1.) What am I working on now?
I’m in the midst of a Cli-Fi Trilogy chronicling a small band’s attempt to save some part of the world as it unravels in the face of the great warming. I’ve just completed my first draft of Book Two, tentatively titled, “A Black Fire Burning.” Book One, "A Being Darkly Wise," is on sale now and is earning rave reviews – which sounds nice, but it kinda makes me nervous. Like any writer, there are days when I think I’m a complete fraud who has no business trying to write, and so success is scary.
2.) How does my work fit into the Cli-Fi Genre?
Most Cli-Fi fiction fits into the dystopic future mold. I chose to set the first two books of the Trilogy in contemporary time – in part, because I find the question of how we are navigating toward a dystopic future as interesting as attempting to live in it, and in part, it allows me to use my experience as a scientist and policy guy who has spent over 35 years in the field. Before you hit the snooze alert, my books aren’t polemics – they’re nail-biting thrillers.
Since I deal in the present or very near future, my first two books are more like Barbara Kingsolver’s, “Flight Behavior” than say , Peter Heller’s “Dog Stars.” My third book, tentatively titled “In the Language of Lemmings,” is dystopian, although it is grounded in the near future – about 2040. I’ve completed a rough draft of it as well. I think dystopia, in one form or another, will arrive earlier than most people believe. I also think we’ll kinda slump our way into it, so it won’t be obvious to us until we look back and wonder how we got there.
So while my books are definitely Cli-Fi, they are probably grounded more firmly to a world we’d recognize – a wold in which we can still see the things we’ve lost.
3.) Why do I write what I do?
Quite simply, I can’t stop myself. Even when I write fiction that is not explicitly about climate change, it ends up being an integral part of the story. Having said that, you can’t set out to write what amounts to a lecture thinly disguised as fiction, or your fiction won’t ring true – as it must, if it is to succeed as a novel. More about that, in the answer to question 4.
4.) How does my writing process work? Explain your writing days and nights. How do you work? How do you outline or plan the story?
I don’t do outlines, and while I try to write most mornings, I’m not fanatical about it. I may review and edit the day’s writing in the evening, but I rarely write original stuff then. I’m just too stale. In the mornings, all that subliminal wrestling I’ve done on the people I’m trying to create is fresh, and that keeps the writing fresh. As most fiction writers will tell you, if your work is going well, a character will emerge and take over the story. That’s when the magic happens. I’ve had a few attempts where that didn’t occur, and I've put them to rest … they’ll never come to life as real fiction must, so it’s best to let them be.
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BOOK DESCRIPTION via AMAZON:
Pete Andersen runs.
He runs marathons. He runs from his past. He runs from the fact that his job at EPA amounts to little more than spitting in the wind as the world hurtles toward an inevitable collapse brought on by global warming. He has convinced himself that this is all he can do. All anyone can do. Until he reads the following ad:
"Learn survival skills in the majestic peaks of British Columbia’s Eaglenest Mountains – one of the last remaining wild areas left. Month-long trial taught by an expert in all facets of wilderness. Not for the faint hearted ... "
And encounters Jake Christianson, a physicist, a former Navy SEAL, and a disciple of Lynx, one of the last of the Dunne-za Indians. After three months of training, Pete finds himself and eleven others plunged into a Neolithic paradise. But as Jake reveals that this trip is more than a simple survival course, the group splinters apart, and paradise begins to turn to hell as one-by-one expeditioners are brutally murdered, apparently by a rogue grizzly.
But Pete begins to suspect otherwise. Is it a bear? Could it be Jake? Can Pete trust his judgment as his past failings haunt him once again?
Pete leads the killer – be he bear or man – on an epic chase across the continental divide and through the boreal forests of British Columbia. It is a race from his past; it is a race from terror; it is a race for redemption; it is a race against a pursuer possessed with seemingly supernatural endurance; a race that will push him to the limits of human capacity and beyond, but it is a race he cannot allow himself to lose. Because the survival of all that he loves depends upon him winning.
He runs marathons. He runs from his past. He runs from the fact that his job at EPA amounts to little more than spitting in the wind as the world hurtles toward an inevitable collapse brought on by global warming. He has convinced himself that this is all he can do. All anyone can do. Until he reads the following ad:
"Learn survival skills in the majestic peaks of British Columbia’s Eaglenest Mountains – one of the last remaining wild areas left. Month-long trial taught by an expert in all facets of wilderness. Not for the faint hearted ... "
And encounters Jake Christianson, a physicist, a former Navy SEAL, and a disciple of Lynx, one of the last of the Dunne-za Indians. After three months of training, Pete finds himself and eleven others plunged into a Neolithic paradise. But as Jake reveals that this trip is more than a simple survival course, the group splinters apart, and paradise begins to turn to hell as one-by-one expeditioners are brutally murdered, apparently by a rogue grizzly.
But Pete begins to suspect otherwise. Is it a bear? Could it be Jake? Can Pete trust his judgment as his past failings haunt him once again?
Pete leads the killer – be he bear or man – on an epic chase across the continental divide and through the boreal forests of British Columbia. It is a race from his past; it is a race from terror; it is a race for redemption; it is a race against a pursuer possessed with seemingly supernatural endurance; a race that will push him to the limits of human capacity and beyond, but it is a race he cannot allow himself to lose. Because the survival of all that he loves depends upon him winning.
About John
People always ask whether a book or character is autobiographical. The answer is yes and no. Some part of people you know—and yourself—inevitably creeps into any story.
Take Pete, the protagonist in my first book, A Being Darkly Wise. We both worked at the US Environmental Protection Agency. We both backpacked many of the most remote areas in North America. And like Pete, I have taken wilderness survival and I’m a former marathon runner (knees went). But the resemblance stops there.
My life is much simpler. I like to hang out with my wife Linda and my dog Misty (who looks exactly like a wolf). Whenever I can, I visit my daughter Megan in London, my son Will in New York, and my stepsons, Kiel and his wife Anna, and Kevin. I get together with friends here in San Diego and with a number of serious reprobates and ought to be twelve-steppers from around the country as often as possible. Life is good.
When I’m not writing novels, I write occasionally for ClimateProgress and I’m a frequent contributor at CommonDreams.
I studied writing at the well-known Bethesda Writer’s Center, where I learned two important things. First, you don’t learn to write in a class, you learn to do it on the page. Second, writing is a journey without end. You’re never “done.” Every book you read, every story you tell, every article you write, offers an opportunity to grapple with new challenges and polish your craft.
I’ll be sharing some of what I’m learning from time to time on these pages.
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