Author Interview ~ Donn Taylor

Donn Taylor led an Infantry rifle platoon in Korea, served with Army aviation in Vietnam, and worked with air reconnaissance in Europe and Asia. Afterwards, he completed a PhD degree at The University of Texas and taught English literature at two liberal arts colleges. He and his wife live near Houston, Texas, where he writes fiction, poetry, and articles on current topics.

What new book or project would you like to tell us about?

Something new for me after writing suspense: a light-hearted mystery set on the campus of a small denominational college. It’s also the first time I’ve used first-person point of view. The narrator is a reclusive professor reluctantly forced into the role of amateur sleuth. He has a lot to learn. The story capitalizes on my years as faculty at two such liberal arts colleges, but I’m certainly not describing any actual college or actual person in the novel. I also have an allegorical poem gradually working into shape.

Tell us about your publishing journey. How long had you been writing before you got a contract? How did you find out and what went through your mind?


My only contract thus far is with a regional trade-paperback publisher, Panther Creek Press. I’d published individual poems in various journals, of course, but I spent about four years teaching myself to write a novel and collecting rejections from ABA publishers. The president of Panther Creek Press, Guida Jackson, had heard me read two chapters of The Lazarus File to a critique group. She contacted me about publishing it, explained the details, and I said “yes!” before she could change her mind. I think I was too busy trying to grasp the contract details to think about anything else. Lazarus, by the way, was planned as an ABA suspense novel, but in the writing it took a distinctly Christian direction. I suppose a novel will always reflect the author’s worldview.

For those interested in spies, airplanes, and characters who keep their promises, Lazarus is still available through Amazon.com.

I’m still looking for my first contract with a national publisher.

Do you still have self-doubts about your writing?

Constantly. W.H. Auden wrote that when a poet finishes a poem, he never knows if there will be a next one: he never knows if he’s a poet or an ex-poet. The same has been true with all my writing as far back as graduate school. My first thought is always the enormity of the task and my inability to get my mind wrapped around it. I’ve learned to begin with prayer—not for success, but (after I’ve covered all the people and issues I can think of that need prayer) to do my best on the project. Then I get to work, and things eventually fall into place. I’m always skeptical of writers and composers who say, “The Lord gave me this.” Yet I know I’ve never written anything significant without Him.

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

I’ve never considered not writing, but I’ve often considered leaving the big projects (novels) alone and concentrating on writing poetry for my own pleasure. But somehow, another significant idea always comes up and I’m back to novel writing. A year ago I’d never thought I’d write a mystery or a first-person POV.

What mistakes did you make while seeking a publisher or agent?

When I first started writing fiction, I underestimated the amount I’d have to learn to convert from technical writing and academic writing to fiction. It took me several years to work into it. With national publishers and agents, I’m apparently still making mistakes. My last two rejections of a suspense novel complimented “good writing…professionally done,” but they didn’t think they could market it successfully from a new author. Those rejections tell me I’m on the right track, so I’ll keep knocking on the door until someone opens it.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve heard?

1. Craftsmanship, craftsmanship, craftsmanship.

2. From the poet James Dickey: “You never finish a poem. You only abandon it.” The same applies to other writing projects.

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

To write very short sentences in order to make it easy for the reader to understand. Following this advice leads to a literary world without necessary transitional relationships (like and, but, because, however, consequently). Better advice is to vary sentence lengths according to the complexity of the ideas expressed and the reading level of the intended audience. If we dumb everything down into very short sentences, we’ll reach a point where. Each. Sentence. Consists. Of. Only. One. Word. Or. L.E.S.S.

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

Actually, I have two. The first is novels with supposedly adult characters who respond like junior-high students to members of the opposite sex. Don’t they ever grow up? The second is the attempt to solve rhetorical problems with ersatz grammatical rules like “Don’t end a sentence with a preposition.” (The rhetorical principle is to end with a strong word, not a weak one.)

What do you wish you’d known early in your career that might have saved you some time and/or frustration in writing? In publishing?

Then, now, and always: efficient ways of targeting the market.

