Questions and Answers What are you currently working on? My current obsession is to finish Nomadin Book Two, working title NiDemon. I say obsession because the characters in Book One just won't shut up! They talk constantly, nagging me in my sleep, often ruining perfectly good down time and simply making my life a living hell. The flip side of all this agony is that it's a sure sign that the story is a good one. If it's clamoring to get out and run amuck onto the page then I know I won't be disappointed, and hopefully neither will the reader. Is writing your full time occupation, if not what is? No. Writing is not my full time occupation. But if enough of your readers take note of Nomadin . . . (grin!). No, I am a third generation jeweler and goldsmith by trade. I spend most of my waking hours managing the family store, appraising and grading diamonds and gemstones, repairing and designing jewelry and fawning over my customers. Not a bad days work you may say! Yes! I highly recommend it! But a month in the world of jewels and gems can't hold a torch to the perfect hour in the land of my imagination! My love is writing and all that comes with it! It's what I always wanted to be . . . a writer. When did you first decide that you wanted to be a writer? That's easy. Fifth grade - Miss Budzinski's class. I was always an avid reader, and around the age of eleven or twelve I lived on books the way most kids lived on twinkies and baseball cards. (I had my share of those too!) But it wasn't until my fifth grade teacher gave us a creative writing assignment that I realized a stunning truth. Writing was more fun than reading! I was hooked. I wrote a fairly plagiarized version of Jim Kjelgaard's "Big Red", the story of a dog and boy who battle a grizzly bear. She thought it was so good that she had me read it to the class, and the neighboring class as well. I got my first taste of the writing life. The fifth graders at it up. They paid rapt attention to my every word! I'm not sure it gets any better than that. When did you first feel you were an author? I have to admit that I first felt like an author that day in Miss Budzinski's fifth grade class. I won't speak for anyone else, but I have a hunch that this is true for most writers who catch the bug early. Your first experience, your first story, however quaint and cute, is often the one that awakens the writer within. That first audience, whether it be a class or just your parents, makes you feel like a writer for the very first time. After that, at least for me, I've always been playing catch-up. I've always been trying to duplicate that feeling. It wasn't until Nomadin was published, and people gave it a stamp of approval, that I felt I had recaptured it, that I was a writer once more. If you could give one piece of advise to a would-be author, what would it be? Don't write in a vacuum. Yes, a writer needs to be careful not to let the work out too soon for fear of losing impetus, but once you have completed your story by all means workshop it to death. If you don't, if you keep it all to yourself, polishing it and rewriting it until you are blue in the face before sending it off to a publisher, you will most likely be disappointed. Writing is a craft. It can be honed and perfected. Especially commercial fiction. There are those rare, gifted writers who never need to sweat over their creation to make it sing. But those rare few usually die in obscurity! Write it. Workshop it. Show it to other and be prepared to take some hard advise. Rewrites are for the writers who want to improve. And showing your work to qualified people will, if your lucky, lead to profitable rewrites. How does your approach to the editing role differ from that of writing? When I'm writing, first draft that is, anything goes. I overdo everything. Every simile, every description, every word choice that comes to me, I record. When I'm writing for the first time it is fresh and exciting. It isn't necessarily good, but I am excited. And it's important for me to stay excited, especially when it's new. I don't want to crush my excitement by slipping into the editor mode. There's plenty of time for that later. And believe me, when I put on my editor's hat I have been know to throw a few tantrums. But that's for later. When I am starting a project it's all about the excitement, and letting the story pour out. When the editing begins, I'm ready to hone the story and writing to the best of my ability. That's where the real work begins. Do you have a favorite place to write? I like to write when I can be completely alone. Usually that means anywhere away from home! I wrote much of Nomadin in my car, parked beside a beautiful lake. I also like to write at work, after hours, late at night. Who is your favorite author? So many come to mind. Terry Brooks, Garth Nix, J.R.R. Tolkien, Stephen R. Donaldson. I have no true favorite. My tastes change. If you press me hard I'd say Garth Nix at the moment. His writing is wonderful. Who would you most like to meet, and what would you ask them? I met Terry Brooks at the Maui Writers Retreat once. There were so many question rolling around in my head! What is it like to be so well read? What do you read in your spare time? What was it like to meet George Lucas when you wrote the Phantom Menace? Can you bottle your writing talent, and if so how much will it cost me? But the only thing I could ask for was his autograph on my tattered copy of The Sword of Shanarra. Plug away - what do you have coming out? Nomadin is just hitting bookstores now! I feel like I'm in the fifth grade all over again! Thanks again! Shawn Cormier Relevant Links Shawn P. Cormier Main Bibliography