F A Q s
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QUESTION(S) OF THE MONTH
Q: What is your
favorite color? (Clear.) Enough already!
Shut up! Yeah, I know you have an assignment due, and I feel your pain.
Nobody writes an "author report" for fun. So, you say to yourself,
why not just come up with a list of lame questions and email the author? Who
knows-maybe he'll do your research for you. It's worth a shot, right? Uh-uh. Turns
out the author is this cranky old dude who is as likely to lie to you as he
is to ignore your email. The author might well say, "Look at my freaking
website, kid. There is like 50 pages of information there, and if you can't
get an 'author report' out of that, you deserve to flunk remedial
English!" Look, if you really
need more info, try googling "Pete Hautman." You'll get about
80,000 hits and enough information on Pete Hautman for a college
dissertation. If you want to narrow your search down to the juicy stuff,
check out some of the interviews available online. Here’s a list to get you started. You'll find a bunch of stuff I said
to interviewers that I now regret. You will also find stuff I never said,
that the interviewers made up. Don't get me
wrong--I love getting emails that tell me I'm wonderful. Keep 'em coming! And
if you have a genuine question that is NOT answered on my website, I'll
probably answer it. But please don't make up pointless questions such as
"What is your dog's middle name?" or "What did you have for
breakfast this morning?" So there. Did I
scare you off? Didn't mean to. Well, sort of I did. But if you want to
contact me anyway, go here, and good luck to you! |
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Q: You seem to
be writing a lot of books about poker lately. Are you trying to cash in on
the poker craze? A: Listen,
Binky, I've been writing books about poker since before you were born
(assuming you were born after 1990). Furthermore, my most recent "poker"
novel, The Prop,
was well under way back in 1999, before most Americans had ever heard of
Texas Hold'em. So there. But yes, I do
hope to cash in on the poker craze. I plan to do it at the tables. Q: How come you
quit writing books for adults? A: I (sputter)
I never...I didn't!!! In the first place, my so-called "YA" books are
not off limits to adult readers. It might do you good! Secondly, I never
stopped writing "adult" novels. I published adult novel in 1993,
1995, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2002, and 2006. So gimme a break--I do what I
can. Q: Where do you
get your ideas? A: Ideas are
like metaphors. They are everywhere. Every issue of every newspaper, every
casual conversation, every postcard, every commute to work, every cup of
coffee is packed with ideas. Even if you've never written a word, you already
have thousands of ideas bouncing around inside your skull. The trick is to
figure out how to turn those ideas into a story. That's the hard part. And
the fun part. Q: How much
money do you make? A: Royalties on
my books come to approximately $312,000,000.00 per year. That's about $2000
per word. Although I am richer than J. K. Rowling, Stephen King and John
Grisham put together, I live a modest lifestyle and use most of my money in
an effort to save the Reticulated Elf Weasel. Today, it is estimated that
only 19 elf weasels still survive in the bottomlands of the Upper Mississippi
River Valley. Efforts to save them include the construction of "weasel
tubes" (corrugated steel passageways which allow the weasels to safely
cross roadways) and the introduction of habitat in the form of "weasel
boxes." These weasel boxes, which look like elongated wren houses on
short poles, are now common in certain areas of southwestern Wisconsin, where
the Save the Reticulated Elf Weasel Foundation has offered a reward of
$1,000,000 to anyone whose weasel box becomes occupied by a breeding pair of
elf weasels. Thus far, the reward fund remains undepleted. To learn more
about Reticulated Elf Weasels visit the official website of the Save the
Reticulated Elf Weasel Foundation at www.savethereticulatedelfweaselfoundation.org Q: What do you
like to do when you aren't writing? A: I read
books, play poker, hunt mushrooms, take naps, talk with Mary Logue, watch
movies, inline skate, and bike. I love to cook. Sometimes I dress up in an
evening gown and high heels and sing opera on street corners with my partner
Winky the Blind Flutophonist. Not really. You can't believe everything you
read on the web. Q: What kind of
music do you listen to? A: At the
moment the CD player in my car is loaded with Dr. Dre, Concrete Blond, Matt
Bianco, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, and Hank Williams. I am also fond of music by
The Sex Pistols, Tim Buckley, Dolly Parton, Enya, and Billie Holiday. I
prefer not to listen to music featuring bagpipes, accordians, or singing
whales. Q: What are
some of your favorite books? A: There are
hundreds! Here are ten of my favorites--they aren't necessarily the top ten,
just the first ten that come to mind: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Oops, I guess that's
twelve--five living authors and seven dead. I could easily come up with a
couple dozen more , including works by Raymond Chandler, Samuel Delany, Algis
Budrys, P. G. Wodehouse...I'd better stop now before I start naming my writer
friends and forget one. Q: How long
does it take you to write a book? A: It depends
on the book. Mr. Was took about 8 years from the time I started thinking about
it to the time I finished the first draft. No Limit took a mere 9 months. I
wrote the first chapter of Hole in the Sky in 1988, wrote the
first half of the book over a few weeks in 1998, let it sit for six months,
then took another year to finish it, working on it a few days at a time. Sweetblood took 25 years to write,
while Invisible
was written in 5 weeks. I often get stuck when I'm writing. Rather than brood
about it, I'll set a book aside for weeks, months, or years and work on
something else. I usually have several projects underway. Q: What are you
working on now? A: My
poker-themed short story collection titled Full House is due out in
September, and Doppelganger, the third installment in the Bloodwater
Mysteries
will be coming out in the spring of 2008. I'm now re-re-re-re-revising a YA
novel schduled for publication in late 2008. 6/07 |