Author Interview~ Randy Ingermanson, Part I

Randy & Gina at the ACFW conference, 2005. Enraged, possessed or disgusted by the photgrapher's flatulence? You decide.









Randy was both class nerd and class clown. He's now an award winning novelist, a physicist, and a fiction teacher. He wants to be Supreme Dictator For Life and First Tiger.
He's getting closer every day! www.rsingermanson.com

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

My most recent book is a novel, Double Vision, published by Bethany House. It’s a technothriller about a high-tech startup company in San Diego, and I deny, deny, deny that it resembles in any way the company I used to work for. The book deals with a huge “what if” question which could happen any day now—“What if the standard method of encrypting electronic financial transactions could be broken?” (This is based on a very real branch of physics called “quantum computing.” Most experts believe that it won’t be many years before quantum computers come along that can break our current encryption method.)

You don’t have to know anything about physics to enjoy the novel. In fact, hundreds of my romance writer friends loved the book because of the lead male character, a quirky, brilliant guy named Dillon who has never had a girlfriend. As the story opens, there are two attractive and intelligent ladies who are determined to change that situation.

Double Vision was recently named one of the ten best Christian novels of the last year by BookList Magazine, the review journal for the American Library Association.


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 in 1988, after telling myself for the previous four years that I was going to write a novel. I spent a good solid ten years learning to write. This is normal. I met editors, got an agent, wrote manuscript after manuscript, and . . . nothing happened. Then disaster—my agent died! I decided to start going to the largest Christian writing conference in the country, Mount Hermon, and I wasn’t going to quit till I got published!

It didn’t take long after that. The market was finally ready for a whackball physicist/novelist like me. During my third trip to Mount Hermon, I drummed up some interest in a nonfiction book idea—analyzing the alleged “Bible code” that was so popular back in 1998. I sold that book almost immediately, and then only a few months later (in the spring of 1999,) I sold my first novel. My editor called me at work on the day I was packing up to switch to a different employer. I was so excited, I could barely get all my boxes packed.

Do you still experience self-doubts regarding your work?

Well . . . rarely. Not much more often than once every minute or so. I’ve learned to ignore that stuff. Maybe once a year, I’ll get really depressed and think that maybe it’s time to give up. Routinely, that is just a few days before some new breakthrough happens in my writing career. So I’ve realized that it doesn’t help to spend too much time listening to those thoughts.

If you write fiction, you will have a few great days and a few horrible days. The great days come when you win some big award. It’s best not to dwell on those awards too much, because two hours later, everybody will have forgotten your name anyway. The low days usually come when you look at your royalty statements. It’s best not to dwell on that too much either. From what I hear, most books either lose money or just about break even. Books that earn a lot of money are rare.

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

Don’t give up. Ever. If writing is in your blood, you can’t give up anyway, because you are a hopeless addict who will be writing all your life, even if you write the worst crap ever. So there’s no sense in even thinking about giving up. You might as well plug on.

There are any number of great writers who got rejected dozens or hundreds or thousands of times. (Yes, thousands!) They were told they wrote the worst crap ever. And they probably did. The thing is, they didn’t quit writing, and they didn’t quit learning their craft.

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

“Why are you writing that kind of fiction, when you should be writing this kind?”
The reason that’s bad is because it’s nobody’s business what kind of fiction you write. If you want to write romances, don’t let anyone convince you that you should really be writing subtle and deep women’s fiction instead of “shlocky romance.”

Who are these people anyway, to call a whole genre shlock? If you’re not subtle and deep, you’re going to look like an idiot trying to write subtle and deep. And vice versa. If you are subtle and deep, there’s no sense in trying to write “shlocky stuff that sells”. Just write what you were made to write. There’s bound to be somebody who wants to read it. Maybe not a lot of people, but there are some.

Not everybody writes bestsellers. Let’s face it, bestsellers don’t usually win awards. Conversely, not everybody wins awards. But let’s face it, award-winning novels don’t usually sell very well. That’s just life. You can’t win at everything, so you might as well try to win at what you like.

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

Learning to write fiction is a process, just like learning to do brain surgery or quantum physics or chess. Admittedly, writing fiction is a bit harder than any of those, but it’s not too much harder. You can learn it, if you give yourself time. If you expect that you’ll break in after a weekend of delightful writing beside the pool, or after skimming through one how-to book on writing, you’re in for a lifetime of misery. You’ll always be going for the quick kill, that instant shortcut to fame and glory.

IT WON’T HAPPEN! Trust me on this, it won’t. If you try to get published without making some real effort over a period of at least a couple of years, you won’t make it. And you’ll be frustrated and angry and will alienate all your friends with your muttering about “those stupid publishers who don’t recognize great writing when it bites them in the butt.”

There are tens of thousands of writers who imagine that this thought is original to them, when in reality it’s been said by every single wannabe who ever lived since the time of Gutenberg. I even said it a couple of thousand times.

Whereas if you make yourself a plan that lets you spend a year or two learning the craft and another year or two making connections and another year or two waiting for your book to sell, you just might make it. Thousands of writers break in every year. Almost without exception, they are people who have spent a LARGE amount of time learning to write. I heard once that it takes 2000 hours of work to learn the craft of fiction. That’s a whole year of effort, full time! So accept that. Work with that. Plan for that.

There just aren’t any shortcuts in writing, but there are longcuts. The best way to get published is to avoid the longcuts, which easily recognized because they look exactly like shortcuts. If you just remember that there aren’t any freaking shortcuts, you’ll spot them every time. Just say no to shortcuts. Say no again. Keep saying no.

