Author Interview ~ Tim Downs, Part II

Tim Downs is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Indiana University. After graduation in 1976 he created a comic strip, Downstown, which was syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate from 1980 to 1986. His cartooning has appeared in more than a hundred daily newspapers worldwide. In 1979 he joined the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ, where he continues to serve as a speaker and writer. Tim and his wife, Joy, have spoken at FamilyLife Marriage and Parenting Conferences since 1985. His first book, Finding Common Ground, was awarded the Gold Medallion Award in 2000. In 2003 Tim and Joy co-authored two books on conflict resolution in marriage: The Seven Conflicts and Fight Fair! Tim has also written two forensic crime fiction novels, Shoofly Pie and Chop Shop, and his two latest novels are thrillers entitled Plaguemaker and Head Game. Tim lives in Cary, North Carolina, with his wife and three children.


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

The greatest difficulty for me is simply striking a balance between writing and everything else going on in my life. Writing (for me) requires focused, concentrated, extended periods of time—which is difficult to find when you’re married and have a family. I’ve told my wife that I work like a submarine: I have to submerge to a certain depth before I can operate effectively, and it’s hard to find the time and opportunity to submerge.

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

I’m the wrong person to answer this question, because I rarely finish a book. The problem is that I’m a writer, too, and I rarely read just for enjoyment—I read to learn. I’m like a magician who attends another magician’s performance: I’m not there just to enjoy the show—I want to know how the trick is done!

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

I’m particularly proud of whatever work I just finished; I like to think I’m getting a little better with each book I write. Something inside me resists feeling too proud of something I’ve done in the past. I’m too young for nostalgia—I want to keep moving forward.

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

My pet peeves are the same ones that are common to all writers: that publishers don’t have the time or money to promote every book well, that books are so quickly forgotten, and that I’ve been writing for five years and I haven’t won the Pulitzer Prize yet. What’s taking so long?

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

To hit my deadlines, I write on a schedule—not a time schedule, but a word quota. I write about 2,000 words per day, five days per week. That, of course, is after the research is finished (a three-month process) and the plot summary has been completed and reviewed. My average novel is about 90-100,000 words long, so at a 10,000 word per week pace I can finish a novel in nine or ten weeks—theoretically. In the real world I can never get ten weeks of uninterrupted writing time, so the process usually takes about four months.

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

There are so many! The ability to create word pictures like Dean Koontz, the ability to write dialogue like Elmore Leonard, the ability to do research like Martin Cruz Smith, the ability to generate clever story concepts like Stephen King…I’d absorb all of them and a dozen more!

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

Every writer longs to write one great story—not necessarily a famous or profitable story, but one that captures something you’ve got deep down inside of you. That’s what I hope to do one day—and I have no idea what that story is or even what it might be about.

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

I’m not much for quitting. Someone once asked me, “What’s the chief quality that separates writers from non-writers?” I said, “The ability to make yourself sit down at a computer and type 450 pages of text.” In other words, not quitting—without that quality, you just can’t write.

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

My favorite part is the chance to be involved in a purely creative act—to just think of stories and then write them down. How good is that! My least favorite part is the time delay involved in publishing. If I come up with a killer story concept today, that book will not appear in print for almost two years. I like my gratification to be a little more immediate than that.
What do you do to publicize your work?


I answer intriguing and insightful interview questions for Internet blogs.

Parting words?

Go immediately to your nearest book dealer and pick up a copy of Head Game—you won’t regret it, and neither will I.