Author Interview: Athol Dickson

Athol Dickson was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1955 to a traveling salesman and his wife. His first bed was a drawer lined with towels in a travel trailer. When he was three months old, his family moved to Dallas, Texas, where he has stuck ever since. He has been a newspaper boy, taco bender, clothing salesman, boxer, carpenter, bartender, drug addict (reformed), Zen Buddhist (reformed), art student (reformed), born-again believer in Jesus, architect, successful entrepreneur, writer, and Sunday school teacher, roughly in that order. He owns a flatbottom boat and attempts to get lost in swamps as often as possible. He has been to Mexico twenty-one times, not counting border towns, and speaks enough Spanish to kid around with cab drivers there. His marriage to the lovely Sue from Salina, Kansas, has been a seventeen-year slice of heaven.



Plug time. What book or project is coming out or has come out that you’d like to tell us about?

River Rising is hitting the shelves this week. It’s set in a village near the mouth of the Mississippi River during the great flood of 1927. A stranger shows up and seems to work a miracle to save a baby’s life, but then the baby goes missing and everyone suspects him. He goes out into the surrounding swamp to search for the child, and finds a whole lot more than he bargained for.

You said River Rising is set during the flood of 1927, which we’ve all heard about since the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Did you write the book because of that?

No, I finished River Rising about a year before Hurricane Katrina hit, so that’s just a coincidence. But I knew about the flood of ‘27, and I know south Louisiana pretty well, so it didn’t take a prophet to think up the scenario.

What went through your head when New Orleans went under water recently?

I was in shock, just like everyone else. Very worried about my uncles, who live in New Orleans. We didn’t find out where they were until three days after Katrina hit. They were safe, but so freaked out they didn’t think to call. They drove all the way to Ohio before they remembered to let anyone know where they were.

Though you wrote the book far before the real life flooding, do you worry readers won't realize that and may think you are trying to capitalize on a tragedy?

I hope people aren’t that cynical. The possibility didn’t even occur to me until Bethany House [the publisher] brought it up a few weeks after Katrina. Maybe it will turn out the other way around. People might be interested because of Katrina. We’ll see. I guess.

Tell us about your journey to publication. How long had you been writing before you got the call you had a contract, how you heard and what went through your head.

I started writing back in the early nineties. I was practicing architecture and having some success, but it wasn’t what I thought it would be when I started out. I was too busy doing business to enjoy the creative part. Hiring other people to have the fun of designing buildings, while I did meetings and wrote proposals and whatnot. It was pretty frustrating. So one day my wife got tired of hearing me complain and said, “Why don’t you do something creative on the weekends?” I started writing my first novel that same day.

This was Whom Shall I Fear?

Yes. I finished the first draft in about a year and a half, writing early in the mornings and weekends, and having a ball. Then I boxed it up and put it on the shelf, because of course I knew how hard it was to get published and I didn’t want to get involved in pitching it to people, since that sounded too much like doing business, which was the whole thing I was writing to escape.

So anyway, about six months later I met this editor for the Dallas Morning News, this great guy named Alan Pusey, and he offered to read the thing. He came back with eight pages of notes, typed single spaced. That was when I knew I might be on to something, because you know, who takes that much time on someone else’s project unless they really think it’s worthwhile?

So I made the changes Alan suggested, and meanwhile he showed the rough draft to another editor at the DMN, Howard Swindle, who had written some true crime and won a Pulitzer or something, and Howard thought it was pretty good so he volunteered to send the rewrite to his agent in New York, and she liked it and took me on and got Simon and Schuster interested.

But wasn’t Whom Shall I Fear? published by Zondervan?

That’s right. Simon and Schuster said I had to tone down the references to Jesus. This was after Alan and the agent had both suggested I make the spiritual theme more overt, and I’m not even sure if either one of them is a Christian. It didn’t feel right to me, so I turned them down.

You turned down a contract with Simon and Schuster? That must have been hard.

People told me I was crazy. It wasn’t easy. Took me a whole week to make the decision. But up to then I hadn’t written a single letter or made a call or done anything at all to try to get published. It was like God just dropped the opportunity in my lap. So I figured it would be pretty ungrateful to go and cut Him out of the book.

Obviously that wasn’t the end of the story.

No. The New York agent dropped me like a hot potato, and I was feeling pretty low, so I cried on the shoulder of an old friend, not expecting anything but commiseration, you know? Then it turned out he knew a guy who knew an agent who worked with publishers in the Christian Bookseller’s Association. He made a call and I ended up with another agent and another offer from a big publisher without even trying. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a “Christian novel,” so there again, it wasn’t due to anything I said or did.

Do you still experience self-doubts regarding your work?

Sometimes when I’m having an off day. Not very often. Based on how I got here, I’m pretty confident I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. Also, I’ve figured out there is a cycle to it. Everybody starts thinking, “Nobody’s gonna want to read this trash,” at some point in the process. The best thing is just keep typing. Later that same day you’ll probably write something that really shines and start thinking you’re a genius, or if not that soon, by the next day at the latest. Assuming you keep typing.

What’s the best advice you’ve heard on writing/publication?

I like Hemingway’s “Writing is ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration.” I think he got the ratio about right.

What’s the worst piece of writing advice you’ve heard?

It’s not advice, exactly, but there are a lot of people who think you have to write fast and get a lot of novels out there or readers won’t remember you. I get the marketing logic of that, and maybe its good advice if all you care about is making money, but I think it’s a bad plan for a Christian.

