Interview with Sammy Conner, author of The Dirty Parts of the Bible
Tell
us a little about your self.
I
was born on Leap Year Day, 1976, which makes me almost eight years old.
My
mother moved from Texas to Michigan a couple
years before I
was born, so despite my southern blood I had the misfortune of growing
up in
the frigid north. But every summer we drove all the way to Texas to visit
my
grandparents, and those trips helped inspire my novel.
Like
my main character, I also grew up in a conservative Baptist family. We
went to
church three times a week and I soaked up enough Bible verses to give
anyone
major neurosis. There’s some great stuff in the Bible, but when it’s
treated as
the literal and infallible word of God, and every verse is given equal
weight,
it becomes dangerous.
My
book isn’t autobiographical—I’m not a preacher’s son and my father
isn’t like
the father in the book, for starters. But recovering from religion is a
major
theme both of the book and my life.
I ask everyone I meet this so will
ask you- who are your favorite authors? What
genres do you read?
Did anyone in particular influence your writing or your desire to write?
Growing
up, I loved reading about the early days of baseball. One book in
particular, The Glory
of Their Times by Lawrence Ritter, really gave me a sense of
history and
love for the past.
In
high school I got into silent movies, and re-read Charlie Chaplin’s
autobiography multiple times. I loved the old comic books, too. At
times I got
really depressed that I wasn’t born decades earlier.
The
first novel that really affected me was The
Catcher in the Rye. Beyond Salinger, though, I didn’t have much
interest in
fiction. I went to college for art, then during my second year I fell
in love
with the American classics—Hawthorne, Thoreau, Emerson, Whitman,
Twain—and I
decided to double-major in American literature. I wrote my senior
thesis on
hoboes in American literature—and that became another major inspiration
for my
novel.
Besides
those authors I just mentioned, my favorites include Garrison
Keillor—coming
from the Midwest, I love
his radio show as well as his novels.
Also Flannery O’Connor, for her Southern gothic humor—Wise
Blood is my favorite. Another great humorous novel is John
Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces.
Currently,
I’m reading a lot about world religions and mythology—Huston Smith and
Joseph
Campbell. I’m trying to balance all those years I spent soaking up the
Bible.
Publishing
What lead you to use Amazon
publishing? Did you try the "traditional"
publishing route first?
I
spent almost three years writing my novel, dreaming that it would find
a
publisher instantly. Reality sank in as I spent another year collecting
rejection letters from New York. It was
depressing to
have nothing to show for all my work, so this May I decided to
self-publish it.
My
main employment is as a freelance book designer, so I’d already
designed the
whole book. The whole time I was writing the book, I was collecting art
and
design ideas from 1930s magazines—that was the really fun part.
I
picked Amazon.com’s BookSurge program because it was quickest way to
get the
book listed on Amazon, and it’s very inexpensive if you design your own
book.
It’s
almost impossible to make a profit in self-publishing. My main goal is
to
attract readers and reviews that will help me land a real publisher
with good
distribution and marketing capabilities. So I’m extremely grateful to
places
like Front Street Reviews that give unknown authors a chance!
How are you going to approach self
promotion? You have a great start with web
site, blog and MySpace. What other plans do you have?
Thanks!
I had a lot of fun putting the sites together. I resisted getting a
MySpace
page for a while, but that has actually turned out to be the best way
to meet
like-minded writers and readers. If you just put a website up, nobody
will
stumble onto it. But on MySpace lets you write lots of people who will
then
look at your page.
I
don’t have any further promotion ideas right now. I entered the book in
the
Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards competition, so I’m hoping
to get
some recognition from that, but winners aren’t announced till October.
Publishing requires patience!
How did you get the idea for the trailer
and are you going to do more of it?
I’d
seen professionally-produced trailers for other books, and thought I
could save
a thousand bucks by doing it myself. Mac’s iMovie program came free on
my
computer, so it didn’t cost a thing—I just scanned in photos to use and
recorded my voice on my computer. (Is it just me, or does everyone hate
the
sound of their recorded voice?)
In
the end, I learned why professional trailers cost so much—it’s
complicated
work! If I find time to do another one, I’ll try to include more
animation,
because the part everyone liked most was the beer mugs popping up in
the
Baptist’s hands.
