Interview with Travis Erwin... and a GIVEAWAY!

Recently I had the opportunity to "hang out" in the ether with author Travis Erwin, a native Texan, humor writer, and fervent "meatatarian". He has published an eBook called Whispers (available for both nook and kindle) which is a collection of two short stories and one memoir vignette. A couple of weekends ago I downloaded the book to my iPhone and spent some enjoyable time reading the stories.

Travis graciously agreed to let me interview him on the blog so could you meet him! Everyone needs a writer buddy who likes meat and has a good sense of humor.  AND, the bonus is if you check him out TWO of you have a chance to win his free eBook Whispers.  It's like a two-for-one-bonus.

So, here's the interview. [tap tap.]  Is this thing on?

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Wendy: What inspired you to become a writer?

Travis:  The first answer here is my mother. She urged, actually more insisted, I constantly be engaged in a book from the time I could read. I suppose like most kids I tried to resist but book and literature won me over and I've been addicted ever since. Of course, being a natural born BS'er from Texas that love of reading soon turned to fanciful ideas that I could write a story worth reading.

Wendy:  Can you tell us anything about current projects you're working on?

Travis:  I have two projects actually. A humorous food book title Lettuce Is The Devil which is about 40% humor essay, 40% memoir, and 20% cookbook. The subtitle for that one is The Culinary Dogma of a Devout Meat Man. The whole thing is rather absurd but for the first time in my writing career I have a literary agent to help guide my carrrer and find it a home so I have high hopes in the project. I also have a fiction project, a story about a rancher's wife who is convinced sex is ruining her life. I have yet to hit upon a title I like but this story has lots of humor elements as well a nympho-maniacal senior citizen, a Texas blowhard that makes his living peddling Bull semen and lots of awkward situations for the characters.

Wendy:  What is your writing schedule like?

Travis:  I write like a vampire, in the dark of the night when normal folks are sleeping. I try to get in several hours a night and when things are going great I get up in the wee hours and also write before work, but eventually my body craters and demands sleep so there are 3 or 4 day stretches when I don't actively sit at the computer and write. However, my stories and their characters are never totally gone from my mind. I spend hours a day pondering, thinking, and yes even whispering snatched of dialogue. If I wasn't a writer I'd just be that crazy dude that talks to himself.

Wendy:  When you tackle a book what is your process like? Do you outline? Write back stories? What do you do before you start typing on page 1?

Travis:  I never start out with an outline but when the mud thickens and the slogging gets rough I often write one out and study it for an easier path. I do write back stories. Lots of them as a matter of fact. I consider myself a character writer as people interest me much more than plots. This has made it harder to define my writing and genre and therefore made it harder to sell. I take every character in a book and write 3 to maybe 15 pages of vignettes from their previous life. I try to choose events that have emotion. First kiss, a fearful moment. A fight physical or even verbal. Once I have written these and discover how a character will emotionally react in both good times and bad I feel like I can start the story.

Wendy:  You mention in some commentary that people have made "assertions [that it's] ridiculous for a man to write women's fiction..." What appeals to you about writing women's fiction?

Travis:  Actually I never meant to write women's fiction, but I do find it easier to write from a female POV and I believe love is what makes the world go around so those two overriding things show up in my writing. And like I said I love characters and women's fiction readers seem to have more patience for a slower developing plot that other genres.

Wendy:  What is your inspiration -- what topics or type of topics do you want to write about?

Travis:  I'm pretty certain my muse is French prostitute turned guardian angel because late at night I sometimes catch the scent of perfume in my writing office despite the fact I am the only one there. So I think the overriding theme to all my work is hope. That no matter how bad things get there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Wow, I slipped into cliche mode for that one. I used to write very dark stories but perhaps because my own life is going so well I now find it easier to write humorous lighthearted fare.

Wendy:  What are some of your favorite books and/or authors?

Travis:  I'm all over the place here. Richard Russo (Nobody's Fool, The Risk Pool, Empire Falls) and Kent Haruf (Plainsong and Eventide) make me jealous for their ability to build entire towns and communities of fictional character I care about. Christopher Moore makes me laugh out loud at his absurdity. I'm in awe of Erica Orloff's versatility to write both middle children's literature (The Magickeeper Series) and a great and funny romance like Freudian Slip. Besides that, she is as nice a person as the world has to offer. I also love Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and I'm not sure a better novel has ever been written than To Kill A Mockingbird.

Wendy:  Writers put things out there on the page for everyone to see. When a writer specializes in fiction, a reader doesn't know how big the kernel of truth is in that story. However, in your eBook Whispers you wrote a personal tale about the birth of your son and got very open with the events and how you reacted to them. Do you ever feel too naked when you put stuff on the page? Is there a price to pay with family or friends when you use your real life as a base for your writing and how to you resolve this?

Travis:  Blogging opened doors for me. Once upon a time I kept everything personal close to my chest, but writing near daily posts for several years and interacting with so many great people little by little I lowered the walls and now I can write fairly freely about myself. I also wrote a coming of age memoir about myself titled The Feedstore Chronicles. It's a fairly raunchy look at my misguided youth and while unpublished thus far writing it was almost therapeutic. I don't have many secrets at this point but if I've learned anything over the years it is we are all basically the same so while I may be "telling" on myself, I feel confident others can relate and have felt the same at some point.

Wendy:  Why do you hate lettuce so much?

Travis:  Actually I dislike all vegetables. Lettuce just happens to be the leader of the evil green empire. It is the gateway vegetation which leads to the unfortunate condition known as "living a healthy lifestyle." A slice of iceberg on your burger today and you'll find yourself munching on a salad a week later. Then comes the day you realize you are standing at a salad bar with a forkful of baby carrots in one hand and a ladle of ranch in the other.

