1. What inspired you to write your first book?
The first book I wrote, Carl Melcher Goes to Vietnam, was not the first book I published. That said, I wrote my first book because I wanted the people who sent me to Vietnam, and the people who finagled their way out of going, to know what it was like to be over there. Although the book is anti-war, written from a humanistic perspective, sadly, in spite of all the documented and dramatized accounts of the horrors of war, I think there will always be war and at best all we can do is to minimize them and their effects.
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2. Writing can be a difficult job, what inspires you to keep going?
A compulsion to share the stories in my head based on the weird idea that maybe what I write can open eyes and change the way people look at the world. Doubtful, I know, but it’s possible my writing could have that effect on some people, so why not try?
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3. What are you working on now? What’s next?
I’m editing another collection of my short stories. These are not sci-fi, but rather mainstream or literary. I know short story collections don’t normally sell well, but I feel the ticking of the clock and I want to get my work out there. After I get that collection ready to send out, I’ll go back to a short novel or novella I’ve been working on called The Blue World. The Blue World is a fictionalized account of the Sumerian God tales, the story of Enki and Enlil. Some of the Sumerian God tales are echoed in the bible, notably the Great Flood.
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4. What’s your writing process, schedule, or routine?
Usually I’m driven to write by a vision or a dream. Travel seems to suggest themes for me as well. Now that I’m semi-retired, I write whenever I want. I’ve managed to write six novels, all while going to a regular job and raising a family. Four were commercially-published by NYC houses and the others ‘self-published,’ or as we now say, ‘Indie-published.’
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5. Who is your favorite book character of all time? Why?
Uhhhh… This is a tough one. There haven’t been many protagonists I’ve liked in the fiction I’ve read recently. I was lukewarm about Cass, in 36 Arguments for the Existence of God. Let’s see, one I liked… Okay, Billy, the older brother in The Crossing, the second volume of Cormac McCarthy’s ‘Border Trilogy.’ Billy is almost mythical in his bravery. One thinks of Homer’s epics. Of course, Billy is young and a product of a time in America when boys and young men were grabbed by the collars by their fathers, if they had one, and the hard realities of life… and sternly encouraged to grow up. Billy does that.
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6. What advice would give to aspiring writers?
Don’t write if you are in it just to make money. Only recently have I made any money at it and that’s after spending over forty years at it. Real estate is a good bet, as is government work; politicians seem to do well these days, often quadrupling their wealth in as many years. Better yet is plumbing. My plumber has a vacation home in Costa Rica and drives a Lexus. When I can afford to have him over I feel like I should be carrying his tools. Anyway, if you still have an overwhelming urge to write, then live a hard life, or many lives, don’t pamper yourself and don’t watch too much TV, especially that crap with a laugh track. Then you can write about the realities you’ve experienced, instead of the re-imagined crap fantasies you saw on TV and forgot about. And don’t pander. Don’t chase the next big trend. Three quarters of the men writing novels have female protagonists. Why? Because 75% of the people who buy books are women. In my gut I think these guys would prefer to write about a male protagonist, but they don’t think they could sell a book like that in today’s market. Screw that. Write it and create the market. Write what you know about and screw pandering. Study the craft of writing and take your time. Find a few good readers you can trust. Don’t expect overnight success. Figure on writing for at least twenty years before you produce anything that’s any good.
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7. What’s your favorite quote?
Hmmm. Here are some I like:
“I want to be an honest man and a good writer.” – James A. Baldwin (I like this cause I think honesty is essential to good writing. Falsity will sound flat.)
“The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.” – John Steinbeck (I like this as well because I’ve long felt this way. I believe that what I write is good, damn good, and I just can’t relate to writers who think that their work is just ‘so-so,’ or ‘good enough.’ And I can’t believe how many new young writers believe their work is mediocre, but that that doesn’t matter because they’re tapping into a theme that’s trending, say vampires or zombies, or witches. I also see new writers begging for complements and acceptance from other beginning writers. Screw that. Just do it yourself! Go out into the wilderness and channel the savage in you, then put that down on paper.
“A writer is not a confectioner, a cosmetic dealer, or an entertainer. “ Anton Chekhov (Again, I think of the new young writers who want to write what they think people want to buy. That’s incomprehensible to me. I’m in love with reality, while it seems like the rest of the country is running away from it as fast as they can. I’ll put my own visions of reality down on the page and if readers don’t like them they can move on to the ubiquitous teen romance/fantasies that fill novels today, tales of young hunk werewolves or vampires, or heroic young females who kick (male) ass and save the day. )
And here is a quote of mine: “I want to be a serious writer, you know, not the kind that writes bestsellers and makes a lot of money.” – Paul Clayton (J So far this is panning out, at least the ‘not a lot of money’ part.)
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8. Who would you most like to have a cup of coffee with? (Dead or alive)
That would probably be James Jones (From Here to Eternity, The Thin Red Line, Whistle).
Explain…
James Jones was primarily known as a ‘war writer.’ His trilogy of World War II is probably the finest account of what it was like to go through that period in America’s history. But he wanted to write other types of novels and the critics of his time jumped on most of them with both feet. It would be interesting to talk to him about that, about why he thought that was so, and what impact it would have, if any, on his future writings. Also, although Jones was a sexual libertine and liberal in many ways, he was Mid-West conservative in origin, and although he rebelled against that, it would be interesting to talk to him about current sexual issues, politics and race relations in America, and the direction the nation was heading in.
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9. What is your biggest pet peeve? 
That would be the bias of main stream publishing. Main stream publishing, or commercial publishing, most of it out of NYC, seems to select only those works which align most closely with its world view and political philosophy. It seems to applaud and embrace every aberrant and dysfunctional instinct or trend in society, while shunning traditional stories and values. Readers and writers will know what I’m talking about if they’ve ever read any of those on-line articles about what NYC literary agents are currently looking for. Hint: A novel about a strong, morally-centered masculine man trying to protect his wife and children from an intrusive ‘Nanny-state’ government… isn’t anywhere on their ‘got-to-have’ lists.
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10. Tell us something quirky about you.
I’m a little paranoid. I don’t know if I was born that way or having done a stint in Vietnam as an infantry rifleman caused it. Over there it was not uncommon for people to jump out of the bushes and shoot at you with rifles or machine guns, or maybe throw hand grenades at you. I know it wasn’t personal, but that didn’t make it any less frightening. So anyway, that may have had something to do with it. And now that I’ve divulged this, I know that some of the people reading this will start talking about me behind my back, but there’s not much I can do about that, is there? Well, at least they won’t be shooting at me.
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11. Favorite comfort food?
Spaghetti and meatballs.
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12. Star Wars or Star Trek?
That’s easy, Star Trek. It was great TV in its day, low budget, but driven by ideas, while Star Wars seems to incorporate the regurgitated plots of half the sci-fi B movies of the 50’s and 60’s ― re-done on an unlimited budget.
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13. Sunrises or Sunsets?
Long dark nights of worry and angst.
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