We need to be the ones who are excellent at what we do, so the others will see and be drawn to the truth. And it takes time to tell the truth well. Even people who claim to get a novel done in two or three months, if it’s a good novel, they’ve already put in months or years of thought and research and just plain living in order to be able to write it that fast. I don’t think anyone is smart enough to crank one after another out, three or four a year, and still get down to things that matter. You have to pause and reflect and live a little in between.

What’s something you wish you’d known earlier that might have saved you some time/frustration in the publishing business?

Get to know the marketing and sales people! Send them chocolates and gift certificates!

But seriously, I read an interview with James Lee Burke and he said he didn’t listen to his editors at first, and got crossways with them, and couldn’t get another publisher and basically didn’t get another book deal for something like twenty or thirty years. He said, “Always listen to your editors. They are on your team,” or words to that effect. It’s great advice.

You need outside input. You get too close to it and can’t see the boring parts sometimes. Putting out a good novel is a team effort. Fortunately, I had already learned this basic lesson in architecture. Prima donnas usually end up looking foolish. Writers: don’t do that. Be on the team!

Do you have a scripture or quote that has been speaking to you lately?

For several months I’ve been focused on, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” [Romans 7:24] As I get older I realize how hopeless it is to think I’ll ever be the kind of man I want to be. So I’m trying to remember not to try so hard. Jesus came to rescue me. If I keep flailing around and trying to get myself all straightened out, He can’t get ahold of me to take me to the better shore. So I’m trying to relax a little, and Jesus do his thing.

Is there a particularly difficult set back that you’ve gone through in your writing career you are willing to share?

I lost my mother in 2001. Next to my wife, Sue, she was my best friend on earth. Her name was Mary, but her friends and family called her “Sugar,” which tells you something about her personality. It took her eleven months to die, and I stayed at her house and nursed her through that. So I didn’t get much writing done that year, and then the next year I was among the walking wounded. Couldn’t write then, either.

That was two years gone, and it takes me about a year to get a book done so that put the old career back a bit. But like I said before, you have to have pauses in-between to do good work, even if the pauses are imposed on you. It’s how you find your stories. I just started my third novel since my mother died, and I still have plenty of material to work through from all the things I learned.

What are a few of your favorite books? (Not written by you.)

I love the series of books Patrick O’Brian wrote about Jack Aubry and Stephen Maturin in the British navy during the Napoleonic wars. I’m not a war novel fan, but I love the sea and boats. Even if I didn’t, I’d still think O’Brian is one of the finest novelists of the twentieth century. His characterization is just amazing.

Speaking of characters, if your authorial self was a character from The Wizard of Oz, which one would you be and why?

Probably the “man behind the curtain” in that scene when they finally get in to see the Great Oz, and they discover this nervous little old guy manipulating things in the background. The guy is so embarrassed to be back there, and if you remember the scene, he’s nearly overwhelmed by all the levers and things he has to work to get the Great Oz to speak. And he gets the Great Oz to say, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”

That’s me. I always feel in over my depth, and a little bit out of control, but some people read my novels and non-fiction and think I’m all cool, calm and collected. Ha! If they only knew! I’m socially awkward and easily intimidated and I always say the wrong thing without meaning to. Sometimes I wish I could write all my own lines in advance. It’s better if people don’t pay much attention to me, and just read the novels.

What piece of writing have you done that you’re particularly proud of and why?

I try hard to improve with every novel. So the latest is always the one I feel most proud of. Right now that would be River Rising, in terms of what’s available to buy. But I just finished the rough draft of the next one, called Adrift, and I think it’s the best so far.

Do you have a pet peeve having to do with this biz?

People who write below their abilities in order to crank out tons of books and make a buck. Especially Christian authors who do that. Outsiders judge us for it, and make fun of us for it, and it makes Jesus look bad. We of all artists on earth should be the most concerned with doing our best possible work at all times. We of all people should write with all our hearts, as if writing for the Lord and not for men.

Can you give us a view into a typical day of your writing life?

I’m usually at the computer about six or six thirty in the morning with a cup of strong French roast coffee at hand. I do my most creative work in the first three or four hours, and then take a break. Maybe change out of my robe and do a little housework. Get my mind into a different place. Also, I love naps, so I usually sleep a little while. Then I spend the afternoon editing what I wrote that morning.

If you could choose to have one strength of another writer, what would it be and from whom?

I wish I had a better vocabulary, and the ability to use words in more unexpected ways. As far as who does that, the list is very long. Joseph Conrad, Flannery O’Connor, Toni Morrison…there are so many. Dale Cramer is doing some of the best Christian fiction work today, writerly-wise. His Levi’s Will is a masterpiece.

Do you have a dream for the future of your writing, something you would love to accomplish?

There’s no master plan or anything. I’m just interested in telling the next story as well as I can and hoping the sales will be there to let me keep it up until I can’t see the screen or move my fingers anymore.

Was there ever a time in your writing career you thought of quitting?

Never!

What is your favorite and least favorite part of being a writer?

I love writing and re-writing. Stringing words together in search of the perfect combination of rhythm and meaning. I hate plotting. Also, writing novels is a very lonely art form, as you know. Unlike screenwriters and playwrights, you and I don’t get to watch an audience experience our work. Even painters and sculptors can lurk around in galleries and museums and watch people interact with their work. Novelists don’t get that opportunity, except at a reading, and those are few and far between and generally not well attended.

How much marketing do you do? Any advice in this area?

I got into writing to get away from the business side of art and architecture, so I’m not real excited about doing my own marketing. I don’t do direct mail or newsletters or any of that stuff. I do love interviews like this, because it allows me to think and talk about writing with other people who know what they’re talking about.

Parting words?

Thanks for this opportunity, Gina. And keep up the good work. We need you.