Author Jeff Markowitz is more well known as DoahsDeer on his blog. But fans of this mystery writer know him as a witty gent with murder on his mind. Fresh from a recent author and publisher convention in NYC, Jeff graciously sat down with me for an interview.
~ Tell us a little about yourself--where are you from, married, children, etc?
JM: I know that my readers imagine that I’m a debonair gentleman leading the glamorous life of a mid-list author, my tuxedo always at the ready, my martini shaken not stirred, but the truth is, I’m a middle-aged man living in suburbia, a little overweight and losing my hair, paying college tuition for a great kid, and happily married for nearly thirty years to a woman who puts up with my foolishness.I have gone to work every morning for more than three decades developing community-based services for children and adults with autism, so that I can get up at 5:30 in the morning and write murder mysteries.
~ Are you a reader as well? What genres do you like to read? Do you write in the same genres?
JM: My taste in books is pretty eclectic.Some of my favorites include Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins, Monkey by Wu Cheng-En, Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl, And to Think that I Saw it on Mulberry Street by Dr. Seuss and On the Road, by Jack Kerouac.I recently contributed the first sentence to an imagined sequel to On the Road for Book: The Sequel.
~ What first sparked that urge to write? When did you know this is what you wanted to do as a career?
JM: I guess I’ve always written, but it’s only in the last six years that I have become serious about it, publishing three novels and numerous short stories.I don’t know that writing will ever be my career (if, by career, you mean that writing, and writing alone, will pay my bills).Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that writing one day will be my retirement job.
~ How do you organize yourself? How do you approach the process of writing?
JM: Post it notes.And insomnia.Both are essential to good writing.I’m certainly not the first or only author to make this analogy, but I like to think of writing a novel like taking a cross-country road-trip.Before I embark, I need to know where I’m going to start, where I’m going to end, and a couple of the major stops along the way.But once I set out on the journey, I allow myself time to take unplanned side trips, to explore the back roads, to let the story take me to unexpected places.
~ Do your characters come first or does the story?
JM: My stories are character-driven rather than plot-driven.The dead body comes first.I imagine the dead body and then I back into the story.
~ Who do you write for as you create that story--to please an audience? To please yourself? A little of both?
JM: I write the stories that I’d want to read.(Unfortunately, I don’t read many best sellers).But I am reminded of the advice of entertainers and public speakers about focusing on one person in the audience.So when I actually sit down to write, I write with one member of my “audience” in mind.My wife, who has read most every word I’ve ever written and who allowed me the conceit of calling myself a writer long before I’d gotten anything published.
~ How do you deal with rough patches, aka the dreaded writer's block?
JM: I don’t really think of it as writer’s block.In my case, it’s more a problem of task avoidance.Writing is hard work.Sometimes, I’m just not motivated to work at it hard enough.Recently, I’ve discovered that it helps if I shift my focus during those rough times from my next book to short stories.
~ What kind of stories fascinate you? What do you like to write the most?
JM: Well written stories fascinate me.Original voices fascinate me.Dark humor fascinates me.I love stories that respect the conventions of the genre, but that refuse to be limited by those conventions.Those are the kinds of stories that I hope I’m writing.
~ Tell us about your latest novel?
JM: This October, the third book in my Cassie O’Malley mystery series, It’sBeginning to Look a Lot Like Murder (ISBN 9781594147296), will be released.It’s a humorous amateur sleuth mystery, a Christmas story of sorts, set (mostly) in a shopping mall during the holiday season.If you’ve ever been to the mall during the Christmas season, you understand the urge to kill.
~ What's your favorite character in this book?
JM: This is a deceptively difficult question and my answer changes most every time I think about it.There’s Tommy V, the down-on-his-luck department store Santa Claus and his ex-wife Greta, a waitress with Tourette’s Syndrome.There’s Cheyenne Harbrough, the oversexed mayor of DoahTownship.And, of course, there’s amateur sleuth and tabloid reporter Cassie O’Malley herself.But I’d have to say that my favorite characters in the book are the Macks, father-and-son loan sharks and petty crooks.
~ What's your favorite scene/chapter in this book?
JM: There’s a point in the story where one of the characters needs a place to “hide out” for a few days.The character ends up at an old-fashioned motel in a small town in the Pine Barrens, managed by a Hindu gentleman.As I was writing the scene, I realized that the Hindu manager’s name was Beejit Bhait and his motel was the Bhaits Motel.At that moment, the sub-plot became something of an homage to Alfred Hitchcock.Readers may enjoy spotting the references to Alfred Hitchcock films that are sprinkled through-out the book.
~ What's some good advice for those starting out? What would you tell other aspiring writers?
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Markowitz makes murder an art form!
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