Was there ever a difficult setback that you went through in your writing career?

I don’t think so. This may be because I’m not yet far enough into it, or it may be that I’m old enough to know you have to work through a lot of no’s in order to find a yes.

What are a few of your favorite books?

First and always, the classics: Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, Dante, Ariosto, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, George Herbert, Tennyson. From the Bible: Ecclesiastes and Hebrews. In modern books: Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, Forster’s, A Passage to India. In commercial fiction: Anything by the Western writer Ernest Haycox. Gavin Lyall’s The Wrong Side of the Sky. T. Davis Bunn’s The Book of Hours. Georgette Heyer’s The Unknown Ajax. Carol Umberger’s Scottish Crown Series, especially The Mark of Salvation.

What work have you done that you’re especially proud of and why?

Outside of writing, I’m proud to have served my country in two wars. In writing: 1. The poem “Married Love,” which portrays the grandeur and holiness of marriage through symbol and image without direct statement. 2. Scenes in Lazarus in which hero and heroine are tempted by sexual desire but reject it in favor of keeping faith with their responsibilities. One reviewer, an ex-Marine, wrote: ”Taylor … displays the rare ability to convey emotion without resorting to profanity and to convey passion without specifying body parts.” I consider that high praise.

Do you have a scripture or quote that has spoken to you lately in regards to your writing?

“Unless the Lord build the house, They labour in vain that build it….” (Psalm 127:1)

Can you give us a look into a typical day for you?

I’m not sure there is one. Mildred and I are usually up by six and like to enjoy a three-mile walk through our community’s hike and bike trails. We talk about a lot of things, often about my current writing project. Then we have a light but leisurely breakfast over newspapers, to include discussion of what we’ve read. I open the computer and check for e-mails (important because we manage our church’s e-mail prayer chain). That done, I get down to writing while Mildred takes care of the phone and other distractions. We get reacquainted over lunch and check in briefly on Fox News. Then more writing and miscellany until supper. I wish I could say we do all this efficiently, but life seems to hold an inexhaustible supply of interruptions.

Do you have a word or page goal you set for each day?

I set a minimum of 1000 words, but I usually get a good bit more. Unfortunately, I sometimes throw half of it back the next day.

Are you an SOTP (seat of the pants) writer or a plotter?

A bit of both. I have the major plot points and major character trajectories firmly in mind before I start. Before writing each scene I know where it will end, but I don’t know the route it will travel until I start writing. Sometimes a character takes on a life of his own and I have to revise the plot. This happened with the character Ramon in Lazarus. He began as a hijacker whom I planned to use only to get hero and heroine together. But then Ramon said he didn’t want to murder the hero because he’d have to confess it to a priest who already had enough troubles, so why would the hero add to the priest’s troubles by getting himself murdered?


After that speech (see the original in the excerpt on my Web site, www.donntaylor.com), I had to find ways to keep him in the story. He ended up as a key player, a cross between Shakespeare’s Falstaff and Walker Percy’s moviegoer. Readers say he’s the best character in the book. So much for elaborate plans before writing!

What author do you especially admire and why?

Commercial author? The mid-twentieth-century Western writer Ernest Haycox. He infused the standard Western and slick-magazine plots with reasonably well-rounded characters (vice the usual flat characters). He also wrote concise dialogue that revealed characters’ motivations while implying the complete worldview on which they were based. (Haycox’s philosophy was naturalism, but he portrayed it well.)

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

Favorite: Teaching other writers how to write poetry, including teaching classes at writers’ conferences and working with new poets one-on-one. Least favorite: The fact that most of my friends, including those in my church, have no clue as to what I actually do. Maybe that’s a good thing: it sure keeps me humble.

How much marketing do you do? What's your favorite part of marketing?

In my present state, the best answer I can give is “as much as I can.” Favorite part? Learning new things and meeting interesting people.

Do you have any parting words of advice?

Advice to myself as well as others: For life: “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found,” and don’t waste time on anything trivial. For writing: Keep improving your craft and don’t expect good results to happen quickly.