

Where do you live, and how has your environment affected your writing?

I live in Michigan, where the long winter months make for a grand environment for writing. I live alone, which is also good for writing, which is a very solitary endeavor. I’ve had my heart bloodied and bruised several times—the warm and caring guy women claim to seek, tossed away in preference for the bad boy. But I’ve also bloodied a couple hearts myself and so my name is likely still cursed. Writing is therapeutic for me. I write largely about regret and the relationships between men and women and between children and parents. In short, I succeed in crafting happily ever after stories for my characters I can’t seem to write for myself.

Give a short synopsis of your most recently published book.

The Cobb Legacy spans more than a century. Baseball legend Ty Cobb’s father was killed, by his mother, a week before Ty became a major league ballplayer. Although she was acquitted on the grounds it was accidental, who can know what Cobb thought. His father, who was against his son playing ball, told him only not to return home a failure. He never did, but he did lament, after his playing days were done, that his father never got to see him play.

More than a murder mystery, The Cobb Legacy is the story of a man’s search to connect with his dying father while also coming to terms with an adulterous affair and impending divorce, and doubting that love with an old friend can be his.

What sets your books apart from others?

I probably rely more on personal experience—the disappointments I’ve encountered throughout my life—than most writers. I tend to write mostly in first person, which gives my work an almost autobiographical or memoir feel. I like to think this allows my readers to connect with my work more than books written from a purely fictional perspective. I also don’t follow a specific formula; I tend to mix several genres.

Is it available in print, ebook, and Kindle formats?

All my books are available as e-books, including Kindle and Nook, and several others as well as print—The Cobb Legacy will be available in print in May.

The Cobb Legacy i snow available for download for your Kindle, Nook, EPUB, MOBI orin PDF. Normally priced at $2.99, download The Cobb Legacy today for only $1.99. From the Pulse Publishing website, insert the promo code “FFTCLJCG” when prompted and you’ll be able to download The Cobb Legacy.

What do you think is the greatest lesson you’ve learned about writing so far? What advice can you give other writers?

The greatest lesson I’ve learned is to enjoy the process. I used to get too wrapped up in publication. Rejection letters were, to me, a reflection of my work, its value. When I learned to enjoy the creative process, I became a writer, and publication eventually fell into place.

My advice to other writers is not to be so quick to self-publish. Try to learn from your rejection letters. Sure, publishing is highly subjective—what one publisher or agent seeks may make another yawn. Publishing on a credit card is the easy way; but it also results in stagnation—one can’t learn the art of writing because one continues to make the same mistakes.

We all know how important promoting our work has become. How do you get the word out both off and online?

Oh, gosh, that’s a difficult question because I’m still learning. Promoting my work doesn’t come easily to me; I’d much rather spend my free time writing than marketing. But it’s a necessary evil. Even the monster publishing houses expect more from their writers. A few years ago I learned that in order to get anywhere I needed a website and a blog, so I’ve got both. The trouble is, so does every other writer, so it becomes an exercise in making mine different to separate myself from all the others, and that’s something that is ongoing and which I’m still learning. I try to do interviews elsewhere, like this one, but it’s difficult to measure whether or not they’re effective.

Funny story: I posted an excerpt from The Cobb Legacy on Good Reads, a lengthy diatribe on Romeo and Juliet, which has gone quite literally viral. It’s been picked up by dozens of sites and been viewed by thousands. My name appears as the source; but unfortunately none of my book titles accompany it, so I have no way of knowing how many readers may have discovered my novels through that venue.

Can you tell us your writing goals/projects for 2012 or beyond?

I’m currently shopping my sixth and seventh novels—A Retrospect in Death and 500 Miles to Go. The former takes the reader to the other side after the protagonist’s death, where he meets his higher self. The two of them analyze his past life, looking for the breadcrumbs that led to his unhappiness in preparation for his return to the lifecycle. The latter takes place in the 1960s, during the golden age of motor racing, and chronicles the efforts of a young man to achieve his dream of winning the Indianapolis, but at the cost of losing his childhood sweetheart, who is certain he will leave her a widow. It’s a story of the importance of, as well as the dangers associated with, pursuit of dreams.
 

I’m just getting involved with a collaborative novel with several other Second Wind Publishing authors, which will keep me busy through the first several months of 2012, and I have a couple of ideas for my next novel; but neither has gotten to the point where I need to set pen to paper.

Where can folks learn more about your books and events?  

I can be found on Facebook, Red Room and Good Reads, and at my website: www.jconradguest.com.

J.C. Guest: Baseball and Books--What could be better?

Good morning, everyone! Grab a cup of coffee and join J.Conrad Guest and I for a little chat.Conrad Guest is here today to discuss baseball and books, two of my favorite activities.

Welcome, J.C.
Tell us a little about yourself.