Book:
Your family background seems to have
been used. Was that the starting point for
your idea for a book?
I
grew up hearing the stories of my grandparents, who met and married in Texas during
the Great
Depression. My grandma’s family was so poor that, for a couple years,
they
couldn’t afford milk. They had to make biscuits out of flour and water.
My
grandpa and his brothers had a music group—a Texas
swing band called the
Golden Melody Boys. That group became part of my story.
My
grandparents were married for 65 years before my grandpa died. My
grandmother—a
very fiery lady who helped inspire the character of Sarah—is still
alive and
kicking.
So
my family history provided the setting and a few of the character
traits for
the book, though the plot is entirely fictional.
Where did
the wonderful "dirty parts of the bible" starting point
come from? How did you come up with the examples you used?
The
shock of discovering the Song of Solomon is a universal experience
among kids
who grow up with the Bible. To open the Bible up one day and stumble on
a verse
like “Your breasts are like fawns, twins of a gazelle”—that’s a seminal
experience (pardon the pun) in every Baptist boy’s life.
In
my church, people were always underlining Bible verses that meant a lot
to
them. When I was about twelve, I underlined this verse from Proverbs:
“Remember
the wife of your youth; may her breasts satisfy you at all times.” I
think that
was the only verse I was ever inspired to underline.
The
Bible is a lot more open about sex than are most of the people who
claim
allegiance to the Bible. The Song of Songs in particular has been an
embarrassment throughout Christian history. The early church
fathers—mostly
celibate monks—interpreted it purely as an allegory of Jesus’ love for
the
celibate soul. They had to explain it away somehow.
Today,
some religious people have loosened up a lot about the fact that we all
have
sexual bodies. You even have Christian sex guides for married couples
based on
the Song of Songs. But it will take a long while to overcome centuries
of shame
and repression.
Songs pop in and out and dance around
in your book. Why do you use music
lyrics? How did you choose them?
I
listened to a lot of music while writing the book, to get in the right
mood. So
eventually, the songs snuck into the book. One reason I’d love to see
it become
a movie someday is that I have a whole soundtrack already in mind.
Standard Front Street questions
If you could give your book to one
person who would it be and why?
Country
singer Brad Paisley. I love his sense of humor, and I think we come
from
similar backgrounds. I just moved to Nashville six
months ago, so maybe
I’ll bump into him some day.
What is your writing
process?
This
book went through many drafts over two-and-a-half years (with lots of
procrastinating in-between). Once I had a basic outline, I tried
writing the
whole thing straight through, but it stalled. One problem was that I
was
writing in third person, and I wasn’t really getting into the minds of
the
different characters. So I decided to start over again in first person.
I
compiled a list of about 200 questions for Tobias, the narrator, to
answer. Then
I imagined that I was Tobias and gave quick answers to all the
questions,
writing by hand in a notebook. Next, I typed in my answers and
organized them
chronologically—and that became the basis of the book.
The
early drafts were written at odd moments, often while sitting in my
car. Once I
started typing things on computer, I had the most success writing at a
coffee
shop first thing in the morning. Leaving home to write made me feel
like it was
a real job, and I couldn’t slack off by checking e-mail.
One
trick helped a lot was, every time I started a new chapter, I wrote at
the top:
“This is NOT your final draft.” That reminder took the pressure off.
What
advice would you give new writers?
For
writers like me who are self-critical and perfectionistic, the hardest
part is
getting a rough draft down on paper. You need to shut off your internal
editor
and just write something. Writing by hand in a notebook helps—you can’t
go back
and fuss with things like you can on computer.
Write
about things you love and follow whatever gets you excited. With so
many books
being published every year, there’s no sense writing about things you
don’t
care deeply about. Make a list of all the things you love, and try to
work them
into your story.
After
your rough draft is done, read “How to Grow a Novel” by Sol Stein and
“The
Writer’s Journey” by Christopher Vogler. Those were the books that most
help me
revise and polish.
When
it comes to finding a publisher and promoting your book, think outside
the box.
It’s very difficult to sell books these days, and the whole industry is
going
through a painful transition. Authors have to learn how to use new
technologies
to the fullest, while still concentrating on the timeless art of
storytelling.