Wendy:  Favorite food?

Travis:  Smoked elk tenderloin. It melts in your mouth and everything tastes a little better if you went out in the field and harvested it yourself.

Wendy:  And finally, in a smalltown smackdown who would win... Sheriff Andy Taylor or Marshal Matt Dillon?

Travis:  I am a gambler and as such I always consider all the angles. On the surface Matt Dillon is the easy choice as he's definitely more physical and the outlaws around Dodge City were meaner than Ernest T Bass and the Mayberry bunch. But, there's always a but in life isn't there, Andy Taylor brings an x factor to the table -- Barney Fife. Sure he's only got one bullet but Barney is reckless and a bit of a hot head so even if Matt won the fight I think Barney would avenge his sheriff and use that last bullet to take down the Marshall.

Many thanks for letting me stop in. I enjoyed the questions and would love to award two of your readers with a digital copy of my latest e-book Whispers, now available for both nook and kindle.

Given the fact that the book sells for a scant 99 cents winning is not exactly on par with hitting the lottery but hey, a free book is a free book. Comment on this post grants you one entry. Liking my Lettuce is the Devil Facebook page gives you another. Becoming a Lettuce is the Devil follower on twitter yet another. And finally you can earn another for becoming a follower of my regular writing blog One Word, One Rung, One Day.

That's four entries and for any of you dedicated to do all four I'll toss one in for free to give you 5 entries into the contest.

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Thank, Travis!  For anyone who is entering the giveaway, please do one comment PER entry (including the fifth one) so I can just do the random number generator thingy.  We will pick a winner on July 4th so get your entries in before NOON CENTRAL TIME ZONE so the winner can have something besides freedom to party about during the fireworks show! And if you don't win, go buy the book.  It's only 99 cents, so don't be cheap, go get it.

I'm a Sucker

A block or two from my house is our town cemetery. It's a sprawling strip of grass between the hardware store and the fire station and the old historic June's Cafe that's long-closed. It's encircled by a chain link fence that wobbles in some places with a gate that is wired shut so you can't open it and you have to walk around to the side where the hearses drive in.

The oldest graves are on the south end of the cemetery and over the years they have expanded toward the north end as the citizens of our town die and take their places there.

For my whole life the dominant feature of the cemetery was a tulip tree -- a mammoth tree nearly a century old. Every spring it would bloom into a resplendent display of yellow tulip-shaped flowers. It had been pruned at the bottom so that all the branches arched over the graves like a hovering guardian in a sweeping yellow coat. The tree was like an old friend that you didn't talk to every day but knew was always there for you.

Over the last few years we've had many weather disasters that necessitated our county being declared a disaster area nine times. One of the interludes between "major" disasters was a minor one -- a shearing wind that tore through town, pulled down a few electrical poles and as they tumbled down like dominoes they took our majestic tulip tree with them.

It was the talk of the county. Not only was the town without electricity for half a day, but the more tragic event was that our cemetery tree, our Old Faithful was split in two lying splayed out in an undignified manner right there in the middle of town.

The men came with chainsaws to dispose of the body and spent the day cutting the enormous tree into pieces. It turns out while she was huge and solid-looking, she was rotting from the inside. She was weak and it was just time and circumstance that came together to bring her down on that particular day.

The Wednesday following the tree falling the newspaper displayed, in full page color, the corpse of our tulip tree. It told the story of the tree and how it got there.

Long, long ago a woman died. She was so well-loved by her husband that next to her grave he planted a tulip tree for her so that every spring it would bloom and shower her with flowers. And in the summer it would provide shade to cool her. And in the fall it would blaze with color and make people take notice of her audaciousness. And in the winter, when she was bare, all would see the towering strength and the network of branches that had been looking over the cemetery for the last century. In some way, the tulip tree would make the dear lady immortal because when you drove through that part of town, that's what you could see -- the personification of a husband's eternal love for a wife who had gone before him.

I wonder when he planted the tree if he had any idea how truly huge it would get. It grew so large it split her headstone into pieces as if she were coming to life and breaking through from the other world to ours --  reincarnated as the tree itself. At least that's what I like to think. The notion is romantic and other-worldly and fantastic and I'm a sucker for that sort of thing.

I was there today and the cemetery looks so bare and lifeless without that tree. The rest is just expanse of grass and leaning stones, some of which are not even marked with names. On the stump sits the lady's stone, split into three and out of the stump grows a large pokeweed that is poisonous to mammals, although people in the south do eat it after cooking it to remove the toxins. Supposedly it can cure arthritis and other things if you can get reliable advice on how to cook it without killing yourself.

When I was a little girl I used to pick poke berries from a bush next to a bridge. I liked to smash the berries in my fingers and write on the concrete guard rails. I'd walk the rest of the way home, fingers bright purple-pink, remembering the feel of the rough concrete as my fingers slid across it making the shapes of the words.

I sat by the lady's grave today remembering all this and missing the tree that I've known my whole life.  I took pictures for you, so you can see all that's left.  I wish you could have seen her in all her glory.

George Washington

Tristan came up to me with a wrinkled dollar bill. He held it in two hands and stared at the man in the medallion in the middle.

Finally, he asked, "Who is this man on the dollar?"

I said, "That's George Washington."

He asked, "Was he our first president?"

"Yes, he was."

His lip turned down in a sad face and he continued to stare at the picture.

"Why are you sad," I asked.

"Because he died.  I really miss him."