JCG: I’m the author of Backstop: A Baseball Love Story in Nine Innings, through Second Wind Publishing. Backstop was nominated as a 2010 Michigan Notable Book and this year was adopted by the Lewis Department of Humanities at the Illinois Institute of Technology as required reading for one of their courses—"Baseball: America’s Literary Pastime"

Cool!

Last year, I completed The Cobb Legacy, a murder mystery written around baseball legend Ty Cobb and the shooting death of his father by his mother. I just completed my sixth novel, A Retrospect in Death. One Hot January is hot off the presses, to be followed later this year by its sequel, January’s Thaw. My short fiction, non-fiction and sports writing can be found on the Web and in print publications. Available for author readings and writer workshops, I also provide editorial services.

What are your writing goals?

JCG: For me writing is like a career in baseball but in reverse. Ballplayers reach their primes in their mid to late twenties and their careers are over before they turn 40. I didn’t start writing my first novel until I was thirty-six—about the time most ballplayers hang up their spikes. Having written three novels in the last three years after having written three the previous fifteen years, I’d have to say I’m hitting my prime at age fifty-four.

As for goals, I just want to continue to improve, write quality fiction for as long as I can and enjoy the process. Oh, and that readers continue to find me.

What is your most rewarding experience during the writing process, J.C.?

JCG: I realized I was a writer the day I gave up fretting over publication—the dreaded rejection letter—and learned how to enjoy the process. I really enjoy it all, from rolling out of bed to hitting the shower, making breakfast and putting on coffee; heading over to the humidor to select a cigar, unwrapping it, inhaling the fragrance of the wrapper, snipping the foot and lighting the head and watching my den fill with smoke. It’s all in the process. But it all comes down to arranging words on a blank monitor—crafting that sentence I love to read in other novels, the one that leaves me thinking, I wish I’d written that. And then I read it again, and later I reread it to a friend over the phone.

It’s a shame that writers today are advised against writing anything that risks taking the reader out of the story because those are the moments, the passages, for which I live. To me how something is said is just as important as what is said. So writing a paragraph, a piece of narrative, or an exchange of dialogue that really nails it, that brings tears to my own eyes … well, that’s what I find most rewarding. It’s what brings me back to my den each Sunday morning.

Tell us about your latest book.

JCG: The first of a science fiction/alternate reality diptych, One Hot January is based on a theory that Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt conspired to allow the Japanese a preemptive strike at Pearl Harbor, thereby enabling Roosevelt to declare war openly, without political repercussions. In my revised historical account of events, Churchill alerts Roosevelt that his code breakers have learned of the Japanese plot. The U.S. is thereby able to thwart the attack, delaying involvement in World War II long enough for Germany to grow too strong to be defeated.

A century later, Hitler’s successor continues to eradicate entire races and cultures to ensure German supremacy. A small sect of genetically engineered beings sees the flaw in selective breeding and extermination, and so they travel back in time, to the events just prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, to achieve the successful conspiracy that leads to the reality in which we live today.

In One Hot January, Joe January, an emotionally aloof private investigator from the South Bronx, gets more than he bargains for when he uncovers this seemingly impossible plot of time travel and alternate realities by grudgingly agreeing to help a pretty young woman locate her missing father. Her father, a Professor of Archeology from Columbia College, must prevent the secret location of Hitler’s body, which lies in a cryogenic state awaiting a cure for cancer, from falling into the wrong hands. By the end of the novel, January is thrust one hundred years into the future, where he must survive on a century-old sagacity as he endeavors to find his way back to his own time and the woman he loves but lacked the courage to tell. The tale concludes in January’s Thaw, to be released later this year.

Filled with mystery and intrigue, action and romance, the January series is speculative fiction on a large scale.

Is it available in print, eBook, and Kindle formats?



One Hot January is available through my publisher, Second Wind Publishing, and will soon be available from Amazon in both book and Kindle formats.

 Do you think your writing has improved since your first attempt? If so, in what way?

JCG: If my writing hasn’t improved over the years I don’t think I’d still be writing. I think my writing has improved in just about every aspect of the craft: my dialogue is more real than it has ever been, my narrative is more compelling, and overall, my story-telling has improved.

Raymond Chandler said, “Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all the tricks and has nothing to say.” I still have plenty to learn, and plenty more to say, so I plan to be around for a while longer.

After hours of intense writing, how do you unwind?

JCG: My most intense writing sessions are on Sunday morning—four to six hours of intensity with coffee brewing and a cigar between my teeth acting as muses. Some of the most productive marathon sessions result in 3,000 words or more. Afterward I often kick back to sip a beer, watch a ballgame and maybe take a nap. Other times, if I’m still feeling my creativity flowing, I’ll go back after an hour or two and set about revising what I’ve just written.

Where can folks learn more about your books and events?

JCG: You learn more about me and my literary world at
http://www.jconradguest.com/

Thanks for dropping by, Conrad. Much success with your books!