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

There’s a Bible verse that’s stuck with me for a long time: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor. 12:9). It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the whole writing thing and to feel like it’s an impossible task. I usually start feeling this way when I’m on deadline. And then I remember that God’s strength only shows up when humans recognize their own weakness and start relying on God. Funny how that works, isn’t it?

I’ll tell you, with every book I’ve ever written, I’ve had a period of several weeks where I was convinced that this book was gonna be a train wreck that would destroy my career. So I’ve learned that that’s a good time to ask for help. Admit your weakness. Ask for God’s strength.

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

Only a few billion. Here’s one that a lot of people can relate to:

I didn’t finish the first novel I started, because midway through I realized it was awful. I didn’t finish the second one either, for the same reason. I did finish the third one, and I knew right away it was a Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius. It was just obvious. So I got me an agent and we set out to sell this thing. It made the rounds and finally I heard from my agent that it had gone to the publishing committee at Thomas Nelson, a major publisher.

Every writer knows that when a book goes to committee, that’s do-or-die. If they accept it, then the book gets published. If they reject it, then the book doesn’t happen. I knew in my heart that they’d accept it, because committees don’t reject Heartbreaking Works Of Staggering Genius. They just don’t.

But the committee at Thomas Nelson rejected it. Luckily, I had an editor who believed in the project, so he took it back to committee again.

And they rejected it again. This editor was stubborn. He knew it was a Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius and he took it back to the committee again.

Well, it was just a bad year for Heartbreaking Works Of Staggering Genius, because they rejected that sucker again. So I asked my agent to submit it to one last publisher, Bethany House. He did. We waited. Months passed. Lots of months.

Finally we heard! Bethany House really liked the book. They could see it was truly a Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius.

But they rejected it anyway. The editor gave us three reasons why it wouldn’t work. And I realized right away that I had an idea in my files for another book that would work for Bethany House. It would satisfy all their objections. I was pretty sure I could write this book pretty quickly and it would get sold. After all, once you’ve written your first Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius, it’s easy to pump out more.

So I started writing and I wrote that book pretty fast. It was good. I sent it around to various publishers. And I sold that book! Not to Bethany House, but to Harvest House. That was my first novel, Transgression. It was a pretty decent book. I’m not entirely sure now that it was a Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius. I’ve kind of got past writing those. But the book got me some nice praise. And it won me my first Christy award, in a category where the two other finalists happened to be incredibly successful writers and personal heroes of mine.

There’s about six or twelve morals to this story, so I’ll pick one at random: Sometimes a rejection is a good thing. Because the truth is that the book that got rejected so many times wasn’t all that great a book. It was OK, but I’m much happier to have my first novel be Transgression. It’s just a better book.

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

Lord of the Rings, Pillars of the Earth (by Ken Follett), River God (by Wilbur Smith), Outlander (by Diana Gabaldon), My Name is Asher Lev (by Chaim Potok), along with the sequel, The Gift of Asher Lev.


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

Hmm, the tornado? Or maybe the lion. I’m not really good on the courage thing. Matter of fact, until recently, public speaking was an absolute nightmare for me. Most people would rather die than speak in public. I had it a lot worse than most people. Major anxiety attacks. Worse than Johnny Carson, who used to throw up every night before he went his show. Bad anxiety. I finally decided that if I was going to be teaching at writing conferences and giving 30 or 40 talks per year, I’d better get over it. So I talked to a counselor and found out I have General Anxiety Disorder (hey, it’s not my fault—I’m sick, so I have an excuse!). Or maybe it’s Panic Disorder. We’re not sure. We treated it aggressively, and I’m much, much better. Which is good, because speaking was a nightmare for me before. Now it’s fun. Yes, really. Fun. So put me down as the Cowardly Lion who now has a bit of Courage, thanks to that pesky wizard.

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

I just finished writing a novel about Jesus. It’s turned in to my publisher and I’m waiting to hear what revisions they’ll want on it. But I think this is my best work so far. And I mean that. I’ve got piles of awards and honors for my half-dozen novels. A whole shelf full. And none of those novels are anywhere near as good as this book, The Lamb. I’m coauthoring this book with Luis Palau, who has the same agent as I do. Time Warner is publishing it. The one thing we all agreed up front that I would never do was to get inside the head of Jesus. We were all sure that was impossible. Way too risky. Maybe even sacrilegious.

But the further I got into the novel, the more I realized that the other characters in the story were stealing the show. Some of my fellow authors at Zondervan told me this when we were reading our works-in-progress at a Zondervan fiction retreat. Then my literary assistant, Meredith Efken, started hammering on me that Jesus was fading into the background of the story because Mary and John and Peter were too strong.

I had to do something, so in desperation, I tried writing some scenes from inside Jesus’ head. I was scared to death. Afraid of treading on holy ground. And rightly so. It’s risky business. But I did it and . . . I think it worked. The folks who’ve read the manuscript so far tell me it did.

So I think this book will be my magnum opus as a writer. I really do. It’s certainly the piece of writing that’s moved me the most as a writer. I hope it’ll move a few readers.

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

Yeah: Why don’t I make more money? Enough money to make a living? I’ve just finished books #8 and #9. I don’t think I’m a bad writer. But I’m not making a living at it. Waaaaaahhhhh! Poor little me.

OK, end of rant. Let’s be honest. This is a tough business. It’s HARD to earn a living writing. I know some people who do it. But it takes a lot of time and effort and personal sacrifice. Tragically, a lot of deserving writers never earn beans. That’s too bad. I don’t like it. Nobody likes it. It’s the way things are

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

To be continued tomorrow...